Season of Birthdays!!

Happy Halloween!! Our tradition is trick or treating in Mimi's neighborhood with this crew.

Sorting the loot.

Aaron's last 3k for cross country. He got his best time of 12:25. Go Little Gib!!

The kids were also active playing their new favorite outdoor game, ultimate frisbee.

The usual crew until we lost Bruce to an ankle injury. Sad.

One evening at bedtime...No cats allowed inside!! But AWWW.

Josh FINALLY grew mushrooms! He's been trying in various ways the last year or so.

Aaron is a teenager!! Happy 13 to this sweet, handsome, smart, meticulous guy.

For his birthday he had a sleepover party afterschool that began with his favorite outdoor game...

Ultimate Frisbee!! Most of the guys had never played before but still had a blast!

Here's the gang. A bunch of nice guys. I love the pennies!

Pizza party for dinner, of course.

And a bonfire with smores for dessert.

The next morning. They slept in the upstairs living room.

Comfy in his new Baby Yoda onesie gift and dog bed.

The cat food bandit!

Celebrating Mimi's birthday at Top Golf.

Then lunch at her old WI favorite, Culvers.

Noooo!!! About a week later, Benny tested positive for COVID. So the kids were out of school for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Great timing really.

Oh glorious fall!

Playing in the leaves.

He doesn't look very sick to me. Thankfully he only had a stuffy nose and mild sore throat. The only reason I tested him was because he lost his smell.

Eating Thanksgiving dinner outside with Mimi, just to be safe. As far as I know, none of the rest of us got it. PTL!

Sweetie's Thanksgiving meal, a cotton rat! 1st time seeing one of these around.

With the extra time at home we were able to make progress on our building project. While Aaron played legos. Ha!

John next door had to come over to supervise the roof, it was difficult.

Ta Da! Our new carport. So the CRV doesn't melt this summer.

Happy Birthday Ms Addy Grace!! That's 17 candles.

Blurry but I LOVE when I catch her big smile. She's so sweet!

Her friend birthday party was delayed a week but everyone made it.

Her close school friends Keira, Lindsey and Allison. All very nice girls.

Pizza again, everyone's favorite.

Friendsgiving with the cruise crew. I LOVE these people so much.

Kim gave us our cats, so this is their brother.

Jackson's sketches that I call masterpieces. This is what he does with free time.

And they still play legos which always makes my heart happy.

Shenandoah National Park

For fall break we visited Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

The main attraction for us was the highly rated Old Rag Mountain hike.

The unique parts about this hike were the various rock obstacles.

Several of the scrambles were so tricky that they caused bottlenecks and we had to wait a few mintues to get through after other hikers.

The kids did outstanding with Benny usually leading the way.

The only negative was the length, 9.5 miles! Our longest ever.

Go Sis! This girl can hike but even she was sore the next day.

Made it to the top!

Oh, the views...

Fall colors made the scenery more beautiful.

It was windy on top. Jackson, put on your sweatshirt!

We only stayed a few mintues before heading back down.

A better place to take a break.

Thank you nice person for taking our family photo!

A much easier, boring way back down. Benny and I were dying by the end. A quick stop at the grocery for dinner. Then baths in the clawfoot tub were a nice ending to the day.

Day 2 - Exploring Skyline Drive inside the park. Bearfence Mountain hike, only 1 mile.

More rock scrambling along the way.

Our last and final hike to Rose River waterfalls, a 3.8m loop.

Most of the trail followed the water with falls along the way.

Giving some love to this sweet boy.

A colorful place to rest.

I think she liked it! Addy's favorite colors to wear are fall so she matched the scenery.

After stopping by Skyland Resort to unsuccessfully grab lunch, we ended up finding food on our last stop at Luray Caverns.

Dream Lake. The bottom half is a reflection on water. Our favorite spot.

Coolest features, cave drapes.

This was our 1st time on a self guided tour which was nice.

The wishing well has collected over $1 million over the years.

The tightest section.

Afterwards we grabbed dessert and headed halfway home to Roanoke. The next morning we skipped a hike to get back for track and soccer practice.

Note: No photos were edited for this post.