Jack came home to celebrate his birthday weekend. Thomas picked him up in Tallahassee. It’s about 8 hours roundtrip, but Thomas says he doesn’t mind because it gives him extra time with Jack. Their actual birthday was Saturday. Anna wanted everyone to be together, so we all went to some of Luke’s tournament. The first game was at 8 and it was about 45 minutes away. Luke’s report time was 645, so Thomas and Luke left the house at 6. The rest of us left the house around 9. We stopped at Starbuck’s so Anna could get her free birthday drink. Then, we headed to the baseball fields. This tournament was in Davenport and navigation had us go down I-92, which is an extreme tourist area. Traffic was light at that time of day and we enjoyed driving by the crazy gift shops, miniature golf places, and other tourist traps. Kara took some great action shots during the game, which the parents love. They had been asking if she would be back this season.

I can’t remember how Luke’s team did in the tournament, which probably means it was fine. That night, we had Anna’s chosen meal of grilled burgers, mac and cheese, fruit, and chips. Although it was raining so she had to settle for air fried burgers. We had Jack’s cake, which Anna made. He wanted something with pumpkin but left the details up to Anna. She made a pumpkin cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. It was really good. They opened their gifts and I think everyone was happy. The truest adage of parenthood is that the days are long but the years are short and I can’t believe that this is their last year of teenagerhood! I wish I could time travel and spend time with toddler Jack and Anna. I miss them at every age. But, I am thankful for the amazing humans they are today.

 

Kara submitted all her college applications, so now we wait. She applied to UF, FSU, UCF, USF, and FAU. All of those schools are ranked in the top 100 nationally for public universities and she should get into some, if not most, of them so we expect her to have some great options. When we made our pro/con list for moving to Florida, the plethora of good, affordable colleges was at the top of the list, so it is nice to see that coming into fruition.

 

Luke’s baseball team has split into two teams. Luke has been guest playing with the secondary team, so it seems like most weekends are now baseball weekends. Luke and Thomas don’t mind. I try to go to his Saturday games, but generally need at least one weekend day to clean, grocery shop and run other errands, so we are often a family divided.

 

School is going well for Anna. She thinks she wants to be a teacher, so is going to take an introductory class next semester and see how it goes. She and I went to Epcot on the 13th to see The Fray in concert. They put on a good show. The main singer (Joe King) was really engaging. At one point, he was running through the crowd, high fiving and taking pictures with people in the audience all while singing. As I said with Garth Brooks—it is really fun to see a performer having fun performing. After the show, we sampled a couple of things from the Food & Wine Festival and called it a night without riding any rides (it was crowded!). It was a beautiful night and we had a great time.

The girls and I did a final Friday night at HHN. We had a really fun visit. Anna used her free ticket from her annual pass, as her HHN pass was expired. So, that was definitely her last time this season. We did 7 of the houses, rode Men in Black, had dinner and butterbeer and left by 9 before most of the Friday night crowd even arrived. We felt very efficient.

I visited my dad on the 17th and then went to Winter Haven to have lunch with my sister for her belated birthday. She was also born on October 3rd; it is a great day in our family for birthdays! We had a nice lunch together and enjoyed catching up. It was also nice seeing my dad, he was in good spirits.

In work news, both Thomas and I won our protests! 

And, that's all the news for now.