happy Halloween!

Today we are up in Grantsburg celebrating Ivan's 12th birthday and will soon be carving pumpkins and getting some work done on this very windy mid fall day. 

Katie and Siri are making Grandma Grace's chocolate chip cookies, Osten and Ike are playing. Brad is up at the hunting shack doing some hunting, I'm going to be writing my school newsletter and then will head out for a walk.

Grandpa Bud made yummy coffee and we will see how the day progresses. 

Happy Halloween!

Katie and Siri and I thrift store shopping, got some fun finds and then we had yummy pizza for Ivan’s birthday dinner. Carved pumpkins and now we are watching Turbo. Fun Halloween. 

moon over Wisconsin

On a beautiful drive north, we saw the most lovely moon rising...

new glasses and celestial beauty

On Tuesday evening, Katie and Osten got their eyes checked at Shopko. I got a chance to pick up my new frames...I'm a fan. 

here's another cool sight I saw this evening on my walk. You can see Mars to the right of the moon...

So beautiful in the night sky. 

photo fun

Tonight Osten and I watched the Masked Singer and took some fun photos while the commercials aired and sent them to Anders. 

bells will be ringing...

Ibby and Mike are taking their relationship from being roommates to being wife and husband. So excited for their future together. 

first time voting

 Anders is getting to exercise his first presidential vote today! How exciting. 

home!

Such a nice weekend having Anders home. He is staying a little longer so he can head to city hall tomorrow to vote in his first presidential election. Today I made some meatloaf, peas, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes at his request for lunch. Then he and Lindsey played a little Dominion with me and then headed to her parents house for chicken wild rice soup. 

Osten and I are working on his math at the kitchen table--he's doing great! Then it will be time for bed. 

hiking day

 Today is going to be another hiking day. I went on a hike with friend Meg and then I also plan a hike at Willow River with friends today. 

Here is installation one of hiking:

dead end hayride

Tonight after school, I plan on driving up to Marine to spend the evening with my friend Julie. She's making dinner and then we are going on a haunted hayride. I'm excited to try something new and will report on it when we are finished. 

Update it was so fun! Dinner of salisberry steak, mashed potatoes, stuffed mushrooms and salad, then our haunted hayride and lastly our yummy blueberry donuts. What a wonderful evening. 

snaps of the college student

 

I love getting little picture messages from our ACO...it's so good to see his face. 

lost teeth progression

one of my sweet second graders has been going through a major tooth renaissance. His tooth fairy has been very very busy. 

views of this day

Predicted snowfall 3-5 inches. Looking more like 6-8 inches. First photo as I was leaving school today at 5pm. Second photos from our breakfast nook as I’m eating Katie’s lovely egg drop soup dinner. 

Katie and I are planning an evening stroll. It should be beautiful 

whew--that's a cold one!

This morning, I had to return the leaf blower early in the morning to ACE Hardware as Brad had a very early morning meeting in Siren. The pickup had hard frost on the windows...it was teeth chattering cold. 

Today, my wonderful husband made room in the garage to park the Prius for the winter. I think it was a very wise call as there is a predicted accumulating snow for tomorrow. Off I go in search of boots, mittens, snow pants and scarves. Ready or not, here it comes!

Here's sweet Kesleigh on a daytrip with her Daddy. He sent this photo of his sweet daughter with her new favorite toy...cannons. 

1 hike, 2 sleepovers and many loads of leaves

Today, my crew of walkers expanded by two--Sarah, Michelle, Gretchen, Angie and I walked the 5 mile Stillwater bridge hike...we logged almost 11,000 steps on that walk. It was even colder today than it was yesterday. But is sure felt great. 

Osten and Katie each went to a sleepover on Saturday night. They are kids who are in their class, so I felt ok sending them. They had a great time, but I don't think a lot of sleep happened. Katie was at friend Rachel's house and Osten was friend Michaels.

Brad and I rake A LOT of leaves today and took many loads to the compost pile (I think I counted nine). Brad worked a lot harder than I as he started the process as I was on my walk. It was good to have teamwork. 

Snow is predicted for tomorrow and Tuesday so we wanted to make sure to get most of the leaves off the yard before that winter precipitation descends. 

view of one of the many beautiful maples of River Falls while it was still clothed in it's leaves. 

2 hikes and lots of chill

Today I got to home twice. Once to Foster cemetery with friend Meg and the other time to the Stillwater bridge loop with Angie and Gretchen. 

snow snow ❄️

 Today as I was teaching a language lesson about nouns the skies started showering snow flakes. What a joyful day! 

mid October view

After a windy Wednesday, this is what the RF view looked like tonight 

Looking a little naked 

windy

 

windy windy windy day. River Falls is plagued by brisk winds today. 

beautiful bouquet

 Just look at this amazing bouquet I got at the Farmers' Market here in RF this weekend. The bounty of autumn.

test of online learning

Today, our school tested online learning with a class Zoom meeting at 9am and then some online learning tasks in SeeSaw. Nearly all my students attended the Zoom meeting and just a few went online to SeeSaw. I think tomorrow I'm going to make sure my kids who weren't on the Zoom meeting get a chance to practice and also get students on SeeSaw that didn't log in--just making sure they can make it work. 

Teaching is different, but we need to adjust to our reality :)

go Vikings

This is so extremely exciting...I don't even want to document, but the Vikings are playing the Seahawks  and are currently at the 2 minute warning in the 4th quarter...Vikings are 4th and inches. They are currently ahead 26-21. Please go!

Update...the Seahawks are 4th and goal with 0:20 on the clock. Brad, Osten and I are on pins and needles. 

Pass completion and touchdown. So so so so sad. We do have 15 seconds left to try and get a field goal. Now 10 seconds. Looked like game was over, then reviewed and the game is over. Seahawks 27-26. Sad trombone.

fall fun

Today is a day that is open and full at the same time. I just got home from a nice walk with friend Meg. Now I’m going to spend some time making a list of cleaning tasks and will start plugging away on the list. 

At 10:45, Osten and I will head to the football field for his last game of the season. Then he goes to his friend Coulters house for a sleepover. I plan on ticking away on my cleaning chores, hiking with my friend Sara, making dinner with my friend, Julie and then going to my friend Gretchen’s for her 50th birthday party. 

Full day but open for fun and friendship.

what a fun memory

Apple orchard and pumpkin patch 2009...what pure joy for Katie and Libby. 

mystery solved on Katie's freshman year photos

 We discovered that the reason I had the wrong child's photos on my Shutterfly account is because Katie's photos were credited to an amazing man named Carter Olson--my friend Angie Bond's nephew...I'm going to have to spend some time on the phone with LifeTouch to get it straightened out.

Funny thing is, Carter graduated with Anders. Not really sure how they got his name in the system.

happy birthday Siri Audree!

To our thoughtful, charming and talented niece and cousin, Siri Audree, wishing you a wonderful 14th birthday.

Here is Siri driving the boat shortly after she got her boating license this summer

no jacket!

For the first time in a while, I went on my evening stroll with Katie without a jacket! Enjoying these last beautifully warm evenings while they last. The sky was gorgeous--we saw lots of planets. Great evening.

 photo is from my nephew Kyle who flys around in one of these contraptions...so cool (& scary)