Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets...

The official "Fall Raking Season" at Casa J has begun.



Last year, by the time we were done, we had 91 bags of leaves.

That's a lot of leaves!

We didn't have any plans to rake this weekend, but it was so beautiful, and the kids wanted to jump in the leaf pile...



This one just makes me itch looking at them in the leaves...




We ended up with 9 bags of leaves yesterday. I think we usually have a lot done by Thanksgiving weekend or the weekend after.

So, place your bets, ladies and gentlemen... how many bags do you think we'll get this year?

Will we break 100?

Or will there be less than 90?

Leave a guess and the closest one may win something... bragging rights for sure.

Parades, Leaves and Results

It was a warm, sunny weekend here in Georgia. And the whole week looks to be that way too.

It's a nice break from the cold to have the warm sun on our faces and no jackets, short sleeves and shorts on for a bit! That's one reason we live in Georgia!

Perfect weather for Parades and Yard Work -- which is just what we did. Okay, so really you got me there. There is no such thing as "perfect weather for Yard Work" but still... it had to be done.

Our town had their annual Santa Claus Parade. Normally we're all bundled up and running around to keep warm. Not this year, though. I did make the boys put on a fleece when we left the house -- silly me! But in my defense, Saturday was a bit overcast so it hadn't quite warmed up to the mid to upper 70's yet.

I did not get many parade pictures, but it was a good one. Lots of music and floats -- there was a distinct lack of candy this year, which I don't mind, but some of the folks around us kept commenting on it! Josh saw lots of friends from school there and we all had fun.

Here is Sam enjoying a Blue Candy Cane....

Sam had been sick and was still not feeling well. Poor kid had the worst cold ever! It seems to be better now -- he actually went to school today so I got a break from him clinging to me that was good.

Josh with his second Candy Cane of the morning...

Finally, Santa and his reindeer...

I think that must be Santa's brother herding the reindeer, because Santa's in the sleigh!

The boys were very excited! They kept yelling, "Hi Santa! Hi Santa! Merry Christmas Santa!!!" It was really cute!

Since the weather was so nice, we decided to spend Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday raking leaves in our yard. The final leaf bag count for the year.... 91 bags.

Here is half the garage filled up with the bags. The other half is just as full....

And finally, I mentioned in my previous post, that Sunday was the final weigh in for the neighborhood Biggest Loser Competition I was in.

Well, I did well.

I lost 14 lbs for a total loss of 8.6983% .

I came in second. I won $100. Not too bad.

However... I missed out on the top prize by 0.0031%.

Yes folks, that's right 3/1000 of a percent gets me $100 instead of $275. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a wee bit bummed out -- more than 0.0031% even. But oh well -- I guess that's the way the fat burns. They are starting another one next month and running for 16 weeks. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to join that or not. I just think 16 weeks is a VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME. I guess we'll just have to see how much weight I gain over Christmas!

How We Spent Saturday!

It's that time of year again. When the leaves pile up and we have to spend our weekends raking up the millions of leaves that seem to make their way to our back yard.

Most of the day we spent around the house -- Rich watched Liverpool beat Newcastle 3-0 in the morning. He was quite happy with that considering England's elimination from Euro 2008 earlier this week. And Manchester United lost yesterday, so that was good too!

We went out in the afternoon for about an hour and a half and raked up more leaves. Friday we raked up about 11 bags, Saturday we raked 14...

The boys had fun "helping" us --

In the evening, Josh was invited to a movie with his friend Cade. He came home about 7:30 all hopped up on sugar and McDonald's and popcorn.... It was very funny. He would start talking in a "normal" voice, but then his voice would get louder and louder until he was SHOUTING! It was hysterical! He was very excited and had a lot of fun.

But anyway, we're not looking forward to next weekend when more leaves will fall -- last year we had over 100 bags of leaves over the course of 2 weekends. We're up to 27 (25 from this weekend plus 2 from earlier in the week -- just the front which needs to be done again!).

How many more to go?