September is a big Birthday month in the Bozyk family. Mom Bozyk celebrated her 81st Birthday on Sept. 19th. We decided to help her celebrate the weekend before her big day by taking her to dinner and bringing her flowers, balloons and gifts. Tom, Scott and I took Mom B out to dinner at a historical train station near my work. We enjoyed dinner Sunday night on the platform overlooking the train tracks and the river. The trains still run, but we did not have any coming through that night. Usually I can hear the train whistles all the way to our house, about a 25 min drive. It was a beautiful evening and after dinner we stopped into our house for cheesecake and presents. I picked out some warm clothes and socks for mom as Bday gifts, along with another watch(she keeps hiding them and it takes too long to look for the ones we already gave her). I figure the more she has, the better chance we have of finding one! I also picked up a few more Fall decorations for her room.

Tom was worn out as he spent the entire week before teaching a Black Belt Management class on his own. He wasn't feeling too well and went to bed after dinner. I was worn out from spending the entire day doing yard work! Our neighbor Dan is trying to convince Tom to cut down the trees along our road that are blocking the sun from getting to our lawn and killing the grass.  I am not crazy about that idea since they are not officially our trees. They were planted by the county. And I like the trees.  I suggested Tom continue to trim more branches. But in the meantime I decided to seed the area around the trees since we couldn't agree on the lawn care project and time is slipping away. I bought many bags of dirt and shade/sun seed patch with Scott's help and spent the day raking up dead grass and spreading dirt and seed. I was pretty much covered with dirt and seed myself when I was all done! Then it was time for a shower and Birthday dinner with Mom. Tom and Scott were pretty busy with schoolwork. Tom usually has a paper or big assignment due every week with his new class.

On Saturday night we thought we'd invite our neighbors, Dan and Gloria over for dinner to catch up with their activities over the summer. Gloria's mom recently had a stroke, so their family is also dealing with the new concept of Assisted Living Facilities in Ohio. They tried to talk her mom into moving here to Baltimore, but she has friends back in Ohio and other family members and decided to stay put. And since we had the house clean and extra food, we also invited our friend John D. from California over for steak dinner on the deck and some football. We were all celebrating John's new job with Honeywell. A bit more secure position than he had with the last independent company he worked for after leaving Northrop.

Scott had a few work shifts this past week. The season really hasn't kicked into high gear at the Roller Rink. Summer is pretty slow with just a few camps scheduled on Fridays. They do open the facility though when school is off, which happened on Monday the 12th. Since school was out, Scott was scheduled to work. And since he does not have his permanent drivers license yet, he needs a ride. So I had to leave work(twice)to drop him off and pick him up. I don't mind, but it takes about 1 hr both trips. Tom was stuck in his class so couldn't help out this time. Probably not worth the trip financially, but it gives Scott a few hours to keep him on the books. They keep trying to recruit him for more jobs at the Sports Center, but this job works for our schedule right now. So besides a few work hours, Scott has also been very busy with school work. And he started up his Video Game Club meetings again. He had a big kick off complete with Doritos and Mello Yello soda. He also started attending his friend's new club which involves producing Utube type Videos. They get to use all the equipment at the school for filming(except the big, expensive cameras). And Boy Scout popcorn sales started up again. We headed over to our favorite sales spot-Lowes on a Sunday afternoon. To our surprise, a large group of Cub Scouts had taken over our spot. Looks like one of our Troop Leaders signed up for the sale with Lowes back in March and they lost that calendar. So no popcorn sales for us that day which is a shame since Scott made a decent income at that booth sale. We use all his popcorn profits towards summer camp. Not sure we can squeeze in another booth sale with his upcoming busy schedule.

Allison is also staying busy at school with her coursework and her weekend Field Hockey games along with weekly practice. The team finally picked up more players and an extra goalie. Allison can always use some help since they play two games on the weekends and sometimes back to back. This weekend the Salisbury girls tied both games! Yeah!