We procrastinated carving out pumpkins, although we picked them out pretty early from the pumpkin patch. They were just decorating our porch, uncarved, which was autumnal and practical with the heat and humidity as it was. When the time came, Hadley decided to recreate her scary clown pumpkin from 2020, and Owen stuck with the classic jack-o-lantern face.
The melted crayons were still messy, but I guess it's a trade-off to not scooping out pumpkin guts! We helped keep them in place with some hot glue (noting for next time).
New this year: Owen carving his own pumpkin face, in addition to scooping. Despite the crazed look in his eyes, he was very responsible with the knife, and there were no incidents! Mom approves!
Later that afternoon, we volunteered at our church's Trunk or Treat event as candy refillers, just like last year. Unlike last year, though, we had record crowds this year! The kids took a wagon around to the dozen or so display trunks in a loop for a couple of hours, and we actually completely ran out of candy a couple of times! A few errand runners were able to extend our candy supplies for the full time. I was shocked that some kids tried to get candy directly from our wagon by the handful. People are candy crazy!
The event had a dozen trunks, several games, craft tables, bouncy houses, and a train going around the parking lot. The local fire truck even came out and extended its ladder up to the sky! I'm not sure how many people came, but we went through thousands of pieces of candy, and it was the largest crowd I've seen there in years.
We have a certain someone that doesn't mind waiting in line for a bouncy house, too.
Finally, Trick or Treating! Owen really phoned it in this year, but went around with friends collecting as much candy as possible. Hadley dressed up like Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series of books and made off with quite a haul of her own. With it being Monday night, the doorbell barely rang for me, and it was all done by 8:30pm.
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!
This past Saturday we all participated in our local Walk to End Alzheimer's. Needless to say, it's a little more personal this year. If you are not familiar, they have these flower spinners, and the colors signify different relations to Alzheimer's disease. Purple = lost someone to it, Yellow = know someone with it, Orange = not personally affected, but want to cure it, and Blue = have Alzheimer's.
They had a 3 mile course marked out, and while the adults walked all of it, the kids ran most of it with some walk breaks interspersed. The kids said they were the first to finish, never mind that it is a "Walk to End..," not a race. They even had a drumline and lots of cheerleaders lining the route, which was fun, but a little awkward to be cheered on while you are just walking. 😅 It was a very humid morning, so we were all sweaty by the end.
In football news, the Bobcats are 3-1, and we had some special guests at the last game! Uncky Dan, Aunty Jenn, Addie and Will all came to see O play, plus his youth pastor, Chad.
Luckily, Owen had a great game! On offense, he lines up to the right of the QB (pic below). He had a few runs and even scored the first touchdown (video below) to lead his team to a 18-0 win over their rival Eagles. On defense, he had several tackles for loss, including a sack on the quarterback. I think he played nearly every down, until we were comfortably in the lead near the end of the game when he came out for some water.
O was surprised to see everyone after the game. I think he forgot he'd have an audience, and he got lots of praise and pats on the back. Even his sister was impressed with his game! He ended up getting a second "Player of the Week" honor the next day!
In other news, I regularly meet up with these ladies for lunch every couple of months or so. We all live in "Houston," although we are each in different outlying suburbs no less than half an hour apart, so it's no small feat to coordinate schedules. This last meeting it struck me how awesome it was that I just had lunch with my bridesmaids a little more than 20 years after my wedding! So I snapped a photo to commemorate. Love them!
And with a couple of random school holidays, H and I finished up a 1000-piece beauty that Oma left behind. So glad to have another puzzler in the family! O will do some, too, but not quite as diligently as H!
We are now in the midst of our first tackle football season with our 7th grader, Owen. It's been a continual lesson in discipline, sacrifice, and teamwork. He gets up every morning, 5 days a week, at 5:20am to leave the house by 6am to be dressed out for practice on the field by 6:45am. (School doesn't start until 8:55am.) They take a short breakfast break around 8:30, and then 1st period is also football PE. We've been impressed with his hard work and the amount of time he has put into practice (even conditioning throughout the summer), which paid off when he was placed on the "A" team (as opposed to the B or C team). They play on Monday nights, and A team is last to play, usually taking the field at 7:30pm or later, staying at school until they catch a bus to (and from) the game, sometimes not making it home until 10pm. Talk about a long day!
