GiGi gets a flat

Our new vehicle GiGi (Gas Guzzler) got a flat tire on the way from a freshman Gonzaga party to a hockey game. Doug drive 90mpg up Route 270 and installed the donut to get the car home. RJ and Sara made it to hockey and RJ got on the ice during the 3-minute warm up.

After the fine folks at Rosslyn Automotive patched the tire (two holes) ... it was time to reinstall it.

Start Time: 8:40pm

RJ looks for the jack point under the car

Lining up the tire ... needed to crank up the jack a bit more. Hole in tire fixed, hole in sock non-fixed.

Project almost done ... time to put away the spare tire kit

End Time: 9:05pm

All in all, not too bad. We took our time and made sure we didn't do anything dangerous. 

Not shown: using the impact wrench to tighten the lug nuts!

Halloween 2026

Halloween on a Saturday was a win! After soccer (5-1 loss) and hockey (6-0 loss) we went to the neighborhood party and followed it up with lots of trick-or-treating.

Doug watched Halloween on the plane back from Seattle. 

Prep Work

Julia re-paints the owls for the front walk

House decorations were a sort-of-fail. Other than Julia re-painting the owls, we didn't do a lot of prep work ... we didn't even have a pumpkin this year. We did have ...

• A witch was flying across the sky on a rope between the flagpole and the pine tree. The spotlight lit up the scene.
• Oversized pots of flowers on the front porch. Doug forgot to move them because he was late taking RJ to hockey.
• Due to being late to hockey, Doug left the lawn mower in the back yard. The witch we were going to ditch was pushing it when we got home. Not sure how the witch got back there ... but it was pretty awesome ... so it got moved to the front.

Julia carved a pumpkin ... but it stayed at Amelia's house

Flying witch had a new broom. Scary witch found new life pushing a lawn mower.

Halloween Night

RJ and Bradley - pre-trick-or-treating

LiMu Emu and Doug

Julia & Brooke (with Geoff and Doug) and RJ & Bradley took trick-or-treating very seriously. When all was said and done the kids had a TON of candy.

• RJ had 28 pounds of candy (including trunk-or-treat the night before)
• Julia had 16 pounds of candy

Kids trading candy at the end of the night

Big Day, Late Night

RJ is keeping busy with school, hockey, and commuting. After lifting at Gonzaga he decided that it made sense to help clean up by skating the goal to the other end before ice resurfacing. Yes, he was the last one off the ice at 9:23pm.

RJ drags the goal across the ice. Notice the CHA4 pile up (not a fight).

Garden - finish strong

The garden made a late year comeback. RJ's radishes re-seeded themselves. Cherry tomatoes continued to produce. With all the other plants out of the way the lunchbox red peppers started thriving!

Tomatoes, lunchbox red peppers, and one of 500 radishes

RJ's Day Off

On a random Wednesday, RJ got a day off. He had plans but not much transportation since Sara was sick.

Fishing in Reston

 

18 Years

Anniversary fell on a Sunday ... so we took our anniversary picture ... on our anniversary! Julia's friend Ava was here to take the picture - this saved about 15-20 minutes of setting up the tripod!

Family Pic - with King Oil from Grandad's house

Family Pic - more typical

One with just Doug and Sara - sort of

One with ONLY Doug and Sara

Rochester Hockey Tourney

Doug and RJ drove to Rochester for a hockey tournament. Drive was nice with fall foliage on the way up and nice and wet on the way back.

Remnants of Hurricane Isaias made it a wet ride home. Traffic was light and organized!

Pregame Huddle for Game 2

Team went 2-1-1. The two wins were against the same team. The tie was 3-3 - Caps were up by 3 until third period. Gave up a goal with 28 seconds left - and then almost scored. Lost 2-1 to the bruisers from Pittsburgh. Missed the final on the 5th tie breaker ... penalty minutes. Team wanted to play the dirty team from Pittsburgh again ... but no luck.