Quick Update

Adam and, neighor Patrick, on the attack

Adam and Derek on the "Frog Hopper" at the county fair

Adam helping out with the planting

I thought I would do a quick blog update since I haven't updated it in a while. I get cranky when I feel like too many memories have gone by undocumented. It seems that all the weeks lately have been a blur with work, school, soccer, tennis, and football.

The boys are really enjoying soccer. Derek's team got a rare win this weekend, so they were all happy. They're finally starting to work together. Adam is a dynamo and never seems to tire. He's even getting better at staying on his feet.

Helen's not on an official ALTA tennis team, but her group does a weekly lesson and Calcutta style round robin. She wasn't aware that there would be a lesson followed by a Calcutta match each week. She likes being able to get out and have some fun, but she's not sure she enjoys it enough to be getting home at 9:30 when she has to get up at 4:45.

We managed to make it to a couple of our favorite Fall activities, the Gwinnett County Fair and Duluth Fall Festival, where we ate the usual funnel cakes and other bad food. Helen always complains that the food seems like it's going to be good, but that it takes days for her stomach to recover.

Helen's also been a trooper and gone along with us to a few high school football games. It's difficult on Friday nights since Derek has soccer practice on Friday nights and then the kids have to be up early for their soccer matches on Saturday. The kids are usually excited to go because they can eat hamburgers and candy, but they're usually ready to go after the halftime show.

I'm waiting for some rain in the forecast before I put down the fall grass seed, but the rain just won't come and with all the watering restrictions, I may just have to wait until early spring. However, I did manage to replace a couple shrubs that died, with Adam and Derek's help. One of the shrubs in the front died a few years back and I'm replacing it for the third time. It looks funny because it's right in the middle of a long row of shrubs. I replaced it the first time without doing much soil preparation and it died again the next Summer. I replaced it again and made an effort to prepare the soil, but it still died the following Summer. However, I did notice that our cat was using the bathroom around the shrub, so I'm thinking that the cat has been killing the shrub all along. I'm going to put some chicken wire or something around it this time.