Beautiful Fall

The joyous days of Fall are passing quickly.  The colorful leaves are falling, leaving naked branches; not nearly as lovely to look at as the leaves.  Here's a view of fall in part of our yard.  Look quickly; it will soon change.

We are slowly adjusting to having kids at home once again.  Wow are they busy.  Basketball rules for Angelica and soon it will be so for Seth.  Here is Angelica with her Basketball jersey.  She's pausing from Dish Duty.

Just about every evening is filled with some sort of kid activity.  Allegra, Seth and Angelica carved pumpkins last Monday.  It was fun even if our pumpkins are beginning to look a little sad for Trick or Treating.

We spent over 35 years in Fremont, CA and got to know lots of wonderful people.  Now, years after that, most of them have gone, like us, to other locations.  Once in awhile, we get to reconnect with some of them.  This past week Ron and Marlene Natali visited us, on the way to somewhere else, as is usually the case.  It was sweet to renew our friendship and catch up with their life, now in Utah.

It is interesting to see how youthful dreams morph over time.  Life has its surprises.   I never imagined in my younger years a life in Idaho, working with pornography addiction.  My prayers to be close to family have given us a surprising answer in the form of two grandchildren living here with us.  Yet it brings with it sweet family rewards.  And, perhaps, with a little more time, some more family. Life does not often turn out the way we hope or anticipate, but, sometimes, it turns out infinitely better.

Here are some sweet family rewards:

Rayne and her sweetheart Dominick will soon be married.  We will then have an Englishman in the family.

We have an adorable great-grandson, Hunter, who brings new light into the family circle.  He's one year old already!

Halloween has come and gone!  I was anticipating that Seth and Angelica would really get into it.  Seth was absolutely not interested.  But Angelica was.  While Seth stayed home with us, Angelica went trick or treating with a school friend and brought home quite a haul.  

There isn't much candy-eating in Taiwan, you know.  So, what to do with this pile of sweets?  Well, as you might be able to conclude from this photo, Seth was more than willing to help shrink the pile.  But since he didn't put any work into it, Angelica would only share one small bite.  That's what you get for taking someone else's earnings!  Since these kids don't have much of a taste for really sweet things, Angelica plans to take the goodies to school, a little at a time, and give them to friends.  No wonder she seems to be accumulating a growing number of them.

Halloween is a fun way to begin the holiday season, since, in my opinion, it is the least important.  We are moving on to thoughts of Thanksgiving and hoping that our plans to share it with California family will not be interrupted by...Basketball!