Mums for Mom

 

End of Fall break - and start of a different sort of breaking here, as you'll see in the picture below.  Maddie had another testing with martial arts tonight, and all went very well.  You can see her doing a bit of sparring both with combat weapons and without.  When it came time to do her board breaking, she told me she was praying that she could get the boards broken on the first try.  

That just happened.  She had no problem whatsoever.  All the students had some difficulties last week in practice, but tonight she just went up there and got the job done quickly, to great applause.  I was there to take pictures for all the kids, which I posted on the social media site afterwards.

Here's the whole group that was there tonight, not as many.  Maddie has about five more of these midterm tests until she gets her third degree belt.  She's in no hurry - it's all about the journey.  

Afterwards, we celebrated in the traditional style, dropping by the boba tea place for a few drinks, and then heading home.  She had some calculus to review, so Mom and I were watching one of our seasonal favorites, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken."  Attaboy, Luther!

Earlier today we were picking up a few things from the hardware store.  We got some paint and we picked up mums, another seasonal tradition.  I love seeing Mom get some mums.  For one thing, it's fun to say:  "Mom's mums."  Or "Mums for Mom."  However you say it, they look nice with the fall decorations.

We'll have the flowers on the front and back decks - the back deck we have to get to painting here soon enough.  Oh, and I picked up another pumpkin!  This one is white, and I hope to make it look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  We'll see...!

We also went over to Party City super briefly, as I was looking for a few things for Maddie costume.

Maddie started out "Spirit Week" in her western outfit, or at least something that looked a little "country."  It looked fantastic, of course.  Each day this week has a different theme as we lead up to Homecoming.  It's the last Homecoming of the year.

Mom and I went to Red Lobster this afternoon, just because we haven't been there in a while.  I really wanted crab legs, and yummy!  The order was so huge that we took half of them home and I'll be eating crab legs again soon enough.  

Tonight we read a bigger portion from "Equal Rites," and now Eskarina is with a caravan of travelers and we're meeting Simon for the first time.  We'll learn more about him in a bit, but it's been an engaging read. Maddie and Mom are both enjoying the reading.  And after that... prayers, and a good night's rest!