Weirdly quiet Halloween

Sigh. These boys are getting older and it's resulting in a quiet Halloween season around here.

Noah hasn't trick-or-treated in years and doesn't have any plans to change that away at college. ;) (He actually had some thoughts but then realized he would have to explain the costume to people and didn't want to do that, lol.)

Asher & Micah thought maybe they were done with trick-or-treating this year. But then they were invited to go with some friends, and this is what we ended up with:

Micah's shirt says "it happens" and Asher's says "I'm a palindrome. T-A-C-O-C-A-T." According to the boys, the masks were very comfortable...which was a selling point for them. They're already gone for the night, and I'm assuming they'll have a great time.

Not sure what to expect here in the way of trick-or-treaters. In years past, we've had around a hundred. Last year, it was *maybe* a dozen. It feels like it's definitely dwindling, and it's a school night this year. Given that, I opted for full size candy this year...

...because when we have a cauldron of the little candies, it's too easy to just grab some and keep eating them. So, we're trying this approach and will see how it goes. :)

(Also, we didn't do any decorations at all this year. I continually offered and was told not to bother. :( I even sent some decorations to Noah...and am guessing they're still sitting in their packaging.)

Oh! And, this past Saturday, Asher & Micah joined most of their demo team at an outdoor haunted house:

It's not a great photo (very low light and was trying to be quick...Asher & Micah are on the far left) but this is just after we dropped off boys. The group of them went through the haunted house together and hung out until we picked them up. By all accounts, a fantastic time. :)

And, yeah, I'm sure the haunted house wasn't quiet, lol. But our time between dropping them off and picking them up was. So, happy quiet Halloween to you all! 

Heart happy

My heart is happy. 

My annual leaf picture tradition is intact. :) Unfortunately, the timing of October's earlier cold snap means that all of the leaves just went ugly and fell to the ground for the most part. But. Not to be deterred, I decided yesterday that the scant leaf display in our front yard would suffice and convinced Noah to join us and let me take some pictures...

I couldn't convince the other boys to do any jumping pictures as we've had in past years, but I think Micah's enthusiasm makes up for it. :) Plus, we managed a group shot...

We were trying to get the pile of leaves behind us in the picture but didn't quite succeed, lol. Micah's face is because Noah was tickling him. :)

And at least we had a pile of leaves...

Since we were home and not walking about the neighborhood, we also had a leaf blower, lol...which made gathering all the leaves easier.

And then the boys lost interest and declared their duty done and went inside. ;) But. I got my pictures.

(And Nathan and I took advantage of the weather and time to trim back plants and clear gutters and get the yard mowed and leaves all collected...which was also good. Happy fall!)  

Rock climbing

So. One of our newish local climbing facilities recently added homeschool classes during the school day. Upon mentioning this to Micah, I was surprised to learn that apparently he's very interested in rock climbing and has been wanting to learn more for awhile (first I'd heard of it, lol). You can see where this is going, right? :) 

Yesterday was his first class. Right now, it's just him and two of his friends who we corralled into joining to make sure there would be more than just him in the class, lol. The class is 90 minutes long and they loved every minute of it.

They started with some warm up and discussion about safety and rules then moved over to the "slab" to get going and allow the instructor to see where each boy was at:

(Micah's in the red shirt.) After that, they moved around to the "scoop" for some more challenging bouldering:

Micah quickly realized that a greater wingspan will help, lol. After more of that, there was time to try some higher climbs using the auto-belay systems:

It was pretty high but the boys were so proud of themselves when they reached the top...and enjoyed belaying back down. :) 

And then they "cooled down" with some easier climbs before going back and doing some stretching and then wrapping things up...

(Micah's way over on that far upper wall.)  

Admittedly I've not been in many climbing facilities, but I thought Ascent Studio was quite impressive. Beyond the amazing walls, it appears to be well run, clean and organized...all things I value. :) Plus, Micah's just in love with this now and is so looking forward to next week's class. Hooray!!

Five on Friday

1. On the yellow jacket front, everything seems resolved so far. We found one more spot where a couple managed to get inside but plugged that up and haven't seen more since. The Orkin man has treated the nest a second time and will be sealing the whole thing up shortly. Whew.

2. We're adjusting to our new normal around here with Noah off at CSU. We miss him, of course. But we're blessed to still be so close. Additionally, we're finding there are some perks to being a household of four: we have more leftovers available for lunches...it's easier to divide things by four, lol...there's less laundry...and we don't have to drive to JOAD practices and tournaments on weekends. 

