October 2021

 

With semi-competent cooks in the house, this year apple picking led to

the kids pie making

I took a quick trip to NY to check in on Grandma Joan's recovery from knee surgery

Erin's middle school has a big XC team of about 150 kids. The top 20 boys and girls travel to away meets but the whole team can race at home. The girls team won every meet except for one to the other middle school in town. The boys team was undefeated. At the end of the season all the middle schools in the state competed in one large meet. Erin's team finished #2 to the other middle school and the boys finished #1. The high school XC team should be pretty good.

Wilson Farm's haymaze

Modeling a sweater that Heather knitted

Tessie wishes she had a guard cat to protect her room

Katy's favorite weekend of the year isn't when she's hosting us over 4th of July, it's the trip to Capon Springs in WV

Every year at Capon they have a pumpkin weight guess. Thanks to research ahead of time like above at Wilson Farm, we're prepared, and with 12 attendees we can spread out our guesses. We spaced our entries by 3 lbs and even though Tessie wanted 141 lb, I said that she'd be pretty close with 140. Correct weight:141, and since someone got it right on the nose, Tessie didn't win.

Tessie's first XC meet. In her 3K race, the #1 runner had such a big lead that he and the pacer keeping the runners on the correct course were out of sight of the rest of the field, and when the #2 runner made a wrong turn, he led the entire field on an extra 1.5 K extension

Erin's age group raced the correct course

Tessie was in the 8 and under group and took home a 2nd place trophy

Instead of standing around at XC meets, Caroline volunteered as a ticket taker at the historic Hancock-Clarke house 

wow Tai-Tai is a tacocat as II, @I, @wow

Look who took home the pumpkin from the rec center guessing competition

and with our own big one, we had our work cut out for us making jack'o'lanterns

I told you our 37-lb pumpkin (top right) would be purrfect

Never seen so many fairy rings as here in the woods at Capon Springs

Tessie's 3rd grade soccer team was so dominant that the goalie almost never touched the ball. Doesn't stop you from working on your dance moves.

Start of school 2021

 This year Caroline started 9th grade at Lexington High. With 2260 students, it is almost like a college, but she figured out its schedules and buildings and jumped right in. With kids now in 3 different schools, we are inundated with daily e-mails from principals, teachers, and PTOs. 

We took a Labor Day weekend trip to see Nana and Grampa Mike at their new house in Spartanburg, SC

As it happens, they're close to two related Revolutionary War Park sites. At King's Mountain, after giving up on the Northern campaign, the British thought they could rally Loyalists in NC, SC, and GA to turn against the rebels.

Fearing invasions of their lands, militias from surrounding states rallied and attacked and routed the British forces. Later, at Cowpens battlefield, in a formal engagement again the Patriots defeated the British. From there General Cornwallis chased the revolutionaries north and trapped himself on the Virginia peninsula.

Ana, Chris, and Murphy joined us at Cowpens

SC had the highest COVID infection rates in the country, but when I picked up from this sports bar I didn't see a single person wearing a mask

Tessie is old enough to do high ropes courses

Grampa Mike was in good spirits but his Parkinson's is getting worse

It was good to see Riley and Nana, too 

Back home, Tessie's stuffies returned from their extended stay in Minnesota

Caroline has become a fitness nut and she ran her first 5K

Erin finished in 21:55, a new PR and #2 overall for the women

Caroline and I finished in 30:25

Tessie has been playing in-town soccer but she is difficult to catch in an action photo

Harvest time. Many of my tomatoes had some weird rot/deficiency where their innards turned to mush. This giant one had an interesting crack.

My pumpkin patch delivered 2 pumpkins, one normal one and one big one. This purrfect pumpkin weighed 37 lbs, a new PR.

My friend Jerry said that he had a great time watching a classic 80s TV show together with his kids. When I tried the same with Tessie, she completely melted down. What show could do this to Tessie? See if you can figure it out. 

She recovered from the Muppets torture