week of changes

 Mother nature was right on cue with the changing seasons, the week started off in the high fifties and sixties and Thanksgiving night ushered in a 30 degree drop in temps and the years first snow.  The kids both had their teacher conferences and they went as expected. Both of them are adjusting well to the knew school and seem to have healthy groups of friends. Dance was cancelled as was soccer for this week, so we had some extra time to hang out.  This of course really means that we had more evenings to play poker.  However given the midweek drive back to EC for Thanksgiving and the mild weather, we decided to stop along the way for some deer hunting.  Wednesday afternoon we made it to the woods about 2:45 and put on our blaze gear.  I don't think we were in the woods for more than 4 minutes when 5 does came running right to us.  I was carrying Sophia's little 20 gauge and pulled up on the lead doe, but click, the safety was still on.  Even with all those deer around as they started to scatter I didn't have a clean shot at any of them.  It was still a good lesson for the kids in that it is better to miss a shot because your safety is on than to walk around dangerously with it off.  We spent about an hour and half leaning against a tree but the didn't see any more deer and I thought the kids sat very well for their respective ages.  Sophia opted to not go out on Thanksgiving day morning with the rest of us, but instead hung out with Aunt Becky and grandma for some toe painting and pink hair dye.  The House was alive with all the cousins and Aunt Toot showed up to play kick the can with the kids for more than an hour while the rest of the adults ate pie and chatted after the Thanksgiving day meal.  Friday found us at the Museum for a few hours and then some well deserved naps for everyone, before an evening of Turkey soup and cards at the round table.  Saturday was a drive home and the kids were exhausted and the rhythmic rubber on concrete quickly put them to sleep.  Merrick sleeping the whole way home.  Accumulated snow this morning when we woke up, so there is shoveling and snowmen to add to the days list of domestic requirements as we begin to retool for the upcoming week and shift gears towards the Christmas season.  This morning does require us to bake 3 batches of brownies for Sophia's science project.  We are going to test the effect of eggs and the brownie density.  Seemed more of a learning opportunity than a volcano and fitting of a caloric season.