Saturday Morning

This is how we spent last Saturday morning, before Auntie Teresa arrived:

I woke up early to pick up Brian from the all-night lock in at church. The sunrise coincided with my drive out to church:


A lock in means minimal sleep for all involved and a morning nap:


I worked out at a Cage Fitness class and then hit the road for a nice run in the glistening snow. I tried out another portion of the trail in the neighborhood:

The local neighborhood association must take care of this trail because most of the sidewalks in town are still covered in snow and ice. I greatly appreciate it!

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Scenes from the Weekend

Technically, more than the weekend -
Thursday night - a full moon with snow means a cool exposure of the backyard:


Friday - it's retro day at Middle school.


Saturday -
It's cold outside and snowy, but I managed a 3 mile run after a Cage Fitness class. Running while the snow is falling is so peaceful.


The tulips are starting to fade -


I finished up the last of the photos from July's Italy trip. The pictures from Florence (Firenze) may be found here, on Flickr.

Sunday - The cats make a little bit of a fuss while watching the birds outside. They won't go outside, though - it's too cold!



Erica enjoyed dumplings for lunch (leftovers from last night's takeout)


Hope you had a great (and warm) weekend!

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Day 302 - Halloween

A perfect Halloween evening - clear and a little cool (but it is the end of October - it's supposed to be cool).

I drove Erica to her friend's house and then wove back home, passing by the endless stream of parked cars in the 'hood. I know people come to our neighborhood to trick or treat, but didn't realize the magnitude until today. No wonder our huge stash of candy goes quickly.

Erica and her friends are dressed up as a tennis pro, a bum and a sports fan:


[note - I do not endorse those Yankees. She is a product of her father when it comes to this baseball stuff.... and Go Red Sox!]

As usual, Brian and George went out together.

Brian's costume is a result of the past two years' costume meltdowns. So this year, I refused to put much time into it and he came up with his own costume idea. The boys only visited three houses - ours, George's and our next door neighbor's. I think they are at the age where they don't care about trick or treating. It's a phase that will pass in about two years.

At least George's brothers dressed up appropriately:


Part of the reason why Brian doesn't want to walk around the neighborhood, is he would rather spend time at George's house handing out candy and working the spooky "tricks" of the house:

After all, Jill has her house decorated to the max:

Brian's favorite activity - hiding in the coffin, making noises and jumping out to scare the visitors. If you look carefully at the above picture, you can see Brian peeking out of the coffin - he has the Elmo mask on his head.

It was another fun Halloween in our little town on the prairie! A great end to October.

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222/365 - The Neighbor's BMX Track

Note - we love our neighbors. They are our friends and so much fun - they let me photography their house, their beautiful flowers (tons of iris in the spring) and now their impromptu BMX dirt track.



The track exists, not by design, but out of necessity, as they are starting the process of putting in a pool. How cool is that! They had an option to move out of the neighborhood, to build a new house on a new property, but they stayed instead.

And instead of bemoaning the fact that their backyard has been torn up (and it's been this way for over a week now), they've turned it into something fun for their kids.

Did I mention how much fun our neighbors are? And how lucky we are to have them around?

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