This year Stuart and I did not really spend that much time together for our anniversary as he had to work.  I also ended up taking Buddy to the vet after my work too.  The reason for the visit was that Buddy has not been feeling well since his first training class.  He was having sneezing and coughing, as well as diarrhea again.  It was on going for 6 days when I took him to the vet; by then his sneeze and cough had resolved, but the diarrhea improved and got worse again.  The vet office was being cautious and did not want me to take Buddy inside the clinic; so we had to wait outside for the vet to come see us.  Buddy was very active and jumpy during the exam; the good news was that Buddy was not dehydrated and everything checked out ok.  So we were given some advice and a prescription for probiotic to take home.  That evening all four of us did go out for a quick dinner, then Stuart had to go attend the second training class that evening on his own without Buddy.

     Connor has a grand idea for Halloween this year.  He does not care to go Trick n Treat, and instead he likes to stay home to give out candies.  He wants to decorate the house and wants to be scary with his costume.  One of his ideas for the house was to add a fog machine which we thought was interesting and thus here we now have one. 

   I dropped Logan off to the potluck party on Friday for cross country.  He immediately sat down on a chair to play with a few friends.  When we picked him up, he was hanging out with Maxim.  Logan and I quickly said bye to the main coach; she encouraged Logan to join the team again next year, and Logan seemed thrilled with that idea.  This wrapped up Logan’s first school sport team; we thought Logan did a great job participating and had a very positive attitude toward everything.

      Lisa and I had been talking about going up to Mount Umumhum since last year, and we finally decided on last Saturday.  We were worried about the limited parking up on the hills, so we asked Stuart and John to give up rides; however at the end, it turned out that Stuart had to drop off and pick us up.  Stuart dropped us off at the Bald Mountain parking area.  From there, Lisa and I hiked the 3.7 miles up to the summit.  The trails were very nice and shady part of the time with beautiful trees; the hills were not too bad to hike at all.  The summit had been recently built with a nice parking lot, well constructed 156 steps and a shaded seating area with some visitor information.  There was a ranger up there who talked with us while we waited for Stuart to pick us up.  Next time we could totally do the round trip (7.4 miles) back down to the Bald Mountain parking lot instead.

    I was happy that I got picked to be one of the chaperones for Connor’s field trip last Wednesday.  The location was the Mission which I did not get to go when Logan went as a 4th grader.  I met up with the class at the beginning of the school day, and waited for the bus.  Connor chose to sit with me in the bus and we played “chopsticks” and talked until we arrived to the mission.  We were split into groups and I was assigned to total of 5 boys.  We were assigned to go visit the mission and the shops on our own first before lunchtime, and we would have our tour by the guide afterward.  Our group ended up spending our time with Connor’s buddy Neil’s group.  We walked around the garden and the church, and the 9 kids were more excited when we arrived at the shops.  All of them spent quite a bit of time looking for souvenirs at the rock shop; Connor bought a rock necklace and a nice piece of rock for choker as well.  Some stopped by the ice cream shop for some candies too.

    We rushed back for lunch and we could only have 15 minutes to eat.  Then we met with the tour guide for an hour of tour.  She took us around the mission and shared lots of very interactive information.  The kids were attentive and the parents as well during this tour.  After the tour, we had a few minutes and my kids chose to get a small treat at the shop before we hopped back onto the bus to return to school.

    The third meet (#3) two weeks ago was cancelled due to extreme heat, so the kids ran the hills last Tuesday as their last and final meet.  I decided that I would like to watch Logan’s run the entirety, so I left work a bit earlier.  I was happy that I made it there on time and saw all the kids in the Open group lining up.  Logan spotted me too and waved to me.  It was so thrilling seeing the kids took off, at the whistle and I totally saw Logan sprinting.  He was proud and told me later that he was leading the group for some time at the beginning.  The group disappeared into the hills for awhile, then I started seeing some, including Logan, start crossing back to enter that big steep hill.  Most kids were walking up that hill, and afterward they were preparing the downhill finale to end the race.  Logan showed up not really that far behind the top runners.  I saw him trying to cross another runner, but that runner kept blocking him and Logan ended up crossing the finish line behind her.  Logan ranked #36 this time which was better again compared to the meet #2, so Logan was very excited.  He was exhausted and had to sit down to wait for Maxim finishing up.  The top runners from each grade would be representing the schools at the County Champion meet next week, but for the majority of the kids, this was the last meet.  Both Logan and Maxim enjoyed this season and both told me that they would do it again next year.  They will be having an end of season gathering next Friday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_shuyxMhHU