Connor wanted to play tennis on Saturday, but I wanted us to go to the driving range before tennis.  The boys did very well.  After some practice, Logan was able to get the balls in air quite consistently.  Connor was quite patient, set up nicely and had really big nice swings.  Stuart was using his action camera and I used my phone, but we both captured some nice clips of their practice.

    One day Logan came home and showed us a maze that he made at CDC.  Not sure if this was a thing the kids there were doing or just his own thing, but it was pretty awesome.  The maze was quite sophisticated and it worked!  Since then, Logan periodically creates one and they are cool.  I am amazed that he just keeps adding more routes and there is always a way to the end.  He incorporates different designs and traps too.  As always Connor follows Logan’s lead and starts making his too.  His is quite nice as well.  The two of them can just sit and draw for awhile.  They often try to draw them while I do their teeth; maybe it is their way to stall bedtime.

     Over a week ago when Stuart got the kids home, they saw Connor’s teacher walking by our house with her dog.  She stopped by to say hi to them and offered that Connor could walk the dog with her one day.  Connor was thrilled to find out that his teacher lives in our neighborhood, and from the description she provided, Connor had a sense where she might live.  Since then Connor had suggested/insisted us taking walks each night in hope of running into her.  On Halloween day after Stuart picked up the boys slightly earlier that afternoon, the teacher walked by again with her dog and she offered to take Connor for a loop around the block.  According to Connor, he had a chance to hold the leash and the dog was well behave.  The three of them walked down the long street and looped back.  They had small talks about his family and what he likes to do.  Then that night of trick and treating, we made it to the teacher’s house to get candies too.  Connor was so pleased that he said “I can’t believe we found Mrs. M…It is the best day of my life”.

    Halloween Monday was a busy day for us.  The kids were dropped off early at CDC as Stuart and I had to attend Connor’s parent teacher conference. 

     I had taken the morning off for all the school festivities.  I returned to school at 9am for the parade.  The weather was perfect but the blacktop was wet from the overnight rain, therefore most classes had the kids bring out a chair to sit on.  Each class was called up one at a time to march around the blacktop with their cool costumes.  After the parade, all the classes moved to the sides to take class pictures.  I managed to capture Logan’s class and rushed over to take Connor’s.  Then it was time for class parties, and I had signed up to volunteer at Connor’s.  The class was divided into three groups to rotate through different activities.  I was helping with the craft table, keeping the table organized and taking pictures of the kids too.  I also kept an eye on Connor as well; he got Bingo twice and did well with pumpkin bowling.  He of course enjoyed the snack table with donuts, fruits etc.  A mom suggested that I could go check out Logan’s class and she could cover me, so I took the offer.  Logan’s class was having a snack after they finished the crafted project.  The room mom rushed over to ask me to take some pictures; I did just that and helped Logan out of his costume before I returned to my duty at Connor’s.  Everyone in class had a good time, then they concluded the festivities and school returned to regular session.

    I went back to work after lunch, and tried to wrap up everything on time to go home.  After dinner and when it was dark enough outside, the boys and I started our trick and treating.  We hiked up to our upper neighbor first as they were expecting us and then to our other neighbors who the boys knew that they would get a giant bar.  There were lots of trick and treaters on the street, and we saw some cool and scary decorations.  One house we had to pass as it was too scary.  Connor wanted to go toward his teacher’s house, so we started another loop where was quieter, and the boys ended up getting more candies per house.  Finally we did find his teacher, and Connor was so happy that he kept telling me later “I can’t believe we found Mrs. M”.  After an hour and a half, we finished the loop and made it home.  Stuart was getting worried as he was running low on candies and that was after he used up the 12-14 bags of chocolate we had purchased.  The boys wanted to pass out candies then, but at that time, the night was coming to an end.  It was a good Halloween.

     It was Maxim’s birthday on Sunday, and he invited both Logan and Connor along with several of his other friends for a party at the Jungle Island.  The boys were very excited and we ended up arriving at the place same time as the host.  Connor was the only young kid in the group, so we reminded him to listen to the parents; then Stuart and I said bye to them.  Stuart and I had a nice lunch and did some shopping at a hardware store, then it was time to pick up the boys.  When we returned to the party location, the boys were still in the laser tag room for a few more minutes.  Connor turned out staying behind in the party room with the mom instead as he did not care to go into the dark room with the bigger kids.  Overall the boys had a wonderful time; they crawled around in the big climbing structure, played some video games, had pizza and cake, and finally had a battle with laser tag.  They had fun celebrating their buddy’s birthday.

     Connor reminded us to buy some pumpkins and later reminded me to carve them on the Saturday before Halloween.  The boys picked the designs for the pumpkins, and they helped me clean out the inside of the pumpkins.  Connor was serious getting the job done, and even assisted Logan with his.  Logan later also edged his design onto the outside.  After that, the boys were done with the pumpkins and moved on to playing Two Squares while I finished up the carving job.

    On Sunday I was going to make some pumpkin bread, and Connor was going to help me.  But he insisted that we also make a pumpkin pie.  Luckily I found a pie crust and I improvised with what the ingredients we had at home.  Connor and I eventually made both baked goods with Logan helping us beat the eggs too.  At the end, neither of them were a big fan of pumpkin pie.