Halloween

William had an idea for his Halloween costume in September and set up a make shift workshop in the screened in porch.   He made steady progress for weeks then got busy or distracted and almost didn't finish!  A few last minute hot glue gun fixes and he made it!   

First up, though, was the school Trunk or Treat.  Turnout wasn't great from the early registrants so the principal said that if the junior high kids came with their trunks, they could get an out of uniform pass and pizza party.   William wasn't ready to debut his custom costume, so he wore last year's knights costume.  I also packed his dino costume from the year prior, and he ended up wearing it and hugely impressed the little ones.

Preparations for the evening with help from Dad.   William went back to Brookdale to trick or treat with two of his friends there, and John and I set up the solo stove in our driveway to see what the new neighborhood was like.   

 

Pool Fun

Although we didn't move in for about four weeks after we bought the house, since we were having the wood floors redone, we did enjoy hosting a few pool parties during the month of September.   And then once we moved in, I was able to enjoy the lap swims I had dreamed about!  Thanks to lovely weather and the pool heater, we were able to swim until the second week of October.  When the pool company came out to close the pool, it was a cold, windy, sad day.  Already counting down the days until our May reopen!

In short order, we all became experts at cleaning leaves off the covers and in the traps!  There isn't a lot of chemical maintenance for the water since it's a salt water pool, but we'll learn more next season when we have 5-6 months of pool season instead of two.   Closing day involves the pool company draining the hot tub, lowering the water level to flush all the pipes, removing the diving board, basketball hoop and stair rails, and plugging up stuff so it doesn't freeze.   I'm getting used to seeing the pool covered.  It "helps" that it quickly got cold and we haven't been in the back as much.

Cross Country and Soccer

William participated in his first season of ASCA sports.   Cross country consisted of 5 Saturday morning meets.  7th graders run two miles.  I loved it!  Pretty fall mornings at golf courses or parks; in and out by 10 a.m.  It was great for me.  William thought it was ok.   He said next year he wants to play volleyball with his classmates.   Only William and one other 7th grade boy ran cross country.   More of them played volleyball.  But they have the flexibility to do both, so perhaps that's what he'll do. 

First meet (at our home course):

First "away" meet.  

At the championship meet and then celebrating the end of season and end of 1st quarter grades at hibachi:

William also played soccer for the first time in several year.  He was asked to join a team by his buddy, John, since they had room for several more players.  William's skills - or his concentrating - or his endurance - or all of it were much improved from those earlier years.  He had a great season and demonstrated a lot of hustle on the field.  I was very proud of his effort for both sports.  Especially since some Saturdays he had both a morning meet and an afternoon game.

Our New Home

Moving "someday" was always on our radar, but at the beginning of summer when my company came out and said we'd be doing a hybrid return to work plan, I knew it was time for a home office instead of a dining room office.   Our requirements were swimming pool (or room to build one), a main floor home office, and a three car garage.  Oh, and it had to be closer to William's school (current junior high and future high school) than were already were.   We went to two open houses, engaged a realtor and went to two showings, and then bought that last home!   Actually John found it online a day or two after it listed and asked our realtor about it.   It didn't show up in her auto searches for us because of the bathroom count.  But when he asked her to show it to us, she was ecstatic, as it was in a neighborhood she loves and frequently jogs through.   Ironically, neither John nor I had ever heard of the neighborhood or driven through it even though it's two blocks from William's school and 10 minutes from our current house.    The pool and huge yard sold us!  We also loved the house as the perfect size for the three of us, and its great location that didn't require us to change much about our day-to-day routines.  Over the next year (or 12) we look forward to making it our own!