It was so exciting to walk into the big stadium to watch their first game, after Labor Day, and finally see them suited up! A team was sitting in the shade watching the last half of B Team's game. We spotted Owen sitting by his good buddy, Jonathan.
So we called him over to get a good look at him in his uniform for the first time. #44. We like to say it in a Boston accent like the announcer we heard at a Boston College game one year ("num-buh fuh-ti-fuh"). He says his position is called the "adjuster", which we hadn't heard of before, but he's basically a fullback on offense.
We really weren't sure what to expect for their first outing, but they played reasonably well, even with a few low snaps and a somewhat porous offensive line. Owen ran for a first down (10 yards!) on one play, but didn't really touch the ball for the rest of the game for some reason. It was a little surreal to watch him play real football in a real football stadium. How did we get here already?
It has been a blessing that most of his neighborhood friends are on the football team too, so we're in a carpool (hallelujah!), and they all made A team, so there's no awkwardness about that. Toward the end of the game, I caught them all standing on the sideline together (44, 16, 86, and 84) as their team coasted to an easy victory, 22-0. Our secret weapon is Matthew (#84) who can kick extra points, which are worth 2 points at this age! And yes, running it in is only worth one.
What a relief to start the season off strong, with no injuries, and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie! I just missed the group pose here. Rats! But another nice perk is that the school has a site where they post the game videos, and players can select clips to highlight on their own page. We finally got it all figured out, so you can check on Owen's progress and highlights here. This is so much nicer than trying to video plays on our phones from up in the stands, not knowing whether it'll be a good play or not!
So far, the Bobcats A team is 2-1, with scores of 22-0, 8-12, 8-0. See what I mean about those kicking 2-point conversions? Interesting scores. In their last game, Owen had some great runs on offense (so close to a first down and then again almost the game winning touchdown) and several nice blocks, but he also played aggressively on defense as an edge rusher, including getting a tackle for loss on the quarterback. He played with a lot of energy, which was exciting to watch, and was in for nearly every play of the game. The following morning he was given a "Player of the Week" recognition on the morning announcements at school! We are so proud of him and are glad he has this awesome opportunity to represent his school and make some new friends. Plus, his grades are just as good as ever! It's going to be a fun season. (Owen is standing in the middle below with his helmet on, pre-game 3.) Go Bobcats!
Granna and Grandad have moved to assisted living outside of DFW. It's been a difficult change, but unfortunately, it was time because the ranch was just too isolated for their safety. All of us kids lived 2-3 hours from the ranch, with the ranch right in the middle, so if we moved them to be closer to any one of us, they would automatically be farther away from the other two. We went to visit them over Labor Day weekend. Grandad is in a really nice place close to Uncle Ken.
He's got a one-bedroom apartment with a patio and a lot of shared amenities, including a game room, movie room, gym, salon, and several living rooms with fireplaces. We worked on a puzzle with him and ordered off the dinner menu in a private dining room.
Granna's doctor recommended her for memory care, which threw off our plans to share the apartment together. Tragically, the facility where Grandad's apartment is did not have any openings in their memory care unit, and because it was a doctor's assessment, they could not allow Granna to stay with Grandad. Luckily, there was an opening at a place half an hour away. So we're on waitlists at several places to get them together, and hopefully that will happen soon.
I went to visit Granna, whom we suspect is in the grips of Alzheimer's. There were moments when I could see her old self in her eyes. She recognized me and I asked her if she new my name. To my surprise, she quickly answered my first and last name! Then I remembered I was wearing a nametag, the clever dame. She introduced me to other residents as her daughter, and I kept her company while she ate some lunch. I wish they were closer, but it is what it is.
While I was with Granna, John took the kids to the Fort Worth Aviation Museum. It was a warm, sunny day and most of the airplanes were outside, but they had a good time.
There were some other exhibits inside, like this flight simulator, but apparently, it wasn't really connected to the joystick.
And Buc-cee's is always our sign that we're getting close to home on the drive back. Can't you tell that H loves to be in my pictures?
