Welcome to South Carolina. Run!

We started out the week seeing the Upstate wildlife for ourselves.  Monday morning, a momma deer and two fawns walked across our front yard.  We've seen the trio in our backyard and our neighbor's backyard throughout the week as well.  There is a second momma deer with only one fawn.  Those two breakfasted in our backyard midweek.  Now when we take Benson out, we look for deer first.  Even driving through the neighborhood, we see other adult deer just grazing at other people's houses.  They very much live among us.  

Henry's big news for the week is that he started cross country practice.  He has practice 3-4 times a week.  His very first practice on Monday was challenging and he came back to the car quite sweaty and tired.  He said it went well overall though.

Then came Wednesday.  Wednesday was much hotter and there was zero breeze to be felt.  As I drove to pick him up, I passed his group walking back to the school.  They had run to the local middle school and run around their track.  It was a really challenging run and he was exhausted at pick-up.  He was less than enthusiastic to go back on Friday, but still he went.  Friday's run was better, but it is all still a challenge for him as he uses his muscles in a totally new way.  They're sore and he walks around complaining about his quads hurting.  We keep telling him he has to push through the soreness at the beginning because that'll get better the more he runs.  

This weekend, Todd took him to get new shoes.  His other ones were well worn and didn't provide the best support.  They went to a running shoe store and he tried on many different brands before settling on the Hoka brand.  He is now ready to start the week fresh.  There was a cross country college runner in the store and he told Henry, "Cross country sucks, but stick with it."  So, with those words of wisdom, the new week begins.  

There has been a lot of downtime during the week as well as we still wait for our furniture to be delivered.  We are/I am tired a lot of the time because air-mattress-sleep is not the best, especially air-mattress-with-a-slow-leak-that-leaves-you-on-the-hardwood-floor-by-morning sleep.  The kitchen is mostly all unpacked and functional, much to the kids chagrin.  They'd rather go out to eat instead of using the kitchen...  

The kids and I have thrown the football a lot.  It's a good backyard.  The mosquitoes attack us a lot, but they are a quarter of the size of the Texas mosquitos and their bites disappear quickly.  We've played a lot of cards and board games.  

Caroline went to work with Todd on Friday since he has a half-day on Fridays in the summer.  They were able to do all their laundry and this weekend we went back and did the rest of the laundry.  It feels better to have clean clothes.  Oh, to have a soft bed and a washing machine again.  

After their day of work and laundering, T & C went to the store for school supplies.  This weekend, we had a School Supply Christmas Extravaganza at home.  As Todd read through the school supply list, the kids picked what they needed for each subject.  Hooray, school!  They start in a week and a half, but I start tomorrow with in-services.  I'm going to be a preschool teacher this year.  

We tried a new church this morning.  It was a bit far away, which was the only drawback.  There they do Sunday school classes first, then the service.  When I met up with Caroline after her class, she said she really liked it and she had a good teacher.  She also liked the service.  Josiah had the same positive review - he really enjoyed the student class as well as the service.  Henry used a bunch of middle school slang terms, but all together it meant he enjoyed it.  

Todd and Josiah spent part of their afternoon raking.  A huge bonus to this neighborhood is that we can leave anything at the curb and it'll get picked up.  The leaves can be loose.    While they were outside, several neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves.  Everyone here has been very friendly.  Our next door neighbor gave us flowers from her garden and a chicken pot pie.   

Something that is an almost daily occurrence is Porch Photos with Benson.  He's a cutie.