Pumpkins, Pigskins, and Philanthropy

October was a busy month! Weekdays and nights flew by with activities, obligations, and fun events. The Bobcats' 7th grade A team had a great season and finished 6-2. 

We loved watching our #44 play running back, edge rusher, kick returner, and kick team defense, staying on the field for nearly every play. Other than a couple of bouts of turf burn, we were also blessedly injury-free. Don't forget, you can catch up on his season highlights here!

They didn't make it to the championship game, but they played a bonus game against John's alma mater, which they won to end the season.

One fun tradition is Junior High night for what will be our future high school team. All of the junior high football players get to run through the "tunnel" and on to the field with the high school players. After the run through, they stay and watch the game with their team. Unfortunately, Taylor had only 3 wins this year, and this was not one of them, but they still had fun! (O is in a white jersey near the end.)

Besides football, we were busy with our church's pumpkin patch. We helped unload about 1800 big pumpkins from a semi-truck fire-brigade-style and arranged countless little ones in organized piles and aesthetic groupings.

This was the only posed pumpkin patch picture we took one Sunday after church. I guess they're getting too old for this, but I'm glad they'll still humor me with a photo.

Finally, we signed up to work a shift at the patch. We were on first shift, so the kids checked all the pumpkins and removed any that were rotting or damaged. Then we hung out for a couple of hours, worked the cash/credit box for any families that came by, and helped them load up their vehicles.

Hadley is doing her school's Read, Deed, Run club again. As part of this club, she will run 26 miles, read 2600 pages, and do 26 good deeds over the school year. Just before our pumpkin patch shift, we did one mile as a family walk/run with donations going for breast cancer research.

Fall is also when our Longhorn alumni group activities ramp up. As philanthropy chair, I coordinated a food drive and a bye-week blood drive during the month of October. It seems like our numbers are finally getting back to pre-Covid levels, so that is encouraging! We donated over 400 lbs of food and 24 units of blood. Hook 'em!