{"id":1980,"date":"2011-10-31T02:35:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T02:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1980"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"late-october-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=1980","title":{"rendered":"Late October Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few quick updates.\u00a0 Some with pictures!\u00a0 Sorry this post is so long, but I’m trying to make up for lost time. * We could use some prayers for health if you’re so inclined!\u00a0 The Princess has been battling a barking cough which may be turning into an ear infection.\u00a0 Melissa’s taking tomorrow off from school to take her to the doctor.\u00a0 Melissa and I are both dealing with head colds, too. *\u00a0 Melissa turned 40 about a week ago.\u00a0 I feel guilty that I didn’t have the time or funds to make her day more special.\u00a0 She planned a big surprise party when I turned 40 a few years ago – and actually surprised me.\u00a0 I am promising to take her to Indy soon for a getaway, though. *\u00a0 At school, I am directing the fall play – a Woody Allen comedy called “Don’t Drink the Water”.\u00a0 It’s been a fun cast to work with, but we are in the final three weeks before production, so things are bound to get more stressful from here on out.\u00a0 Come and see the performance\u00a0if you get the chance – November 19 and 20. *\u00a0 Finished our funding training with OMS yesterday, so we are\u00a0now ready to officially begin sharing our call to ministry in Haiti with folks and inviting them to partner with us both financially and in prayer.\u00a0 We are still hoping to get our family to Haiti in August of next year.\u00a0 We’re also looking for some dedicated pray-ers who will commit to lift us up in prayer on a regular basis.\u00a0 If that is something you would be interested in, please email me at steve_gross@juno.com<\/a>! * Speaking of prayer, over Fall Break, we slipped up to Greenwood to get our pictures taken for our prayer card.\u00a0 The ladies in the communication department at OMS were super helpful and patient and went out of their way to help us get our picture and information formatted in time for a deadline\u00a0 – even though we were still in the office after 5:00 on a Friday afternoon! *\u00a0 Afterwards, we stopped by the portrait place in the Greenwood Mall since we were all dressed up to see if we could get a good family shot and some individuals of the kids.\u00a0 Melissa was excited because we left with 100 Christmas cards all ready to go.\u00a0 Now I’ll really be in trouble this year if I’m late in writing our Christmas letter. Here are a couple of the shots:<\/p>\n\n\n

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*\u00a0 Yesterday evening our small group hosted a fall carnival at the church for the bus ministry kids.\u00a0 These are kids who ride the bus to church every Sunday – mostly without their parents.\u00a0 They had a great time and it was more fun than I anticipated.\u00a0 My brother donated the use of his jump castle, so I spent part of the evening supervising the kids inside it – until I was about deaf.\u00a0 At one point, one little guy – about 7 years old – poked his head out of the castle and yelled, “This is the BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!”\u00a0 They all went home with tummy aches and little plastic toys… Some pics:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Getting some hotdogs ready.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The kids line up to eat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Melissa manned the cotton candy machine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Grandma Trudy even came along to help out.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The jump castle was busy the entire time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

*\u00a0 Earlier that afternoon, the kids helped with raking Grandma Trudy’s leaves…<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dats used the leafblower for the first time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Grandma buried Ida.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Princess buried herself.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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And, of course, a leaf fight eventually broke out.\u00a0 Miraculously, nobody ended up crying!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

* This evening, a nearby church was hosting a “Trunk or Treat” event and so we took our kids over for an hour.\u00a0 That way we get a little more use out of the costumes.\u00a0 This year we have a Princess (of course) and 3 Star Wars characters:\u00a0 Obi Wan, General Grievous, and Padme Amidala.\u00a0 And so begins the candy season, which lasts until early summer:\u00a0 first the Halloween candy which stretches until Christmas, then the Christmas candy that stretches to Easter, then Easter carries us until early summer when any leftovers get tossed out of disgust.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Princess<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The whole gang.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Trunk or Treat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Carving the pumpkins.\u00a0 Since Dats is now 10 years old, I am trying to allow him to do more on his own.\u00a0 So I stood back and let him carve his own pumpkin while I prayed that we would not be making a trip to the emergency room tonight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The most disturbing Halloween costume I've seen in a long while.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few quick updates.\u00a0 Some with pictures!\u00a0 Sorry this post is so long, but I’m trying to make up for lost time. * We could use some prayers for health if you’re so inclined!\u00a0 The Princess has been battling a barking cough which may be turning into an ear infection.\u00a0 Melissa’s taking tomorrow off from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1999,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1980\/revisions\/1999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}