Final Football, Fall Leaves, Willy

Travis had only two more games, and these got played after the team took off two weeks for quarantine.  His team lost the game at Lovejoy but won their final game against Burnett.

The kids have been having fun raking the leaves into piles and climbing the tree.

Corey was home during the day, and we took Willy for a walk with Nora and Nathan.

We had our walk down the 50 yard line with Westley for Senior Night for football.  It was recorded to be played at Senior Night because somehow that makes people less likely to catch COVID, even though we were all in line on the field, just like we would be if we did it in person.
 

Fall Colors

The leaves on our trees out front were such pretty, bright colors this year that I had to get a picture before they all fell off.  Of course, my phone camera doesn't do the colors justice.  They were so many shades of yellow, orange and red.  It was really incredible.  Usually we don't get such a variety of colors here in Texas.

Fun and Football

This week in preschool, we learned about Texas.  We also talked about the letter B, so we made bluebonnet painting since bluebonnets are the state flower.

We finally had a varsity football game!  Yay!  They only have four on the schedule but I don't think they'll do makeup games for the ones that have been canceled due to covid.  We were very excited to go to a game and watch the band.  I hope next year we have a real season. 
 

Halloween

Paige brought her kids over and we decorated sugar cookies and went trick-or-treating.  It was cold and there were hardly any houses participating, due to covid.  We got a total of two trick-or-treaters at our house all evening.  It was somewhat of a disappointment, but that's okay.  Spending time with cousins was fun.

 

October Fun

Nathan found this pair of dress up sunglasses and has been wearing it with the hoodie we found in the boys clothes bin when we were looking for warmer clothes (we had a cold front move in and it's been COLD this week!). It's his "disguise" so that nobody recognizes him (according to him).  So he put it on for us to take Westley and Caleb to school.  We took them to school so that Corey could take Westley's truck to get the transmission fluid changed and check out one other issue.  It's so cute how he thinks nobody will recognize him in the sunglasses and hoodie. 

We had the ward Trunk-or-Treat this week, socially distanced of course.  Although I don't think most people did much social distancing.  It was with three wards combined only there were probably about the same amount of people as a normal year with one ward.  Paige didn't come, and I was disappointed that she didn't.  But Eliza, Jonah, Annmarie and Nathan dressed up and everyone went.  Eliza was an M&M, Jonah was the green ninja from Ninjago, Annmarie was Minnie Mouse and Nathan was Bumblebee.  Caleb walked around with Nathan for a little while.  Travis and Dad handed out candy from the back of the car.  And Westley came in his truck and handed out  his own candy. 

 

Annmarie got to do the announcements at school earlier this month.  She is doing much better in school this year than last year.  I think she has the right teacher for her this year.

 

What a Weekend!

The weekend started with me going to lunch with my friend Heather Belcher from Utah. Heather is actually from Texas (Midland/Odessa area, I think) and her brother recently moved to Fort Worth and she was out helping him with a home renovation.  So I drove over to Fort Worth to meet her for lunch.  We went to In-N-Out only because I knew the dining room was open for in-store dining and I know where all the locations are easily.  It was so good to see her as she was one of my good friends there in Utah.  It was great to catch up and whenever I meet up with an old friend and we catch up, I realize that life isn't so bad and that everyone has similar struggles.  It's nice to not feel so alone.

On Saturday, I used up the cream and half and half in the fridge and made some ice cream with the kids.  We chose to make mint chocolate chip.  It turned out delicious, only the kids thought there were too many chocolate chips.  So I'll use a little less next time and maybe more green dye to make it greener.  But it was definitely a success!

And the biggest news is that Westley bought a truck!  He had saved a good bit of money since working in Utah in the summer.  Plus, his Ireland trip for band was moved to 2022, which leaves him out from going, since he's a senior graduating in 2021, so he canceled it and was refunded a good amount of money that he had put into it.  So, he used some of that money and found a used truck (1998 Toyota Tacoma) for $2000 and bought it.  It's exciting for him to have his own vehicle to drive and it helps us out.  And this gives him a great opportunity for independence and responsibility. 

 

Preschool Pumpkin Patch

We had a pumpkin patch field trip for preschool. We only have two kids in the class besides Nathan because of the pandemic and one of them did not come because his grandparents were in town and they had gone to the same pumpkin patch the day before as a family. So it was just Nathan and his friend Nora (whose mom babysits Nathan in exchange for preschool) and Nora's mom. We had a blast. I also bought a book called "Spookley the Square Pumpkin" and some pumpkin spice fudge, which wasn't my favorite.