Finishing Up Fall Part II

Here are more reflections on the fall . . .

Lilly has just taken off with her reading.  For a few weeks she was pulled to work with the reading specialist since she was already reading.  Every night she'd bring home a few books to read to us.  This has inspired her little sister, who sits for more stories and talks about how when she's in kindergarten she's going to bring a bag of books home to read too.  In fact, we had to make a book bag of her own.

Greta selling pumpkins at daycare

It was homecoming in the fall, which means a crazy week of dressing up and interrupted classes, but for one week, we can handle it.  The school raised over $1000 for the American Red Cross and hurricane relief, so different teachers/staff volunteered for different rewards for students making the goal.  The principal got a mohawk, the assistant principal got purple streaks, and I got a shaving cream pie in the face.  A favorite teacher, Matt Hirsch, moved out to Washington state this year for a new job.  When I told students I was going to get "pied" and asked who should pie me, the students said, "Well, if Mr. Hirsch was here . . . " so he made a video congratulating the students and then had a shaving cream pie he pretended to throw at me.  The students were super stoked to see him and it was fun to see.  It was not so much fun to get shaving cream pie in the face.

It also meant the parade, which Greta found to be too loud but they both appreciated all the candy.

We have tried on multiple occasions to bring Lilly and Greta to the friends of the library Book Nook to use their free book coupons.  However, every time we go, the elderly person working lets us leave with the books, and movie theatre size candy boxes.

We also made a trip to the White River Ag corn maze again.  It was much more challenging this year, it took us nearly a year to get out of the maze.  We were, however, having a two year old make decisions for us, which might not have been the wisest course of action.  

This fall, much to the disappointment of my friend Petra, I did the 5k for the big race in Ashland instead of the 10k.  I didn't want to spend as much time training on long runs, especially when it was hot, and I wanted to work more on running faster.  It was nice to go out for shorter runs and not feel all the pressure to train for the six mile run.  As usual, the girls did the Loose Caboose the night before.  It was insane this year, we had to wait in a giant line to get the girls registered and we don't think we've seen anything in Ashland so well attended.

Mom, I passed 4, six year olds!

Because I ran so fast, Nick and the girls didn't get to the finish line to snap any photos or congratulate me, but I am pretty pleased with how the race went:

We also went to the apple orchard and had a successful gathering.

Lilly was again invited to Flint's birthday party, where they had quite a few fun games.  And this year, she wasn't the only girl!

Being fall, the girls also spent lots of time playing in the leaves.  Nick, being a better person than I am, also would cover up the leaves with a tarp so after the rain, they still had leaves to play with.

We also went to another orchard to pick apples, this time for a friend Nick paddles with.  This time we had the added benefit of getting fresh pressed apple cider for our labor.  (It was also much colder this time around!)

Okay, I think that covers most of the fall events.  As you can see, we've been busy!