New Year

A light at the end of Prince Street in old town on a foggy end of 2021.

Neighborhood Walk

Walked about 3.5 miles early Christmas Eve to see all the lights. Some streets were more festive than others but tons of cheer out there. This is Dylan sporting his Old Glory garb for a social media post I believe he posted.

Pickle Cousins

Some pickle ball and cider this afternoon.

Orono Hockey

Watching Mae bring the pain.

Canadien Embassy Tree

Canada the nicer neighbor to the north.

Nicole’s Morning Run

Early run downtown to see the holiday sites. The Capitol is much more peaceful without the MAGA insurrectionist's around.

Late Fall Skies

No snow but fall like weather most days.

Flying Pig Christmas

The decorations around use get interesting this time of year.

Abrahamic Saturday

A celebration of monotheistic religions based on the first prophet. I prefer Saturnalia but it's hard to find decorations for that at Target.

Tale of Two Holidays

We are celebrating 9 crazy nights of Hanukkah this year to include the boys and grandparents that are all leaving tomorrow. We got our winter solstice trees today as well.

Flyer Visit

We got flyer on Saturday and he gets picked up again on Saturday night or Sunday. He's a good dog.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

Good to have everyone in the same house again.

Japanese Maple

Had a tree cut down and replaced by this Japanese maple about a year ago. It's not really growing that fast but it sure is pretty in the fall.

Cold Comfort

21-14 loss on a cold day in Des Moines. Dylan and I watched from the warmth of home.

Vote

Got to visit the boys grade school lunch room today. Unfortunately not enough Virginians are voting today which will may allow a minority to take the state backwards to the good ol' 1950's.

Jack O Lantern

We have a couple pumpkins all dressed up for Halloween.

Night Walks

We shift our walks to night around this time of the year to catch Halloween decorations then of course Christmas lights. Love seeing what the nieghbors are doing to welcome the season.

Minus Boys

First pumpkin harvest without the boys along. A little sad but it was we made the best of it.

Pool Shark

Actually I'm the pool shark, beating Sam 5-0 on a rainy afternoon at The Rack in Des Moines. Had a great weekend with the kid, parents and aunt. Unfortunately my trips to and from DSM averaged 7 hours of delays each due to computer failures, rebooking on different days and weather. I did make it to Des Moines 7 hours late on Friday, missing dinner with everyone and got home 7 hours late on Monday, missing a good workout. I'm sure I will return regardless of the issues.

Yellow

The trees are turning on campus.

Drake Morning

Long day yesterday but woke to a crisp fall day. Covid cancelled the football game but we will find something else to do.

Stuck in Chicago

Flight one was early, flight two, cancelled. Instead of arriving at 3:30 and having dinner with mom, dad, Sam and Robbie, I'm eating crap from the United Club by myself. Looks like I should be in Des Moines by 9:15 now.

Morning Moon

I kinda like getting into the office when it's dark. Still going in Tuesdays and Thursdays and it should be dark at 7am for most if the next few months, minus a week or two after DST.

First Fire

It's barely cold enough but a cold front came in while were at Dylan's rugby game and dropped the temperature 15 degrees in 3 minutes. It was followed by a ton of rain and wind which made the end of the game fun. The longest summer in recent memory is finally gone and the chimney was swept so a fire is in the box.

Fall

No fires yet but the chill is on the way.

Forward

This is from last weeks game against Maryland. They won big and Dylan played a full game on B side. He was good on all his conversion kicks and ran and tackled well. They have the weekend off and he's headed home on the train today. It will be good to have him in the house for a few days.

Back

Third time back in the office since March 2020. Trying out a Tuesday and Thursday schedule right now to mix things up a bit. The building has been open since August 1st on a voluntary return to the office policy and I figured a change of view would be nice. I do have windows on three sides of my office and nice views of DC with a lot of light. While the commute is still annoying, the change in space is kinda refreshing.

Grays Lake

We did a lot of walking in Des Moines including Grays Lake. Lots of public trails in that area that all hook up to other trails. Good walking city.

First Drake Football Weekend

Not the game result we were looking for but fun to see Sam for a few days.

Pre Game

Bulldog Rally before the boys head to the locker room.

Earth Drawings

The fields on the way into Des Moines look like some sort of massive art project.

Parents Weekend

Arrived in Des Moines this afternoon and checked into the Hilton across the street from the Drake campus. Nice fall weather and dinner with Sammy soon. Haven't seen that kid in over 7 weeks.

Game Day

Dylan had a good first outing on the pitch last weekend in a loss to Penn State. He was thrilled to be playing again and with his new teammates. Nicole and I had dinner with him and a friend of his on Friday night and with just him on Saturday before the post game team party. Rugby players tend to party a bit.

Morning Calm

Nicole gets up at unreasonable hours to get her long runs in before it gets hot. The benefit of that is quiet pictures like this.

Miller Time

Miller, the dog hanging out at the mountain house.

Birthday Week

Started it out in the Shenandoah around a fire pit. Always nice to get away to our friends Bryce house.

First College Game

Sam and his roommate CJ. Not a lot of playing time for either of them but hey, they are freshman and likely to have four years of eligibility at the end of the season.

28 Days

After 4 weeks of Drake football training, classes finally begin. Sam was good enough to send this first day of school photo.

Bulldog Blue

Not sure if someone styled his hair or not. I think he's happy that the all day practices are coming to an end soon.

Having Fun Yet?

Nicole texted Dylan at around 9:30 last night when we were going to bed and got this photo response. Said he got his homework done already.

College and Eggs

Dylan has been on campus for rugby practice a week now but his first classes were today. He's already learned how to eat eggs at school. Hard to believe he went over 18 years without ever consuming an omelet but has had one a day since moving to fredericksburg.

Where’s Sam

The clue is middle of the pack and smiling again. His roommate CJ is #5 in the front row.

Roster

The Drake football roster is up. Smiling is in this year for football players.

First Practice

You can Dylan's face in the back row slightly right of center. 6am start time for practice all week. Go Mothers!

Empty Nest

Dylan is with his four suite mates now and doing his rugby thing. There dorm is two rooms that share a bathroom. Andrew, to the left of Dylan is his roommate, the other two are rugby players as well and share the soon to be really disgusting bathroom between the rooms. It's possible that one of them will keep it clean but it probably won't be Dylan.

It was a smooth drop off and included Ben, a rugby player from Scotland who stayed with us for a couple nights before all of us drove down to Fredericksburg. It was tough leaving him there but he hugged us and hustled off to meet some friends he met this summer that had arrived Sunday as well.

First Scrimmage

It was drake defense against drake offense today. Sam got some playing time but wasn't thrilled with his performance. Hang in there tiger.

Greenwood Lounge

I spent a little time catching some live music at a really small and smelly dive bar a few blocks from our air bnb in Des Moines. The Monday night band was really good and this one was pretty good. Based on some lyrics this guy sang about something you would only know if you spent some time in Baltimore in his last song I had to talk with him. Turns out he went to school at Catholic University and lived in Baltimore for a while. He was pretty good but needs a better bass player. Also talked with the bartender who knew cousin Timmy.

Sculpture Garden

Trying to interact with the art in Des Moines.

Delivery Complete

We saw Sam for a short time this morning to wish him luck. His physical yesterday was fine except they wanted a orthopedic surgeon to look at his ankles today. One was loose and one kinda stiff. He was eventually cleared to practice this afternoon but they are watching the loose one closely. The boys haven't been apart more than 8 days in the last 18 years. They probably won't see each other again until November or December.