3. Micah would like you all to know that he's officially taller than me now. He noticed last week (Oct 11, to be exact) and demanded that we measure...and, wouldn't you know it, he's finally just a smidge taller. :) 

4. Knowing that the forecast called for snow last Sunday and given how grey and chilly it had been earlier in the week, Nathan and I took advantage of the gorgeous day last Saturday to visit the Fort Collins Nursery's Giant Pumpkin event. The pumpkins were pretty impressive...

(Apparently, the winning pumpkin weighed in at 1568 pounds!! I think we might be standing in front of it in that first picture...you can't really see it.)

5. By the way, in case you haven't seen me lately...I had the ends of my hair dyed "extreme teal" last month. It's not as blue as I'd anticipated (which is what you get when you try to color over the top of what used to be purple, lol) but it's pretty fun and definitely more visible in the sunlight...

And now...since CEC has the day off today and, having planned accordingly, we finished all our homeschooling for the week yesterday...Asher, Micah and I are off to enjoy a beautiful Friday! 

Yellow Jackets

So, to avoid telling my tale repeatedly, I'm just going to post it here...

A couple weeks ago we started noticing a yellow jacket or two in the house. We didn't know at the time that they were yellow jackets but figured they were trying to get away from the cold. We dealt with them...either killing them or relocating them as the opportunity arose. Altogether, we had maybe a dozen over the couple weeks.

This past Wednesday, things escalated. In the morning, I had to vacuum up almost a dozen at once. The boys and I were not happy. We called Nathan...who was in Boulder for the day. He called some local exterminators, but no one was available to come until next week. We ended up having dealt with 16 that day and decided to try to just be patient and wait for the cold weather to end things. We tried to block off any place we thought they might be getting in. 

Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday in terms of numbers. We blocked off a few more spots and hoped for the best.

Friday was crazy. We had lots going on, and Nathan was again working in Boulder for the day. By 10 in the morning, I'd killed 9 yellow jackets. At that point, I had to drive Micah up to CSU to talk with an expert for his First Lego League team project (which went great! more on that later). We left Asher at home to finish his schoolwork and eat before 12:30 when I would be back to take him to CEC. When we got back (with just enough time to switch boys), Asher was rather frazzled...having killed 40 more while we were gone. 

Yes. Forty.

Obviously, that's not good. 

So. I hurried Asher to class at CEC, left Micah at home to battle the yellow jackets alone (I tried to see if he'd just come with me but he had things he needed/wanted to do and insisted he'd be okay), and called Nathan to insist that he find someone who could come *today*. I then proceeded back up to CSU because it's homecoming weekend and there was a parent informational session I wanted to go to, and I needed to get a few things to Noah and finish up the submission of his annual FAFSA stuff. 

While sitting in the session, I was texting with Nathan (who finally found someone to come out but the time was such that I wouldn't be back yet so then he worked out leaving work early to be there, himself) and Micah (who'd been killing them left and right and had started deciding it hadn't been such a good idea to stay home but was willing to go over to the neighbor's house...but ended up just going for a walk to a neighborhood smoothie place with Asher once Asher had walked home from class). I offered to change my plans with Noah (who I was also texting with, as he had an advisor meeting and we were trying to figure out where to meet) and go home to get Asher and Micah, but they decided the smoothie place was safe enough, lol. 

(Sidenote here to say that I feel awful that Asher and Micah each had to deal with any of this solo. Huge kudos to them for staying on top of things and being brave...can you imagine if we'd all just come home and walked in to dozens of yellow jackets swarming about the house? Yikes!)

So. I then met up with Noah and delivered some Halloween goodies and his winter hat (which he'd asked for earlier in the week when it was snowing a bit). We went over the FAFSA and his spring registration stuff. All good.

Meanwhile, Nathan got home and the Orkin guy got there. They found a yellow jacket nest in the siding of our house and figured out that they'd been getting in through the ceiling lights and had apparently managed to make a bigger opening or something, hence the escalation. Oy. 

Anyhow, they sprayed them and closed up the openings/lights. The Orkin guy will be back to spray again and then to seal up the nest. Friday's total count in the house was NINETY, but we haven't seen any since then. Whew. Seriously not a fan of yellow jackets.