Fall is definitely underway at the Carroll house. The kids are in a good school routine, Joe has his routine and I'm getting used to my new routine. We stared the fall with my sister's wedding, which was followed by a weekend of serious walking for our family last weekend which started with the First Annual Sherwood Walkathon, followed up by a Brownie hike & soccer, and ended with a memorial walk for Kennedy.
The walkathon was definitely a lot of fun for our family. My three friends, along with our spouses, put the whole thing together for our school. Jules walked the most in our family, 37 laps or a little over 8 miles in about 2 hours, followed by Jackson with 35 laps ("only because I walking with my friends") and Anna with 26 laps who had a blast walking with her various friends! In all, we have raised $19,600 for the school. Tonight, we celebrated with dinner and drinks out with two of the couples.
The girls are really loving their Brownie troop which we went on a hike to the beach with last weekend. It was so much fun to see them "chatting" with their friends and talking about things in the forest. Each of the girls paired up with another and then were given paint chips to find things in the forest that resemebed the colors on their paint chips. Of course they found tons of things. At the beach, we enjoyed our lunches in the fall sun and then the girls worked hard to move driftwood together for a Brownie fort. Too cute!
The following day, we had beautiful weather for our annual memorial walk for Kennedy. This is the 8th walk we've gone too at Gene Coulon Park with our PS support group and it was the best. I saw many couples from the group I was running in Bellevue over the past year. Each of them almost a year out from their loss. One couple had recently had a newborn healthy baby and several others were "trying" again. It was good to hear them talk about how far they had come in the past year. It was also good for Joe, the kids and me to keep Kennedy in our lives by talking about her, sharing pictures, and honoring her in the flower toss. This year, Joe read a poem to all attendees before we tossed our flowers into the lake. I was really proud.
Today was the first pouring down rain soccer games for all of our kids. Each had a 9 a.m. game and it was ABSOLUTELY pouring! Unlike me though, they all had a blast getting soaked and running up and down the field. Of course, they followed up at home with a hot bath or shower!
The girls and I will be working on costumes tomorrow. Jackson will be a skeleton (thanks to the recent long john purchase I made) and the girls want to be witch kitties.........hmm. Stay tuned.
/today I made 10 holiday cards! I absolutely love making cards and after today, I have 20 done. :) We're hoping to see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" tomorrow and then are looking forward to a pretty uneventful week (though I am going to camp with the fifth graders at my school) which will be ended with the first of our Halloween celebrations. Joe and I still don't know what we'll be!
We had a great time carving pumpkins at my school's pumpkin carving evening. Each of the kids did their own carving..........very interesting! They also enjoyed the haunted house that the parents put together. I was surprised because they had never been in a haunted house before. Someone jumped out jumped out from a chair and I was scared! :) 
