Falling Leaves!

We love fall, it's so beautiful and our neighborhood has some great trees to watch change during fall. Here's the tree we can see from our upstairs window. Just today, we had lots of wind blow through and now all the leaves are gone. It did leave a great pile of leaves along the side of our house, along with the other trees along our block.So what could I do but play fetch with the boys in them?! Here's Hobie looking around for his missing ball, and as you can see Gaius found his, and a mouthful of leaves, too!

So of course I had to make them pose for me. The leaves were really thick, and their front feet got lost!

Such a sweet boy, look at that smile!

That's my Bobo, and his tongue, too!

Send Us Your Good Karma!

So, Paul took the PAT on Saturday, Portland's physical agility test. It's a complicated, rigorous, and draining sort of firefighter obstacle course that you have to complete in under 8 min, 2 sec in order to pass. My firefighter finished in 6min 57 sec!! I'm so proud of him. So that completed step 2 of his 3-part interview process to get hired with Portland Fire.

We spent about 6 hours this weekend preparing for his interview with 4 of the higher-ups from Portland Fire, including the head of the entire department! I know he was ready, and that all they had to do was see the look in his eyes to know he was MEANT to be a firefighter. He feels pretty good about the interview, and remains very optimistic that things will go his way.

So now we wait. We hope to hear in the next couple of weeks whether he gets hired, and the first round of trainees enter the academy in December. So send us your good karma! I'll keep you posted!

Pumpkin Patch!

Sunday, our schedules actually all lined up, so the Portland part of the family (Me, Paul, Aunt Sandi, Uncle Tony, Alicia, Anna, and Trina) went to the pumpkin patch! We started with our traditional lunch at Rock Creek Tavern, a McMenamin's. Great company and great food!
After lunch, we headed over to our regular pumpkin patch. We've been going to the Plumper Pumpkin Patch for I think at least 4 years. Though this year was definitely the busiest! From now on, we'll aim for earlier or later in the season!

Paul was so mad I made him pick up this pumpkin. But I liked it, I thought it looked like a heart! ( I know, it really doesn't look that much like one now...)Among many other things, they have some amazing flowers there. They also have animals, pumpkin launching, corn maze, and all kinds of other stuff.

It was a beautiful, fun day, that was of course finished with our usual trip to Starbucks. I'm so glad everyone was able to be there!

P.S. That evening Paul and I both got a hair cut, and me a color also, from Miss Alicia. She did a great job! Thanks Lish!

My Official Volunteer!!

So, Paul is an official TVFR volunteer firefighter!! He got his gear and his badge today. I'm so proud of him!! Here's some pics I took of him.This is his badge!!

Full gear except for his jacket.

Who wouldn't want this handsome guy to come to their rescue?!