Rollert Update - Autumn in New England

Well, the typical beauty took a little while to shine this year, but WOW did it finally pop! The dry summer months didn't bring quite enough moisture to make the trees in New England as vibrant as normal.

We had tons of rain in May and then nearly nothing through the rest of summer, so our "peak week" seemed to be heading straight for brown. Then came the rain! It's fun, because you really don't know what to expect when that happens... the rain may just knock all the leaves off. Or, as was the case this year, many of the trees perk up and the color explosion sneaks up unexpectedly!

It was disappointing because it looked like the color really wouldn't be on display like it usually is. Then out of the blue over the last week, clusters of maples suddenly stood apart from the others, like giant torches. It was interesting to see some maples retain green and light yellow hues, while others became bright yellow and orange near the trunk with flaming orange and red at the ends of the branches.

We've taken some really beautiful walks and hikes. Keeley's grandmother came up for 3 weeks to visit, and Bob and Linda were able to take her on a couple of drives up and down the more scenic backroads to do some leaf-peeping. It's really magical to get off the main highway and explore the rustic country roads around the lakes this time of year.

In peak season, just a 20 or 30 minute drive south of one position means you can go from brown back to bright yellows and reds.

Much of the color in our area has passed now... but not all. While many of our trees are now brown or fully bare, from the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain, we could see that on the other side of Lake Winnipesaukee there was still quite a bit of color.

Time with Friends

We are so pleased that a fun play group for our kids has developed over the last 4-5 years. For so long it was just our 4 in the congregation. Then in 2020 the Malcolm family started to visit, they studied, were baptized, and over time developed a very close relationship with our family. Their two sons are very close in age to Silas and Olivia and the kids have all become great friends. We eventually started meeting up at our house for play dates.

Now another 2 families are meeting up with us - the Warners have one son close to Alexis' age and another family just moved nearby who have a little guy (almost 2). It's a great opportunity to let our hair down and just have fun together!

Children's Entrepreneur Market!

Something new we tried this year was participating in a kids-only market. They loved it! Olivia crocheted teddy bear apparel, Alexis made jewelry, and Silas had 3D printed bookmarks and keychains. It was a great experience and we all learned a lot.

The key part of this is that once the booth is set up and the market opens, parents have to just sit back and pretend we are not there. No handling money or merchandise - every part of the transaction is all up to the kids.

They look forward to doing it again next year. There was a huge learning curve on this first one, but they were able to narrow down a lot of ideas into a few manageable ones and did a great job navigating the unexpected challenges as they came up.

What else is new with Rollert crew?

Apple-picking at a nearby orchard - always a fun outting in the fall!

On the Horizon for Silas... Community College?!

This guy has some big changes coming up. We are hopeful that this experience will be helpful for him and keep him challenged. His capacity for Math and Engineering is very similar to his Dad (and his uncles). They are his first language. So, we've signed him up to start a class in the spring to test the waters and see how he does. His chosen program? Industrial Automation and Robotics.

The community colleges in New Hampshire have an Early College program that allows high school students to take some courses at a discounted price or in some cases even for free to help them get an early start on their degree program while they finish high school. He is very excited for this and is working hard to get as far on his math as possible to see where they place him. We have a curriculum here at home that would carry him all the way through Calculus II and Statistics, so he could just continue here for a good long time, but we also want him to start getting some classroom experience.

Language arts and other subjects are more likely to contain content we are not interested in our very young teen ingesting, but math and engineering are less socially influenced disciplines, so we're hoping he can get said classroom experience with minimal woke garbage if possible.

The first class he will take is Fabrication Technologies, since he can't sign up for any math courses until he is officially 14 and can take the placement test to see where they would put him.

Unfortunate Tree-Climbing Lessons

Last month poor Olivia had an encounter with the ground that put her left foot in a cast. We have an absolutely delightful climbing tree in our front yard. The kids are constantly getting up into it and finding a snug spot to read or just being monkeys and seeing how high they can go. We had to draw a limit, especially for Alexis, who seems to be the daredevil of the group.

All was going well until Silas grew several inches again (he's now taller than Mom). He realized it was no longer a risky thing for him to swing down from a particular branch right to the ground because he was so long now. So he did a cool maneuver involving sitting on one branch, reaching for one lower down, and swinging himself to the ground. Instead of climbing down the normal way, poor Olivia tried to imitate him, forgetting he was much taller (and had stronger hands).

As of this writing, she is out of the cast, and almost done with the boot. It's been a very dull month and half for her. Lots of wonderful folks have really been there for her - Mrs. Laura brought her to their house to make tea and salves from her herb garden. Others have brought her crafts and activities to enjoy while she recovers. Please pray the appointment on Oct. 27th will bring good news. They'll do one more X-ray to be sure she's completely healed and hopefully she will be done with the boot.

Card-game mania!

Jocelyn is nearly 6 years old, and she has mastered a new skill: Solitaire. She no longer has "I don't know what to do" syndrome when Mommy needs to cook and everyone else is busy with something. Sometimes it's a group activity - all three girls will set up Solitaire games around the table and quietly play near each other, and helping each other when they get stuck. Recently they learned a variation that they enjoy called Accordian Solitaire.

Jocelyn is also learning to crochet and do plastic canvas, so when we are not doing school or having friends over, she's a busy bee like the others. School work is going really well. Alexis is doing 4th grade and Jocelyn is doing a mix of Kindergarten and 1st grade - she's able to read the instructions on most of her pages, and does well with adding and subtracting.

We recently got Jocelyn a cool tracing pad to help her handwriting improve - it has disappearing ink for repeated use, and grooves to help her letters and numbers be more uniform. We had picked one up in cursive for Alexis, and Jocelyn kept wanting to use it. They both love using them. It's fun watching them enjoy penmanship time together ("Yay!" for a calm activity on rainy days).

Along with a visit from Keeley's grandmother, David's dad has also been able to make it up for a visit. We're thankful that they had the time to come up and that the weather was cooperative. The hike to Rattlesnake Mountain was perfect - cloudy and just cool enough we didn't have to sweat our way through the climb. A little spatter of rain made it interesting going down with slippery leaves adding an extra challenge!

We are looking forward to the beauty that winter brings, but for now the mix of clear skies and rain, the color and cool breezes have made the autumn as delightful as ever.

Until next time,

David, Keeley, and the kids