What we've been up to - September edition

Sports:  Will's playing soccer and flag football.  Reina is playing soccer, taking swimming lessons and has a tap dance class once a week.  Needless to say, it's a little crazy right now.  I broke my own rule of one sport at a time, but that ship has sailed, at least for a few more weeks.  The good news is that everyone is getting a lot of exercise and it hasn't snowed during a game yet.  On the flip side, our evenings are a blur of practices and a late dinner and squeezing in homework.  But we are keeping the ship afloat until things slow down.

Hunting:  Glenn went to Alaska a few weeks ago and came back with a giant caribou and a bunch of meat in the freezer.  This is usually a taxidermy-free blog but I'll add a picture soon because he's so proud of it and he should be.

School:  First and third grade are going well.  Trips to the nurse's office have been numerous due to monkey bars incidences, recess soccer shots to the noggin, a particularly brutal game of "monkey in the middle" and an inexplicable whack to the head from a pole that had the audacity to get in Will's way.  No stitches or broken bones KNOCK ON WOOD.   Both kids are learning a lot.  Reina is reading like a champ and Will has vocabulary to learn this year along with spelling words.  This week's lesson includes forlorn and trudging.

Gardening:  I'm ready for our first frost - there I said it.  We've had a great run of gardening this summer.  Lots of sun, no hail, decent rain so we have an abundance of tomatoes and squashes of all shapes and sizes.  I've canned beets, pickles, peppers, tomato sauce, jalapeno jelly and some strawberry/rhubarb jam earlier in the summer.  I'm pretty much ready to call it good.  Which probably means it'll snow next week and I'll be the one to blame.

Pets:  Coco is still loco and the dogs are completely nonchalant about her existence by now.  Coco tears around the house, wrestles Will's stuffed animals, bites my feet, meows at the fridge, carries cotton balls around in her mouth and plays with the dogs when it suits her.  She likes to especially snuggle Tootsie on the couch which makes Tootsie nervous which is probably why Coco likes it. There's some circular cat logic for you.

I think that about sums up our September.  We've been enjoying some football games, or at least, enjoying some parts of some football games.  The weather is cooling and leaves are starting to turn and candy corn is at Target.  It's my favorite time of year.