October

In brief, we have been super busy, but we have managed to fit in lots of fun. Isaac took the boys camping and to the beach with some extended family. They loved the trip, and I loved some quiet girl time with Charlotte at home.

We had a ward Star Wars party/dinner. The boys loved having an excuse to wear their storm trooper costumes.

They got to dress up again for the school Harvest Festival.

Aiden has been playing soccer with a skills and drills based program. He felt very official when he got a jersey.

We went into the city and visited the MOMA and walked around. The kids’ favorite part was the organic soft-serve ice cream. Aiden and Landon each created a photo composite (below).

We played on the new school playground while Isaac (and the boys a little) helped with an Eagle project building planter boxes for the SpEd class.

The boys had the Primary Program, and it went pretty well, even with all the power going out shortly before the meeting started and lasting until the closing song. Aiden visited and interviews Great Grandma Anderson for a school project. Landon is loving Preschool. Charlotte is getting so big!

September

Aiden and Isaac ran in the Newark Mile race this year. It’s a 4K. There were over 200 runners, so there was quite a crowd at the beginning, but it thinned out as people ran or walked at their varied paces. Aiden left Isaac behind pretty early on and ended up finishing in 21:31. I was so proud of him. That's an 8:37/mile time. He was in he 0-14 age group and came in before any of the girls in the 0-14 age group, but he was the 14th male, behind mostly freshman on the cross country team. He acted very winded as he came across the finish line, so we would all know that he ran hard, but two minutes later, he was smiling and telling me all about the excitement of his first road race. Isaac came in about four minutes later, also 14th in his own age category, 26-35.

We enjoyed the parade and some rides on dollar night.

We had our driveway ripped out and replaced with stamped concrete. We also replaced our poor fence that was literally falling over on one side and full of holes and rotted wood enough that the neighbor’s cat could walk through on the other. We extended the fence line a little on one side AND removed the giant cement pillars that were apart of the old fence line 50 years ago but more recently in our backyard.

Look! No random pillars!

So… the next step will be to step up our landscaping game. Yikes. Wish us luck!