Olive Picking

We celebrated Veteran's Day with an adventure to the mountains near Naples. The Oropallo family invited a group of us from school to see what goes into making their delicious olive oil.

Here's Camden hiking up into the olive grove

Beautiful olives ready to harvest

 

Emma and Kelli used teamwork for the electric machine that knocks the olives out of the tree

The traditional way to harvest

 Antonia, Maria (our outstanding hostess), and Kelli

 Adorable olive pickers

 Camden loved climbing in the trees

 Cheesy kids 

 Next stop: the oil making factory

Here are the olives moving up the conveyor belt before they separate out the leaves and get washed

 These huge marble wheels smashed the olives 

 YUMMY!!!

 Kelli, Me, and Mel at the wine tasting portion of the day

 Handsome guys

 After lunch we visited another Oropallo olive grove and saw this special 300 year old tree.  

Emma needed to test out her climbing skills

 Family photo time

 Goofy guy hanging from the tree

 love these ladies!

 Wonderful scenery as we headed back home

Kicking off November

It was a beautiful morning to kick off November watching soccer at Carney Park.  

Camden hustled all over the field again today

 Nice corner kick

Too speedy for my camera

The Loudest and Proudest came out today.  The kids loved having Zane, Sherri, and Mel there cheering for them.
Camden's team couldn't decided between the "tigers" and "inferno" so they combined the two for their name: tigferno

 Emma had a great game too!  She played tough defense and offense

 Post game picture with Camden, Zane, and Emma

Happy Halloween 2014

Halloween 2014 was a busy one!  It was a no school day for the kids so they started celebrating at SAC. Here is Emma and her pal, Maddie.

 My end of the quarter teacher work day kicked off with a new teacher breakfast.

 Spooktacular time!  Nerd Minnie Mouse and Wolf Ninja are ready to get some candy

 We found a cute little lion, Oscar

Iowa Pride with Chris and Laura

Adorable skeletons, Amanda & Ron

 Arianna, Emma, and Camden

 Trick or Treating

Going through the maze

 My loves

Not only could you fill up on candy at Spooktacular, but base housing was also hosting trick or treating.  We helped Jenna and Steve pass out goodies at their apartment.

Somebody is BEAT!

A Cornhole Tradition Begins

At the beginning of the summer we were introduced to the game, Cornhole.  Chris was instantly hooked (I'll play, but I'm not very good at it) and wanted to get a set of Hawkeye boards made.  Last week his custom boards were finished and it was time to get some friends together at our house to break them in.

Camden & Emma playing the first round

 Who wants to take on these two tough kids?

Jumping in leaves

Mel and Emma grillin' up some veggies

I just love Heidi's expression as she watches Chris' bag sail across the yard

Look who will be welcoming a baby boy very soon...beautiful belly, Amanda!

Madds and Jenna are ready to play

Mel and Chris

Madds and Chris

Ron and Dave

Jenna and Emma doing the Biker Shuffle in between games

Arianna and Emma

Jenna must have said something to make Chris laugh :)