The fun just keeps coming in the Methot household!
A couple of weekends ago we made our annual apple picking pilgrimage. We returned to the first farm we visited after moving here: Cider Hill Farm. They have a big variety of varieties. And they also have delicious apple cider donuts. It's really easy to spend a fortune on apples that never get used, so this year we went with a plan: pick eight apples for a pie and 6 apples for eating. Worked great. The pie Carol made with the Jonagolds was really, really good. She also made some fantastic apple sauce out of some old apples she found in the refrigerator.
The girls have been excited for Halloween since Labor Day, I think. Audrey saw a new princess outfit at the Disney Store that she really wanted as her costume, but with all the accessories she wanted it would cost more than $75. Our idea of a Halloween costume cost is more like $12. I'm not sure how it happened but eventually she settled on being a devil. She already had red pants, a red shirt can be used as normal clothes, and the horns and pitchfork were cheap. Win. Charlotte chose to be a vampire with a simple dress.
Just this week we completed the conversion of our home heating and hot water from oil to natural gas. Now that the situation in Libya is resolved oil prices might start to fall, but at the beginning of summer we were looking at almost $4000 to heat our house and water for the next year. That made it easy to pull the trigger on the conversion. We still have to have the oil tank removed and then the project will be complete. I'm looking forward to at least 1/3 lower energy bills. Natural gas prices have been falling steeply.
We've recently acquired several books of kids' science experiments. A couple evenings a week now the girls ask for a project and we pick one from the books to do. Recently we put a candle in a glass, then put vinegar and baking soda in a taller glass. We poured the invisible heavier-than-air CO2 from the vinegar/baking soda reaction into the first one and put out the candle without blowing on it.
Audrey has been wanting to take figure skating for quite a while. Last year she was taking ballet but she decided not to continue that this year, so we signed her up for skating. She was sooo excited for it to start. The first scheduled week was cancelled due to the ice not being ready. We didn't find out until we arrived at the rink and Audrey was very disappointed. But yesterday it started and she had a blast. What a different vibe from the youth hockey program "learn to skate" series she took two years ago! Almost all girls and much more peaceful without the sounds of pucks and people hitting the boards. It's a 20-week class. I'm excited to watch Audrey become a real skater.
Charlotte is taking gymnastics at the Y and a cooking class in an after-school program. She loves them both.
I don't have a photo of it, but Charlotte is also learning to read! I think she got a good grounding in letter sounds in pre-K last year so she's really taking off in Kindergarten. Carol and I are amazed. And Audrey has shown to be a patient and wonderful teacher to her little sister. At first she was a little jealous because Charlotte was getting attention for reading, but we made an effort to praise Audrey more for her chapter book reading and her unprompted reading and she quickly came around.
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