Food , glorious, food..."

A lovely cookbook on preparing wheat recipies from Oma. Opa and Uncle Greg.

It will be fun to see which will become family favorites, and we are excited to see how the dishes will turn out.

Thanks so much for the book! We are so grateful to have it!

Service Project and Dinner with the Missionaries

Daniel and Patricia selling tickets & Jewel bunji jumping








A gorgeous day in NJ. A day when EVERYTHING was scheduled. Jewel had a Primary program which was followed by the Heritage Day fair in North Brunswick park. Our ward members help out by working the games, selling tickets and cleaning up all day. This was followed by dinner with the Missionaries at a buffet place... (Home Town Buffet) perfect for young men to eat many plates of food. Dakota and Daniel went to the Stake youth dance in Princeton and Patricia stayed home with Jewel who had a fever.

News from RU: Dakota stayed home to study (he has a slight cold) and to work on a research assignment for BioMath. He's modeling a 'budworm' and looking at the DNA of a cancer strand. He's not been afraid to seek the professor out, to ask questions and get clarification on concepts. He thinks it's so funny that he's in a 300 math class and the work is so abstract that he hasn't used a calculator yet. He loves abstract math and hates computations. BioMath so far uses discrete math, linear algebra, differential equations, calculus 1, 2, and 3, some Chemistry, Physics and Biology all in one study. Really fascinating!! Dakota says the work is VERY hard and VERY challenging, but we're happy that he's up to the challenge and is facing it head on, giving it everything he's got. He's happy to be on the University choir and he's singing 'bass' at age 14. He's got his daddy's deep voice...

gratitude thought: grateful for restaurants and the joy and ease they bring to one's life. After a day of running around and working in the park, it was a blessing not to have to cook and clean up.

Mable, visiting from South Carolina for a week. She's staying in NJ for a few days...

(Mable & Patricia), Jewel being picked up from her school bus by mommy and grandma. It's always fun having grandma around. We all watched the reruns of the Olympics this week with Mable being the biggest cheerleader of all.

Mable has been the inspiration for many years of homeschooling. Her love of learning, saving tons of materials and creative ideas were passed on to her daughter and grandchildren. Dakota was very blessed to be able to sit in on Mable's classrooms at good old Intermediate School 149.

Mid life crisis or good sense?

Patricia woke up to a vivid dream... the need to move faster with food storage. So she went out and bought water and many, many cans of vegetables on sale at PathMark. She will try to buy more items each time she makes a purchase at the store. The family has lots of wheat and potato flakes but need MANY more things. Learning how to prepare the wheat into something edible would be a good start too!!

Feeling inspired after the Ailey reunion, Patricia decided to take her first ballet class again after almost two decades. Wondering if this is a mid life crisis or feeling the need to finally drop all the extra pounds over the decades?? The money could also be used for life insurance for Patricia in the event something happened to her?? What to do?

One day at a time, and it's time to soak the very tired, stiff muscles... it's probably better to sort out one's life choices when we're not in pain.

gratitude thought: grateful for hot water and a bed!!

grateful that my dyed ballet slippers came out a decent color brown

grateful that leotards come in large and extra large sizes

grateful that Daniel's flight to San Fransisco went well, that Dakota loves being on campus at Rutgers (he even asked if he could live on campus next year as a senior, and mom and dad replied NO).

grateful that Jewel is happy going to school just loving life!

Opening Socials for East Brunswick Youth

Jewel is with her lovely teacher Mandy, (who just had her 6th baby) who is in charge of the Activity Day girls. Jewel LOVES going to this activity and looks forward to her Wednesdays. Dakota is here with the 'Teachers'. All will turn 15 by the end of the year. The youth played glow in the dark volleyball. The church was filled with many, many happy kids.

gratitude thoughts:

laughter of children

teen aged boys talking and joking

School bus for Jewel

Wednesday September 3rd, was Jewel's first day of school. A long fight with many phone calls finally resulted in a schoolbus for children in Highland Park to attend their out of district school.

Today was also the first day of her new gymnastics class off route 18. The traffic on this major road is close to a nightmare but Patricia will try to learn some tricks to avoid as much of it as possible. Dakota had a Natural Hazards class, and it will be a few weeks (Dakota is learning the Rutgers bus system) before the commuting is ironed out.

Family Home Evening was held on Tuesday (Monday, we were all wasted from the 5K race, beach day) We used a DVD from Dakota's EFY session and Daniel did personal interviews and gave blessings to start the new school year. We played 'Hands Down' (Patricia & Daniel played this game as kids) and 'Elfer raus'. Elfer raus is a Killpack tradition that we began playing years ago. This game comes from Germany where Oma Doris visits and it's also her place of birth. She was kind enough to give this to us.

gratitude thought: grateful that Daniel is home for a few weeks, for the beginning of the school year!

ru ready

First day of school for Dakota...Geology (Natural Hazards) Mathematical models in Biology, or Biomath, and Transitions to advanced Mathematics.
The driving wasn't too bad as the campus for the first class today (math) was close to the house. He hopes to learn the Rutgers bus system soon.

He had to audition for piano classes (if there are any teachers available to teach him) and also he auditioned for the University choir.

Daniel worked from home to watch Jewel (as Dakota and Patricia had a lot of running around to do) as school doesn't start until tomorrow for her. Patricia is still sore from the walk yesterday but feeling great. Daniel is sore too, and his knees held up great!!

The Killpacks run the Eatontown 5K Race

The Killpacks along with the Glad & Losito family, participated in the Eatontown 5K race on Labor Day. A great day early on, (75 degrees and sunny) we all arrived at 8:30 for our 9:00 am race. Everyone did the 5K run, except Patricia who did the 5K leisure walk. One of the gifts the Alvin Ailey company left her with, were partial injuries to the knees from the years of wear and tear from one too many plies and arebesque turns. She never knew knees could scream and yell STOP... SIT DOWN NOW!!, until she tried running. Dakota did his race in around 27 minutes, Daniel in 33 minutes, Jewel 37 minutes and Patricia did a 43 minute walk.
Jewel won a first place trophy for coming in 1st in the 12 years and under females. Our friend Jacob Glad came in first in males 13-19, running it under 25 minutes!!! Jewel getting her trophy from the Mayor of Eatontown, NJ.

After the race, the Lositos, Glads, Daniel and Jewel went to 7 Presidents Beach. A great afternoon with temps in the high 80's. Patricia drove Dakota home for lunch, picked up his friend from church Amy, and drove them to another church members' home for a movie. Patricia did grocery shopping (as school begins tomorrow), did some housework as she limped around the house feeling tired but very happy she finished the race. Daniel and Jewel had tons of extra energy as they spent most of their time in the ocean after running a 5K race. Wow!

gratitude thought: the gift of laughter...I love seeing my family happily engaged in activities that are good for them. Grateful that my heart still works while beating very, very fast, grateful for beautiful days. Grateful we can carry lovely memories of the summer 2008 into the fall and winter seasons to warm our hearts.