Saturday in October

Maddie's been working hard with her choreography for Team Edge, as have all the other students, and the end result is really picking up steam.  There is definitely a bit more focus and concentration, still a smile and still a good attitude about it all, and yet their time together practicing is certainly more deliberate.  Everyone gets along wonderfully and it's a great group of students.  Practices have extended on Saturdays to two hours of their time, and that's a pretty big chunk of a day off.  The end result is missing out on other things that may or may not be going on, which is kind of tough sometimes, particularly when there's great weather outside.  But this is where her focus is right now, and she's enjoying it.  She also enjoys the boba tea that she has afterwards - it's a great way to cool off after a few hours of intensely working out.  Maddie has settled on one flavor now, on flavor of boba tea that she hasn't strayed from in weeks.  I usually try new things, but always come back to an alpine green tea milk flavor with pearl boba inside it.  We sit for a few moments looking at the games they have set up there - eventually we'll need to take our time there and actually sit and play these games.  But usually, we're just there to pick up a drink and have it on the ride home.  After all, Mom is waiting there, usually with a nice big meal for us.

So October is winding down and we've managed to do pretty much all of our Octobery things, and watched all the Octobery movies we were planning on watching.  There were some new things in the mix this year too, of course, and that's always fun.  Of course, our family dynamic is such that we're a bit more limited than usual, but at least there are a few things we can do together, and that's worked out.  I just finished all my Monster cereal, and wouldn't you know it?  A neighbor knows of my love of that cereal and brought by some Frankenberry and Booberry, so that we'll be eating that until Thanksgiving!  I was rather insistent we watch "Monsters University" and "Monsters, Inc." today, at least in the background.  There are so many Octobery movies out there that you just can't expect to see them all.  We only do the family-friendly ones, and there's still just about too many!  

We have been doing a lot of Christmas shopping lately, and that's been fun getting out of the way.  Mom has some great ideas, and we've got a lot of energy for that, even now while it's still October.  We'll need that energy, because soon enough we'll be quite occupied with the Christmas production material.  We grilled out some burgers today, and this might be one of the last times we do that before it gets cooler, but there's this one burger out there called Waigu, and we were wanting to try it, and now we pick that up whenever we see it at the grocery store.  

She's busy working on Pilgrim costumes though.  We have about five Pilgrims and five Indians - and one turkey - for KidPak at Thanksgiving.  I was so happy to see that we can reuse the skits that we did so long ago.  The last time was twelve years ago, when Maddie was four.  The scripts date back to a time before that though, and they'll be able to be converted in such a way that our new cast can do them, including Maddie of course.  She'll be a Pilgrim.  Mom's got a nice outfit for her in mind, and she'll look nice all dressed up.  I myself will be a Pilgrim too, and yeah, we'll have to do a nice photo together, hopefully on our main stage.  It's great embracing this theme again.  Our friend Josh borrowed a book from me, "Mayflower," and he's working on a new animated project that really tells the true story of the Pilgrims and Native Americans at Thanksgiving, which is something that sadly isn't taught so much anymore.  In fact, a lot of history is not taught, and this is a pet project of ours - telling the true story of religious persecution, and of stepping out in faith.  With incredible videos, a new set, new booklets, and a full cast of characters, this new series is something to be excited about!  We still have one last day of "The Quest," of course, but we're already looking very much forward to the future.

I've just decided I really want a Monsters University hat.  Our Georgia football team seems to be doing well, although there is another big test next week.  The Braves may be out of the World Series, but the University of Georgia is still very much in contention for the rank of #1.  It will own that soon enough, I suspect, and that means a lot of our friends will be quite happy.  We're not so much college football people ourselves.  And again, I'd rather have a Monsters University hat than a UGA one.  But it's a nice season to be a  college football fan from Georgia, where you team is genuinely a number one team just romping over rivals that used to torment you, like the University of Florida.  Sorry, gators.  Love you, but it's time for you to feel our collective anguish for a few seasons now.

Moving on, we saw "Andor" tonight, and I have to say personally, I'm not as excited about this series as others.  I dunno.  It's just really down and dark and moody with one bad thing happening after another.  We'll see what happens next, but at the moment, we're sort of watching it to get to the end of it.

Okay, closing up, tonight we read.  And we said our prayers.  Tomorrow is a nice day at KidPak, again the last day of "The Quest."  It's been fun, but we're now wrapping up the series, and it looks like we're wrapping up October here too!