Happy First Weekend of Fall!  This is the busiest time of the year!  Scott had a short school week as they closed 2 days for the Jewish holiday on Thursday and Friday. We decided to spend the time off with a trip to Busch Gardens for the kick off of the Howl O Scream event. We would have left early, on Friday when Scott was out of school, but the Halloween opening did not start until Saturday night.  Scott and Tom were still busy with school work anyway. Scott started working on his Senior Engineering project. He is revamping his handicap accessible planters and has many reports to write up before the actual build. Tom is deep into this semester with another accelerated course, hoping to be done before Thanksgiving and planning on taking a break until the start of the new year.

Scott still had Boy Scouts during the week along with work at the After Care program. And the Catholic schools did not have the 2 day holiday, so Scott decided to go into work during the Before Care hours. He figured he is used to getting up early anyway, and they pay more per hour for the Before Care program. Plus it is a lot more laid back than the After Care program. The school staff was very pleased to have him since they seem to run short of help. I also heard from another previous parent of the Catholic school that the staff there are so excited about having Scott working. They are very impressed to see how Scott has matured, hard working and responsible. He is a work in progress! He also spent last weekend house and dog sitting again for our neighbors where he sleeps overnight in the basement with Eli. She does not like tstorms. Although it has been extremely dry here, and quite warm.

Besides school work and his job, I squeezed in a trip to Comic Con with Scott on Friday. The event ran all weekend, but we were planning our trip to Busch Gardens and did not think we would be back in time on Sunday to attend. Tom was busy with homework, so Scott and I headed off to downtown Baltimore on Friday afternoon to wander the aisles full of comic books and characters. We love to see all the costumes and paraphernalia from Super Heroes to Science Fiction. Even Linda Carter, television icons Wonder Woman attended the conference on Friday night. Tickets sold out immediately, but Scott and I would have been too tired to attend after walking around for several hours. Turns out Linda lives in Montgomery County, MD with her lawyer husband. She has spent her post television years following a music career and actually sang during her Comic Con show. They also had the young actor David who plays young Batman on tv's Gotham along with the actor that plays Alfred. Plus the actor that plays Colossus from the Dead Pool movie(although the kids tell me he is mostly computer generated imagery/CGI). He was there signing autographs on Friday afternoon, but Scott and I did not feel like standing in line for that. We did not even dress up this year, but both sported our favorite character tshirts.  Unfortunately, the event seemed a bit smaller than past years as we did not see some of our previous frequently visited booths. But we still had a good time together.

On Saturday morning we packed up, dropped Cookie off at our friend's house and headed to Salisbury to pick up Allison at school. Unfortunately she was not feeling well. She decided to join us anyway-better to spend time with family than alone when you are feeling ill. However, the Park turned out to be a bit too much for Allison. It was opening day and it turned out to be extremely busy. In the past, the opening weekend, so far from Halloween night, is usually not as crowded. But not this time. We arrived before the evening Haunted Houses opened and enjoyed our favorite Halloween show. That was enough for Allison. She and Tom camped out in the Octoberfest Haus, enjoying a Halloween musical while Allison sampled German meatballs. She had enough just walking around the crowded park, looking at the decorations and scary characters. She was just not up to standing in long lines waiting to get into the spooky mazes. So Tom and Allison headed back to the hotel while Scott and I ate dinner and then made our way through 4 out of 7 of the trails before Tom picked us up. We loved getting into the Halloween spirit. Just wished Allison was up for more activity. On Sunday morning we had breakfast and packed up for our drive back to Salisbury. We took Allison out to lunch and then shopping for lots of iron enriched meat!  She certainly does a lot better when she has eaten and fills up on an iron enriched meal. She is due for another transfusion next weekend. We left her to her studies as Midterms were coming up next week. And by Sunday afternoon, she was feeling a bit better although tired.

We were all pretty tired as we made our way back home with a quick stopover at the Outlet stores. Since we returned home rather late in the evening, I did not have time to visit with my Mom or even get the yard work done. We did pick up Cookie from our friend's house on the way home. And we did have time  to sit at the computer and fill out Scott's college application to Western Michigan. His ACT scores came through and were more than enough for entry into the school and to get him into the Pre Calc Engineering classes. We only had to fill out the online application, and now are waiting for his High School transcript to be emailed from his counselor. They already have his college test scores. Now we wait.  It was an activity packed weekend for sure!

Before we left I also took time to get my van into the dealership for an oil change and to sign up for a recall repair on my sliding doors. I was able to borrow Scott's car while mine was in the shop to get to work since he was off school. Unfortunately, my van radio is also deteriorating but Tom would rather me buy a new car than replace it. I just don't want to give up my van yet. It is comfortable for me to drive and hauls a lot of stuff!  Tom did change my brakes to save some money. He also had to repair the outside water faucet. I walked to the front door and heard water running-a big leak from a deteriorated washer. Glad I caught it. We did not need a flooded basement!