Could The Leaves Just Quit Falling Around Here??

It's amazing how little work one can get done around here with falling leaves and bird droppings. I had the whole yard raked last week and within a couple days, it looked worse than when I started. I had a good chuckle, though, when Ken across the street got his lawn tractor out and neatly groomed his and Fern's lawn of leaves only to have the same thing happen to him. He likes getting out and doing "something," though, so I suppose he doesn't mind it that much.

I've been working on projects around the house lately, putting in a utility sink in my basement to soak clothes, wash real dirty hands and give Andrew a faucet to get water for his love birds. I sanded off half the front stairs as the paint was peeling and I just need a couple of back to back dry days without the boys around during the day to get them painted. I'm trying to squeeze that in before the first "real" snow fall.

We enjoyed the 2005 "Woofstock" dance and silent auction at the Eagles club in TRF to benefit the Humane Society of Pennington County last Friday with hamburgers, live music, and we came home with a nice extension cord, an art print, and some food for Duchess. Daniel had the best time of all, as he was rockin' to the beat of the music pretty much the whole evening, sometimes all by himself, doing his own version of break dancing. We took an hour or so in between and drove over to the Family Bowl to go bowling with the boys and Josh, Dawn's foster son, and when we were there, saw some high school kids that where there from the prom dressed up in old-fashioned 50's/60's costumes. Back at the Eagles club, we again saw the same kids and the girls tried getting the boys to dance with them. They were all amused by Daniel's independent antics on the floor, though he was too bashful to dance with them. As those kids were leaving the party, I heard one girl saying how fun it would be to be as young as Daniel again and how "cute" the boys were.

Now we're approaching Halloween and I have to find a costume that will fit Aaron in time for his school party next week. It's a bit difficult as they don't have as much selection in TRF and they're mostly too small for him. I guess we'll have to see what they got and make do. I'm expecting a deluge of neighborhood kids for trick-or-treating this year and it will be the first genuine trick-or-treating outside of a school setting the boys have ever done. I think they'll have a great time and Daniel already has his "Clone" costume from Star Wars. Hopefully his mask stays intact long enough to wear on Halloween.

I had Daniel's parent-teacher conference on Monday with Cory Thorson and heard some great things about him. He said he's pretty much a "0 to 60 mph" boy with nothing in between in terms of his speed. He goes just about til he passes out, recharges his batteries, then takes off again. He has a few girls who enjoy his company as well, one of whom was pretty crushed when he started playing with another girl.

The boys went to the waterpark today at the Seven Clans Casino again and Tyler and his friend Austin from the corner house also joined them. They enjoyed it, though they wished it could have lasted longer. We're now home for the duration of the evening. The boys have had all this week off for teacher conferences, so tomorrow is their last weekday of freedom before returning on Monday. They've been a little bored as they haven't had someone to play with the whole time, so they'll be happy to be back at school, I'm sure.

Trinity has an old-fashioned bazaar the end of the month that I think I talked Andrew into since they're going to be making lefse, his favorite... That's about all that's going on around here for now. Hope all is well with everyone reading.