Cold Much?

Fall is upon us, it seems. A bit harshly, yes? One day it's 25 degrees and the next you're scrounging around for last year's mittens.

Busy, busy around here. Some of it is not my favourite (see: homework), but most of it is good. We're starting to get into the rhythm of school, work continues to hum along, and we move through each week with astonishing rapidity, so that one blink seems to bring a Monday, but the next one brings the weekend.

The Husband's been keeping busy with a gruelling training schedule over the summer preparing for his Big Race, which he ran this past weekend. 10 whole miles!! I'm quite proud of him, not least because I have tried running and pretty much hated every single step. I can't imagine running for over an hour because you want to.

But, he wanted to, and here he is all beaming and bright after finishing:
My beamage and brightness came this weekend in the form of fantastic friends from Canadaland who made their annual trek to see us and love us up good. They introduced us to geocaching, which is essentially "X marks the spot" meets "Big Brother is watching."

Got some nice bike riding in, and we finally found Minnehaha Falls. (Yes, we are obviously in need of some orienteering skills, as we have ridden our bikes around Lake Nokomis before but couldn't find what is actually a relatively large waterfall.)

Lots of hanging out with the littlekins, which I love. One of the hardest parts about living here is knowing all those babies back home are growing up without frequent and gushing administrations of Taunte-PM-Love. Plus, I want so badly for the special little people in our lives to be more than just pictures on the refrigerator to The Boy and The Girl. So watching the 8 and under set exploring together was simply lovely.

And, of course, lots of gratuitous cuteness: