It is Finally Fall in Augusta

Beginning yesterday, with a high of 68 degrees, we officially entered Fall...at least in my book.  I have been taking advantage of the weather by shutting off the A/C for the very first time since moving here and leaving about 25% of our windows open (no worries - we have screens...even if they ARE 27 years old). I have also been leaving the sliding door open (screen door closed) which has been interesting, to say the least, given Cole's curiosity and love of the outdoors.  I will look around, call his name, but no Cole.  I take one look outside and there he is...perusing the premises (again no worries, we have a fenced backyard).  Of course I *thought* "oh wow, this is a great, safe outlet for Cole to get all of his energy out...I mean what could go wrong?"  How about him finding an ant hill and digging his way to China THROUGH it with a toy hand shovel?  Yeah.  Yesterday he came walking in the house scratching his neck, arms, legs, and back and saying "Ant, mommy, ant."  AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!

A second shower later Cole is finally free of about a hundred or so ants that decided to crawl on him, into his clothes, and bite the heck out of him.  Luckily he came away with only a dozen or so bites...but they swelled into these little bumps which look pretty itchy/painful.  He doesn't complain, however, just says (over and over) "Ants gone, those ants gone."  Now we have a running ant commentary every time we go outside...me telling him not to bother the ants again...him telling me "don't worry, mommy, ants gone."

So although Jake is on 12 days straight of working with zero time off to spend with us, our big consolation prize is getting to spend quite a bit of outdoor time, start to pull out our sweaters, and actually think about bringing a blanket for Vera's car seat.  Thank you Fall.

I guess that means it is also time to trash the blow up pool in the backyard...clean out the "water table" filled with pinecones and pinestraw and put it in the shed.  Yeah.  We are behind.  But then again you should take a look at our lawn...I'm surprised the neighbors haven't called the HOA on us for neglect.