Barren Trees, Autmn Leaves, and Cold Nights...

The leaf piles have rapidly grown around town and as of last Tuesday, the City of TRF trucks have been coming through and vacuuming up the piles along the side of the streets. both the big Dutch elm out front and our backyard tree are completely barren of leaves and we've had a dusting of snow here and there, though today was a wet day of drizzling rain. Aaron had his last day of football practice tonight (until dark) and his last game will be played on Saturday (actually two games that day for his team, the Panthers). Basketball will begin for the boys the first week of November, so the gym will be a nice change from the cold and wet football fields.

Last Tuesday we attended the "Running With Reading" program at Challenger, a monthly family activity at the school where they have a sporting activity the first half of the time period followed by time spent in the school library reading books, playing chess, etc. It was a very cold and windy night, though, on the first night of the program, so only about a dozen of us showed up (parents included). They plan on having the event once a month and next month's activity may be floor hockey, so that should be fun.

Yesterday was entertaining, as the boys both sang a song for the congregation at church. The church was almost as full as it gets at Christmas and Thanksgiving, so that was nice to see for a change. I sat near the front this time with Joe and Jodi and their many kids. It was a nice break from singing myself. Speaking of that, the pastor and his wife will be out of town this week, so I don't have any choir practice this week, though with the boys out of school all week, I get a week of fun with them at home instead. In terms of fall activities to look forward to, the annual Trinity Lutefisk Dinner will be held in just a few short weeks in November. They had sign up sheets for serving and donation of Cool Whip, pies, and 70 pounds of butter. I looked at the sheet for the butter and thought to myself, "Is 70 pounds adequate to cover the horrendous tastebud overload known as lutefisk??!" The thought also crossed my mind, "Has Jeff introduced Katrina to this Norwegian culinary delight?" Okay, that's enough lutefisk dissing for now... I think I'll quit while I'm behind.

The boys both had their parent-teacher conferences today and they went well. Both are doing good, particularly in their reading. Anybody looking for gift ideas in the future, feel free to consider either sending chapter books for them or a gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon so they can pick out their own (Aaron's already got the whole set of Narnia books and is just starting in on Lemony Snicket).