I just got in from my nightly stroll with Cookie while Allison made a few more GS cookie sales at the neighbor's. Cookie was full of puppy energy since she has been stuck in the house most of the weekend-yesterday because it rained most of the day, and today since Tom was catching up on football games while cleaning up the house for his "Boys Night" on Monday night. The neighbor boys have been talking about having a Monday night football party for several years now, and all of us are usually just too busy to organize an activity during the week. But it turns out that all the kids are off school Monday for Yom Kippur(yes even our catholic children). Well, Jesus was Jewish. The kids are happy about that!
Allison is at a sleepover at the neighbors tonite. I am sure she will be worn out tomorrow. She had to altar serve for a friend this morning and we spent the entire afternoon out kayaking and canoeing with the Girl Scouts. Allison and one other scout in my troop, Becky, each had a single kayak, and I canoed with a GS Dad who had never been in a boat(I put him up front). His wife was there(the GS Leader) and she was not brave enough to paddle with him! We did fine-we paddled up and back a small section of the Magothy river which leads out to the Bay and never got wet.
The girl scouts have a small campground on the Magothy river near Annapolis. In the spring I will have to sign the girls and myself up for the sailing trip up the bay to the scout camp. A few of the girl scouts that kayaked today said they did the trip and had a great time-it takes all day to sail up on the tall sailing ship and then back the next day after camping overnight. And the girls do all the work as well as learning about the Chesapeake Bay.
We lucked out on the weather today since it rained most of yesterday and we had a downpour just after we finished this afternoon. Glad Tom got the grass cut yesterday and dropped some grass seed for me in some shady spots on the lawn.
Scott had his sleepover on Saturday night with the neighbor boy. I took both of them swimming at the Y Saturday night for family night since Allison was babysitting at the neighbor's house. I thought she could use a few less kids to keep an eye on. She was happy to get some spending money too. She managed to spend a few bucks yesterday when I dragged the kids off to the Fall Festival in old Ellicott City. I could have spent a lot more time shopping in the antique stores, but I was just happy to pick up a baby gift in the toy store before it started raining. Allison was excited to find a dragon jewelry box she has been looking for for over 6 years. She spotted the exact same box in Busch Gardens, but they sold out and haven't carried them for several years now. There is a store in old Ellicott City that sells lots of Christmas and Halloween decorations, costumes, dolls, antiques and all sorts of theme statues like fairies, unicorns and dragons. And low and behold, there was her box. Babysitting money comes in handy. And at 10bucks an hour, she still had plenty left over. Her funds are a bit low since she helped pay for her trip to Assateague this summer and she hasn't been able to keep her weekly babysitting job with field hockey.
The neighbors were off to hear a piano concert from a world renonwn pianist who happened to be our neighbors old piano teacher. The woman has played all over the world, and is playing a concert a month for the next year at our local community college. Our neighbor said she would introduce Allison to her and recommended I take Allison to one of the concerts in the spring. Allison is still busy taking piano lessons once a week as well as taking piano as a class at school. It works out well since she can practice at school.
Allison's JV team had two field hockey games this past week and won both! Allison started on Tuesday night's game and the girls took the field with a 9-0 win. Friday night they won 2-0. Tom got to see both games, and our neighbor showed up again with his kids. Sadly, I missed both games by the time I picked up Scotty from school after work. I am hoping to catch one of her games this coming week. The season is already half over. On Monday night, Tom enjoyed the parent/daughter field hockey game, but he said he would have liked it even more if some of the parents hadn't been such ball hogs! One dad would not come out of the game to take turns with the other parents. Tom was disappointed to play only one period(they played four altogether). We did enjoy a potluck dinner afterwards. I made a huge dish of my mom's favorite cold spaghetti salad recipe. I was amazed at how quickly they ate it up!
I also amazingly made my first beef pot pie this week that actually turned out tasting terrific, and even more amazing the kids ate it and liked it! I have never been able to make a pot pie as good as my moms. This one came awfully close. I actually had time to assemble the meal since I took Weds off instead of Friday to help cover for some of our vacationing staff. Work has still been a bit slow, but things seem to be picking up a bit.
I also enjoyed a beautiful sunny day off planting some fall/winter pansys and decorative cabbages in my big pots next to the garage doors. I had a few plants that needed transplanting to bigger pots too besides working on my lawn edging which I have to complete in stages(we have a really big curb living on a corner lot!). I even managed to squeeze in a few aerobics classes this week.
I had planned on helping with Scott's Cub Scout flag ceremony on Weds after school, but they switched it to Thursday. The boys were learning how to take down the flag and fold it.
This weekend, Scott and I will be participating in a cub scout bike rodeo. We decided to skip the camping trip at the local State Park and save it for the end of the month when the boys participate in the Weebelo Ree Outing and work on requirements towards becoming Boy Scouts.
It feels like Halloween is just around the corner! Happy Fall by the way. I know our month of October will be packed with lots of activities! I am already looking forward to taking Allison to see "Fiddler on the Roof" starring Topol at the Hippodrome Theatre at the end of the month(an early birthday present from Tom).
I hope Mom and Dad Seitz had a good trip down to Florida and avoided all the flooding in Georgia!
Good Luck on your Marathon run Mark and Stacey! Allison and Tom could barely make the 2 mile run that Allison needed to run for tryouts for field hockey, let alone 14 miles! I know I wouldn't last either.
Have a great week and Happy Yom Kippur! Mazletov! Kathleen and family