August - October 2025

We started a new school year and are dealing with three kids in three different schools.  Karina is now a freshman in high school, Lydia is in 7th grade at the middle school, and Derek in 4th grade in elementary school.  Here they are on the first day of school.

Derek gets silly with dressing up still.  I think Lydia might have decorated his hair with a flower clip here. 

The hat really completes the look here.

Shirtless but heavily armed.

 

 

Silliness is a regular feature in our house. 

 

Karina joined her friends to go as a group to Homecoming together and they were all dressed up.

We fostered another dog for a short time.  Daisy was a sweet beagle that loved to cuddle up who loved following her nose (even so much that the smells of a trash can were more interesting than deer in our neighborhood when on a walk).  She wound up being adopted by a woman in Pennsylvania.  Daisy was probably the most well-behaved dog we have fostered.  I think most of that is because she was a little older than the others we have had (puppies can be a challenge) but part may also be that she was a female and among other things, didn't stop at every tree, fire hydrant, or plant on the walk to pee and mark her territory.

I took some time off work (while we were furloughed) and we went to Summer's Farm for some fall fun one day when the kids had the day off school.  They had zip lines,

a corn maze,

huge chairs to "relax" in,

and various other spots to have fun.

I think this was one of my favorite farms we have been to for fall festival type activities.

Halloween crept upon us.  Karina dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood.

Derek got a monk's habit costume that worked well for a Sith Lord from Star Wars.

Lydia went for warm and cozy in pig onesie pajamas.

In front of church before our Trunk or Treat activity.

Lydia went out trick or treating with her friend Caeleigh in Caeleigh's neighborhood.  Karina went to a friend's neighborhood as well.

Derek invited his friends Aydin and Cody to go trick or treating in our neighborhood.  They had some interesting theories about which houses would be good based on the amount of decorations they had out.  In his friends' opinion, people that spend a lot of time and money putting out fancy Halloween decorations already spent their money on the decor, so they don't have as much to spend on the "good" candy.  That hasn't been my experience since I think people that go all out for decorations are really into Halloween and so probably would have good candy too, but I guess their reasoning makes sense to 9 and 10 year-olds.  I just wish they were more discreet about sharing it as they commented on that a few times within ear shot of the people they were getting candy from while I was taking them around the neighborhood.

They managed a decent haul and even found plenty of "good" candy, so I guess the night was a success.