Ending September

Daddy bought a 300 gallon oil tank, stand, and fuel oil from a co-worker this week at about 1/2 price new.  Topped off our own fuel tank for the winter (for those nights were get lazy and decide not to fire up the wood boiler).  He let the kids run wild while he drained the tank and loaded the truck. Upon completion, Daddy rounded up the kids to leave and found he was missing one. Porter was later found playing on this John Deere Lawn Mower making noises and trying to turn the wheel. Grand-Pa Thomas would be proud.  Anyone need a 300 gallon oil tank and stand?

 

We usually have snow on the mountains by this time, but the weather have been sunny and warm extending fall for a few weeks.

 The kids are a big help. Sometimes people think we are crazy with 5 kids. Now days it seems anything more the 2 kids in a family is strange but we have found the older ones really help out, at least when they want to.

 As part of Henry's Home School he went on a field trip with Elizabeth's class to a salmon hatchery where they got to see how they mix eggs and salmon sperm to and then learn about the life cycle of salmon.

 Calvin, shown below, is really starting to make facial expressions and really giggles when you talk to him. He has a joyful disposition.

 

Daddy completed his 2 week class on Collision Investigation and learned to do things like estimate the speeds and angles of vehicles involved in crashes and damage classification. Ended up with a 97% overall grade for the 80 hour class.  Thinking about pursuing the other 5 classes required to become a collision re-constructionist. Eyeing it as a possible retirement job to do between missions.  We will be getting 6 PFDs this year (about $11,000 total). We decided to put almost all of it towards the mortgage. We are trying to be as frugal as possible with a goal to be completely debt-free in about 6 years. We are constantly thankful for our many blessings in life. I know some financial advisors suggest at the current mortgage interest rates (2.9%) you should invest any extra income in the stock market (which currently averages returns of 6-12%) rather than pay off your mortgage. But we have chosen to follow the Prophet's counsel to strive to get out of debt first.

 

That's it for this week. See you next week.