yes, they are falling...the leaves this year are spectacular!
The colors are so amazing! I thought I had enough pictures from last year, so I really didn't plan on taking many fall shots this year. But I could not resist. 
Somebody told me they are prettier this year because we had such a dry summer...I have no idea, but they are excellent. I think I said that last year too!
This is a pond closeby, I just like how the picture turned out, kinda fall, but a really nice reflection of the colors. 
I guess there is hope that somebody will still take one home and make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving...
Yesterday Emily and Joshua were in a cross country meet. They run a 1.8 mile course. They are both in different divisions, separated by age and sex, but they ran their race at the same time. Emily was ahead of Joshua while they were in our sight, then they headed into the woods, when they came out, Joshua was right behind her. He kept getting closer and closer to her and as they rounded the field for the final stretch, he kicked in and passed her. It looked like she was just going to let him beat her until they hit the track. Then she kicked it in and it was if they were the only two racing...they were in a sprint for the finish. It ended up he beat her by 1/10th of a second. To anybody else watching it must have seemed no big deal, but for us who were family watching it was pretty hilarious. We didn't know who to hope would win. They both had their best times ever.
When I was in the third grade, my family moved from Portland out to the Sandy area. We went from being city girls to farm girls. We had acres of property to play on, with forts and horses and a raspberry field. We moved in the fall. One of my first memories of our new place was all of the caterpillars crawling around. I don’t remember if it was the first time I had seen one or not, but I remember suddenly we had all these orange and black fuzzy critters crawling everywhere. We used to put them in jars along with leaves and grass and wait and wait to see them become a butterfly. All they became was dead. A couple of weeks ago, Emily and Joshua were here and sure enough, they found the caterpillars and the first thing they wanted to do is put them in a container and add some leaves and grass. Some things never change. 
3 years ago, for my 50th birthday, John sent me to Antigua, Guatemala to work on my Spanish. I stayed with the same host family and attended the same school that Jessi had when she studied there a few years earlier. I was gone for 6 weeks. It was an amazing trip. My host mother is the same age as me and we got along so perfect and have so much in common. She would sit with me for hours talking in Spanish. I went to class in the morning and then spent my afternoons volunteering at a hospital for children with severe disabilities. I got way more out of my time spent at that hospital that I gave. While at the school, I met a woman from Sweden. Her name is Kajsa (pronounced k eye sa). We traveled around together when we had some free time and spent a long weekend at Lake Atitlan. We decided it would be perfect to meet up on the east coast sometime, so that neither of us travels so far. That is what happened last week. We met up and spent a great time together, eating in fancy restaurants, visiting art museums, going for walks, laughing and talking and talking. It was a great get away and time for relaxing. We can't wait for the next time!