Trick or Treat

Trick or Treating is Dave's favorite part of Halloween.  We invited Owen, the pirate, and his Mom Tammy to join us for the night.  We met up for pizza (and beer for the adults) prior to taking the boys out for the fun.  All the boys did a great job going to the door, asking nicely, and saying thank you.  About an hour of this and we were done.  Dave could have gone all night, but the boys had plenty of candy and so we headed in for the night. 

Pumpkin Carving

Garrett and Gannon were excited and eager to make their pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns.  Of course they both thought they were big enough to cut their own pumpkins, um no! A two year old with a knife is a little scary.  After a few minutes of explaining that they are not old enough and the knives are dangerous they were okay with their jobs being scooping the seeds.  Even this job is a little more intense than their little muscles can handle.  I tried to do something a little cuter than the simple triangle jack-o-lantern that I'm good at.  Details with a knive are not my style.  As you can see in the picture we stuck to a simple design!  Their kids, they loved them and especially loved them being lit up.

Halloween Carnival

Our Lady of Mercy hosts a Halloween Carnival every year so I took the boys with Grandma and Papa to have fun.  Garrett and Gannon are both at the age to understand games and had tons of fun.  Papa was ready for some dessert so the boys took a try at the cake walk.  Garrett was very upset that Gannon walked away a winner!  Both boys of course LOVED the bounce house slide and could have stayed on it all night.  It was a lot of fun and another excuse to run around in their spider man gear. 

Bear Creek Pumpkin Patch

Since Gannon was sick for the Corn Maze trip we decided to recover him with a trip to the local pumpkin patch.  They have a small version of a corn maze, which is plenty big enough for our little guys to get lost in and have fun.  Garrett and Gannon have great organization skills which is no surprise! so all they wanted to do is organize and stack the pumpkins.  An hour or so of fun and Gannon forgot all about missing the corn maze trip!

Corn Maze Trip

The annual corn maze trip with the Atwater FFA turned out to be a trip for just Dave and Garrett.  Garrett had been sick the week prior and of course Gannon had to have his turn and on the day of the corn maze.  Gannon had been so excited for the trip, but being sick wasn't able to go. Garrett had so much fun, mostly in the bounce house! 

USC Football

After being tortured at the UCLA game Papa Dave stopped by the house with a present for the boys...USC football shirts.  If his grandson's are going to love football he would rather it be in USC colors!  Garrett and Gannon were so thrilled to get new football shirts that they even had to sleep in them.  Dave just loves that they both love football!

Our little Math Magician

At school Garrett had been doing math worksheet so I printed a few for him at home.  I was amazed at his adding skills as a 4 1/2 year old!  I printed up some kindergarten worksheets and got out the counting cubes I had bought this past summer and showed him an example problem two different colored cube sets.  He followed my one example and completed the entire page all by himself! He can had vertical or horizontal problems with the sum up to 20! Seriously crazy in my book.  He loves doing math and has almost finished the kindergarten math workbook that I picked up at the bookstore after printing 10 worksheets.  Everyday as soon as he woke up and came home from school his workbook was the first thing he would ask for.  I LOVE it!

Riverbank Wine and Cheese 5K

Where do I start....In June when I was hired at Merced High School I decided I deserved a personal trainer!  I had been working out for about a month on my own and wanted to learn more about full body workouts vs my typical cardio routine.  I meet once a week with my trainer and love the workouts.  I can say I haven't really lost much weight, but can tell the difference in my body and strength.  I had talked with Dave about running a 5K and really wanted my first one to be the Dragonfly run in San Ramon, but it was on the same day I had to take the CSET so that was out. 

My friend Gretchen has been running and losing weight for about 6 or 7 months and she is such an inspiration!  At our scrapbook retreat she was going to go running and I thought I would join her to see if I could actually run 3 miles outside.  Ah, piece of cake!  It was a little challenging at parks because there were so hills that were a little steep, but we did it. 

Gretchen was registered to run a 5K in Riverbank a few weeks out and I thought that would be a good opportunity for me to run a race and not be completely alone.  Gretchen, her sister in law Amy and I met up a few times over the next couple of weeks to run 3 miles and our time improved each time.  I mentioned to Gretchen that my goal for the 5K would be to complete the race in under 30 minutes. She gave the "you're crazy" look and warned me not to run too fast at the beginning and tire out.  I ran a couple of times alone prior to the race and ran a 9 minute mile which was good enough to put me under 3 miles at the race.  I was confident I could reach my goal.  Dave had his plant sale the day of the race so he kept  the boys.

Another friend that I met from scrapbooking, Nancy, was also running but she was doing the 10K.  Nancy and her daughter rode up with my and Nancy started the race with me to pace me.  I finished the race in 28:42!!! I definitely hated parts of the run, but just like much of my life, put my mind to it and got it done!!!

I'll catch the Dragonfly Run next year!

Charis, Nancy, Gretchen, Amy, and Me

UCLA vs Stanford

Dave bought tickets for him and Garrett to take Papa Dave to the UCLA vs Standford game.  Garrett loves the individual time with Daddy and it's always a treat to get to go alone.  The game was changed from a day game to a night game for television so Garrett and Dave ended up staying the night with Papa! Even more of a treat, a sleepover.  Papa is a good sport to watch UCLA because he is a USC fan!