A couple of days ago, I heard trucks on our street and lots of crashing and crunching. “It can’t be!”, I thought, ah, but it was. They were demolishing the house across the street.

I’d seen signs of it for months– the tenants moving out, lots of trash by the curb. It was not a pretty house, nor did it look repairable, so this was rather exciting to me.

Of course, many little boys love to watch big trucks in action, so this caused lots of excitement in our house.

Gus had front row seats to a big demolition project!

He kept putting his hands on his head and/or shaking his head, saying “der makin’ a mess!”

It made for a pretty fun, out of the ordinary day for us, and we’re glad to see the neighborhood improving.

Gus has two favorite books right now, ones that he keeps on pulling out.

One is the Russian alphabet book that he’s played with since we were in Moscow.

I’ve shared about it a couple of times. You press on the letter and it makes the sound, along with a word that starts with that letter.

The other book that he’s really into right now is the Oxford Russian-English picture dictionary.

Last Sunday morning, he looked through the book telling me every picture that he saw. I was editing some photos and just not quite in the mood for this constant narration.  I told him, “I don’t really care”. He starting saying “Mama doesn’t care. Mama doesn’t wanna care. I gibe up!” Of course, that actually got him the reaction that he wanted when Aaron and I both started laughing.

I love that these are his favorite books right now. Even if he can’t read the words or even understand that it’s another language, I love that the sounds and shapes of the letters are getting into his brain.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, hopefully you already know what geocaching is. If not, basically, it’s similar to a scavenger hunt. People hide a container and then share the coordinates on geocaching.com. Most people go geocaching in daylight, but there are a few caches hidden that are specifically made for night. They give you the coordinates for the first spot, then you use a flashlight to follow reflectors. Aaron and I have done a couple of these in the past, dragging along terrified friends. Well, we took the kids to do their first night cache last weekend.

Some of you probably think that this is nuts or even dangerous. It’s really not. There was an entire boy scout troop camping in earshot and we walked right by a dad and his son fishing. Frankly, I’d much rather be in the woods with 3 flashlights and two smartphones than out trick or treating downtown in a city. Perhaps I should mention that we don’t have a lot of animals which pose a threat to humans around here, beyond fellow humans that is.

We started at sunset.

Both of the older kids were armed with flashlights and Aaron as well. I prefer not to use a flashlight unless absolutely necessary, instead relying on my eyes.

This was a two part geocache. So, you go to the first stage and get the coordinates that you need for the second stage.

Putting the first stage back.

I recently read a book called “Learning to Walk in the Dark”, by Barbara Brown Taylor. I’ll have to share about it sometime. It’s worth reading. As someone who loves the dark, it was fascinating, but I think it would be good for someone who is more fearful of the dark to read as well.

For one of the parts, we had to find this smiley face.

Reed found the cache.

Lots of fishing themed stuff inside.

We had a lot of fun! I think it was probably one of the kids’ favorite geocaches ever, and one of my favorites that we’ve done with the kids.

Happy Halloween!

Meet the cast of characters.

Today was also crazy hair day at school, so this guy was first crazy-hair Reed.

But then, he turned into a ninja.

We also had the king of the forest, the cowardly lion.

Of course, a cowardly lion also means that we had… Dorothy.

Oh, and eventually Buzz Lightyear (our friend Adrian) flew into the picture, too.

We had a mission: candy.

It was very cold here today (under 40 by the time we were out taking these photos), so we went to an indoor fall festival to keep warm. The kids got to play games and had lots of candy, too. Gus would play a game, get a piece of candy and then promptly plop down on the floor to eat it. Wherever he was, he would drop to the floor and have me open up his candy wrappers.

They had lots of fun. And we stayed warm, so it was a win.

Here are the photos from the last 3 years: 2012, 2013 and 2014.

I really do love fall. Cooler temperatures and beautiful temperatures. But, it also brings with it shorter days and the awareness that winter is coming. Instead of wishing it was still summer, I’m trying to get intentional about enjoying the beauty of fall.

I baked an apple pie from all of those apples we picked.

We’ve walked home from school, picking the streets with the most beautiful trees.

I’m normally “too busy” for this, preferring driving, which saves me about 45 minutes.

Little man actually walked over a mile home by himself.

Last week, I also baked apple cider donuts. Yum!

What are you doing to enjoy fall? Any fun ideas?