Autumn Leaves Are Falling...

It's been a very pleasant start to the fall season here in Thief River. After just a handful of leaves coming down in the past two weeks, this week it's really taken off. The Dutch elm in front of the house here has dumped about 8 lawn bags full of leaves on the front lawn and the streets are covered in yellow, orange, and red leaves. It's nice to look at, but of course then I got the challenge of the back yard... If I don't stay on top of the leaves, the doggy calling cards get covered up and then we get a surprise later. :o( Today I picked three rakes at Wally World and outfitted the boys with them after school so we were all out front raking this afternoon and got some pictures of the boys in the leaf pile. The temperatures have been dipping at night into the mid-30s and low 40s as well lately and it probably will be a cold Halloween like last year. Hopefully the snow takes its time showing up, though it would be nice to have a white Christmas again.

The boys have been busy this fall with their school activities. They have their usual Awana youth program on Wednesday nights, but have also added Kingdom Kids, an after school program at school where they have an outdoor recess for almost an hour followed by activities inside. I was volunteered for that activity more or less as one of the leaders so that keeps me busy as well, though it's not every week, but every other week. Aaron is having fun in his flag football program with Braeden Drevlow and has finally found a position he likes (and the coach likes too). He is presently playing center, so he just has to snap the ball and do some blocking. He got a lot of playing time last Saturday morning and actually made a great "tackle" (taking the ball carrier's flag off). It was kind of funny... His teammates had actually blocked in the ball carrier and Aaron was right behind him so the other boys just yelled, "Aaron, grab his flag!!" and Aaron just reached forward and ripped it off. He was beaming from ear to ear after that play! At first, it seemed as though it was going to be an unorganized program with only one adult coach and one or two varsity football players coaching, but as of this past Monday, they've put it in high gear with brand new color-coordinated practice vests and balls with five different teams of boys including red, orange, yellow, green, and blue and they had more varsity players helping out, so nobody was standing around not knowing what to do. The varsity players are really good with Aaron too, patting him on the back, throwing an arm around his shoulder, etc. to offer encouragement to him, so that's been really great for his confidence.

I've continued having lunch with Aaron, today having my personal favorite: Nachos with taco meat, salad, and strawberry milk. One of the boys in Aaron's class walked up to him in the tray line and asked, "Does your dad ALWAYS eat lunch with you??" Come to think of it, I think I'm the ONLY dad that eats lunch there, so perhaps his classmates are envious. I try to just make it on Friday's, though, so it's still a special thing, not too "routine." I went today because they have no school tomorrow. I can safely say it's the best $2.85 lunch in town, though. :o)

The boys continue to do well without their old friends here in the neighborhood keeping themselves busy on the trampoline after school with the remaining kids around here and now with raking the leaves up and other fall outdoor activities. We may go to a Northland College football game this weekend time allowing, but Aaron's got another game that day. Speaking of sports... Aaron just dropped a half dozen flyers from school on my lap to look over and one of them is for the "Backcourt Club," the basketball program at Challenger. Practices are on Mondays and Thursdays, so it looks like he's going to be even busier... He wants to do it, though, so he will be practicing from 4 to 5 on Mondays and then 6:30 to 8:00 for football. I have to "volunteer" too to help out at practices, so there's another activity to tack onto my calendar. Looks like the skate lesson program is also new this year with a new director and format, so we need to go to that planning meeting next week and hopefully get them into that this fall/winter. They have a skate exchange program too, so if they've outgrown their skates, they can hopefully trade them in for a larger size. I think for now, though, we're going to head out and get a take-n-bake pizza and retire to our couch of perpetual indulgence for a relaxing non-school night evening.