We’ll start from the end, shall we?
This year, Mark and his two buddies Tommy and Noah were dressed up as dinosaurs for Halloween.
Yep....Mark was very happy-hahaha.
The boys had a great time though! I am glad they still go Trick or treating and dress up an all.
That’s a picture of them heading to our driveway.
In other news, Robert wanted to take Mark to Montana like he did with the older kids. So we used our Delta Companion Certificate and booked them a long weekend trip to Fairfield.
Mark got to see his Great Grandma Lillian! Robert was so happy to be back for a quick visit and to see his grandma.
She is doing great but is definitely getting shorter:) She is slowing down quite a bit but is probably still mowing the lawn on her ride on lawn mower.
Sometime in October, I don’t know how, but Mark convinced Robert to take him to Busch Gardens for the day! Robert still gets an awesome price for the tickets as a veteran, so we figured why not use the perks of having just one kid at home for some amazing one on one time.
Of course! The Lochness Monster ride...
Fall was the last soccer season for Mark in U14. He has played on this team twice and loved to be one of the most reliable players--the Navigators!
This is Mark and his soccer coach who was always grateful to have Mark as part of his team.
Mark has scored a few goals. This is the most hilarious picture of all as it looks like the opposing team’s players are tiny-hahaha. Mark was not a giant but he was definitely one of the taller players.
Mark really loved being in a team--on good days. But I guess on bad days, it was a lot more relaxing to know that you didn’t lose alone. It’s such a different dynamics from tennis where you know that you can only talk to yourself when it comes to losses.
And her is the start team! They actually did pretty well this season once again.
Needless to say... we all felt a little bit like kids. It is interesting because it felt almost unreal to be there now that our kids are all big. I don’t know how to think about all of this yet...I mean grown ups go to these events all the time, but it was almost too silly to wait in line for fall rides meant for kids-haha.
We did complete a very complicated corn maze, I must say!!!
Did we get lost a few times? YES! Did we cheat? NO It was actually a fun thing to do, the grown ups version!
Robert finally had a reason to wear his “barn jacket”-haha. It’s been hanging in our closet for a few years and he always says he will find an occasion--and here it was. Fall in North Carolina is something special....
Oh, and look! Mark is 6 feet tall! Actually, possibly a little taller at that point. He is praying for at least 2-3 more inches!
Just a reminder--we still go on Sunday walks when we are in town. They are not nearly as long and remote as the ones we were able to manage during the lockdown, but they are still quite bonding and awesome.
Finally, one of the weekends, we were able to go to church and visit with the Butlers in Charlotte! Mark was playing a tournament and his schedule allowed us to stop by to say hello and chat for a bit. It was awesome! Then they came to watch Mark for a bit in the afternoon.
Pictures here don’t depict endless tennis practices and me driving Mark to school and back almost every day (17 min to be exact), fitness sessions at Bryan’s Tennis, stretching, reminding Mark to stretch, Mark doing lots and lots of work out clothes laundry, Mark eating his lunch on the couch watching tennis and me making smoothies and him restringing his racket (oh yes, we did get the fancy Wilson stringer that is soooo nice that makes everything go so much faster!), Robert restringing rackets and Robert working hard each day to enable us to have all these fun experiences and opportunities.
That’s all for now!
Lyana.
