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Kathryn is now 4, about to turn 5.  Bethany will be 10 in a few short days.  Hope Elizabeth is 11, and Roman is officially a teenager at 13 and just a few months shy of 14.  Too much awesomeness at these ages that I don't want to forget.  Time to start blogging our pandemonium once again!

We are homeschooling now.  I'm quite certain that's been mentioned before, but we are in our 4th full year (5th for Roman).  Katy started Kindergarten this year and so it is our first year with all 4 kids schooling.  Football season is always a trying time to accomplish much of anything outside football, but we're managing better than usual this year.  Yesterday we went on our 6th outing of the year and being we started the day after Labor Day and it is only mid October, that's pretty great on the field trip list and fun schooling.  Yesterday's outing wasn't exactly educational though we did stop by Stonewall Jackson's Shrine on our way back.  We surprised the kids on a beautiful Friday afternoon with a trip to Fredericksburg to see the Disciples play football.  Roman will be moving up to Disciples Varsity team next fall.  So hard to believe my baby boy has gotten so big!  But anyway, on the way home from the game, which the Disciples won 26-18, and after we stopped by Stonewall Jackson's Shrine to discover it was only a small building left at the site of a former plantation.  The building was closed, but we learned the significant of such a "Shrine" was he had died there.  The kids were not exactly impressed, but hey, we'll call it history for the day anyway!  I'm quite certain they will always know where Stonewall Jackson died..... in some little house in the middle of know where near Fredericksburg, VA where the vast emptiness of the place echos so bad that Roman farted and Dad heard it from 100 yds away!

So after all that fun, we met the Gma at Bass Pro Shop for dinner on our journey home.  Dinner was excellent and uneventful.  They put us back in the little party room cause 7 people is such a BIG group,  but the upside, Kathryn could wander around without disturbing anyone and this Mama could relax and enjoy the meal.  We then ventured out into the store for the last half hour of the day.  Dad headed up to guns, the boy straight to fishing.  He had some questions regarding the research of a new pole.  I mistakenly allowed the big girls to take the bug just around the corner to see the big fish tank.  Within a few minutes I hear Katy scream!  Of course I ran through the store to find out what was wrong, expecting to see Hope dragging her back to fishing against her will, but not this time.  When I rounded the corner to the open area around the big fish tank and elevators, I see Hope, Bethany, Gma, and a couple BPS workers all huddled around my baby girl who is standing in a puddle of water on the floor literally dripping wet and shaking from the cold!

Now here's the story as I have pieced it together.  The girls were all standing by looking at the big fish tank. Katy turned and sprinted away, looking back over her shoulder and laughing as the 2 big girls yelled and chased her, she tripped over the rocks surrounding the little open Trout pond behind the elevators and dove head first into the very cold water.  Katy informed everyone that she knew to hold her breath cause she was a big girl who knows how to swim!  The big girls yanked her out quickly, enough so that only her head, shirt, and top of her pants got wet, or rather drenched.  She did not hit her head, her only injuries were to her ego and a few scrapes across the chest from where they pulled her out.  Everyone from BPS was great.  The manager and numerous workers came to fuss over her and make sure she was fine, which of course only added to her embarrassment.  The man that had been helping Roman find his new pole even went so far as to ask her to do it again so he could watch.  Apparently it's a popular thought amongst workers that someone is going to fall in, yet it has only happened to my daughter in all these years!