on a pumpkin hunt!

it has been a gorgeous fall! wonderful weather for being outside. and so off we went today, in search for the perfect pumpkins... aka the biggest pumpkins we can carry!

as show for you first by ryan...

and then by jacks...

and here is ryan holding my cute "little momma" pumpkin...

because sunday is the only day he doesn't work, it's our day when we get to talk to dave as much as we want whenever we want...

and here is jacks' happy, cute face before they heard that daddy wouldn't be home for halloween...

and then ryan's after he heard... the day kind of went downhill from there.

well, it's not so good today...

since dave left on tuesday, i have been very well occupied -- why i didn't say "busy" versus "occupied"? i have been noticing that when i (or other people) say that i'm busy, it is preceding why i haven't done something or it's an excuse for my poor behavior? i've cut it from my vocabulary because i never want anyone to feel like i'm too busy for them again. enough said. i'm cranky... which is the point i'm trying to make here

okay, oh, so i'm cranky because dave left us for this new job stint in sunny burbank, california, and we've been going thru life, you know we go to school/work,














soccer games,














going out for pizza and arby's, field trips, harvest carnivals at school, football games (GOOD JOB, TRAVIS!)














and movies. we are going, going, going we haven't had time to really miss him... too much. but today, i only had to go teach dave's sunday school class--isn't he an amazing man? he teaches sunday school at our church... i can't stand the little monsters, and he just does it because he knows it's the right thing to do. and by little monsters, i mean my boys who were so squirrely this morning i was about to smack them both.


again, focus... so we went to sunday school, church and wal-mart for groceries and that was it. nothing else. no other distractions. i actually lost it in church, because dave has such a great voice when he sings, i can comfortably know that no one else can hear my dead bird's warbly singing, well maybe except for God. so here i am crying at church because poor me... my husband has got a nice new, very well-paying job and here i sit having a pity party when there are worse things in the world... people don't have jobs. people can't feed their kids. people are losing bits and pieces of their lives because of the onset of the recession. i don't want to be a whiner.


but i am having a pity party... i ate my pita/egg salad lunch (good for weight watcher points--i'm going to lose weight while he's gone. he can come home to a skinny wife) and promptly gave the clicker to jackson, curled up in a blanket and slept for most of the afternoon. then i watched the shows on the dvr, trying to free up space for more spiderman, spongebob and phineas and ferb episodes... and erasing all proof that i'm addicted to the GND. i have laundry to do--i bought socks at wal-mart so i didn't have to wash them, however. i have a ridiculously hard reference question exercise due for school tomorrow... who the hell is Gustavo Adolfo Býcquer? plus, i need to cook something (a few somethings) that will last us thru the week--dave usually cooks dinner! he's so awesome! and here i sit well past 10 blogging about what?


i remember when we were in college, and the soccer season was over... we got so drunk for a whole weekend, i usually missed school on monday. and the last year dave played--oh, yeah, it wasn't me playing anything organized. always dave, the team player... God, he's so great! anyway (again) that last year, we're driving around in his jeep with the radio blaring and with far more people than there were seatbelts. there were people piled on people, and we were all very drunkly singing/screaming the words to that proclaimer's song, 500 miles... and at one point those dorky looking bespectacled scots sing, And if I grow old well I know I'm gonna beI'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you, dave turned to me and winked.

this is the link to where the video should have been, but i got pissed off trying to figure it out, so click here...

and so here we are, quietly growing older together. there will be much more traveling in our future and it sucks... but until he comes home to us swimming starts, there are Halloween costumes to make--a scarecrow and a skeleton, other harvest carnivals to go to, various playdates, picking pumpkins, carving pumpkins, homework for everyone, library work, laundry to do, dinners to make, PTO meetings, bottles of wine to drink with friends and (thankfully) little boys to love...

the proof!

we stood in the freezing cold and wind and waited for the mutt strut to start...

then we almost went back to the car when we found out it was a 5k rather than a 3k...

but i bought the obnoxiously expensive shoes that were guaranteed to make my body not ache all over...

and i promised jacks we'd do it together, and i shot off my big mouth about doing this thing...

the first mile was okay--we trained for that...

the second mile was grueling--we weren't trained for that, and we walked a lot of that mile...

the third mile hurt like hell, but the end was in our sights! we walked much of this, but did run the last bit and thru the finish line...

the times are abysmal: jackson came in first in his age group at 45:20... then me (also first in my age group) at 45:36, and then ryan at 46:21 (2nd for his age).

did i mention there were only 7 runners, and 150 dog walkers? but we set out to do it, and WE DID IT!

what do you mean this a 5k?

we completed the

5K

there was no 3K... just three long miles!

but we did it!

pictures on the way...

the season is almost over!

i can't believe that the season is almost over, and i haven't posted any pictures of my guys playing soccer! what kind of soccer mom am i?

well, obviously, i didn't get a picture of ryan playing tonight either--

the yellow dragons lost... again.

but here he is next to our cluttered countertop (with just a few of the fruitflies from the peaches buzzing around--how gross!) explaining to me how thistalman battles his foes.

and who is this thistlalman?

he's a new character is ryan's ever growing comic book empire. it appears that thistalman is strong in his powers and able to swoop in and take care of evil-doers (see the picture of ryan demonstrating the "swooping"). in addition to said thistalman and his band of battling creatures, we have a whole book about the adventures of moose man and beaver boy. and that's dedicated to me... his "moose" momma! i'm so proud!

tomorrow is jacks 2nd to last game...

hopefully, we'll get to see him in action!

you know what assuming does, right?

if you put a child in the shower with instructions:

wash your hair with shampoo, and please don't forget to use the conditioner in your hair

wash your face and your body with soap

please be sure to rinse all of the shampoo, conditioner and soap off before you get out

you'd assume that somewhere along the lines the NECK would get a little sudsing... i was wrong.

this afternoon, i was getting a little ryan attention, and as i was soaking this up i began to look--really look--at his neck. it's grossly underwashed. what does he do in the shower for 15 minutes? it's not washing his neck, that's obvious. where is his mother?

anyway, fall is here and we're trying to come to grips with it! this weekend jacks, ryan and i are running our first 3K together. jacks read a book about running track in 2nd grade, and ever since he's mentioned how much he'd like to run. i've always held the conviction that people who run for fun are slightly mental; but when jacks saw the flyer for this Mutt Strut and asked me to run with him... i changed my thinking. i love that he asked me to run with him!

so now all three of us are running, and i can't think of a better way to spend our saturday morning... except maybe by scouring ryan's neck!

tapping into the maverick-ness...

there have been more times that i haven't voted than i'd like to say... yet, maybe i'm paying much more attention to the world that my kids are going to inheirit from us and i'm beginning to worry about their future... so here is my contribution into the realm of political-mindedness:

don't vote

please click on the link...

sorry about the confusion, mom! : )