September 2025

We have some pretty great dogs! Well behaved, calm, and good at alerting us when company or strangers arrive anywhere close to our home. Exactly what I was hoping to have in a family dog...and we have three! Three times the love. Three times the dog food. Three times the dog fur. Three times the home safety/alarm system.

Silas and Eric had their family Fantasy Football draft one evening. They compete for the "Nickelfritz" trophy (the kids and I call it the wiener trophy. If you know, you know) every year. Eric's FF team won last year so we have the trophy at our house.

Phoebe has been occupying her free time putting together some hard 500-1000 piece puzzles.

Our cat, Lucy, likes our dog, Gus, best of all. Ray has now outgrown both Belle and Gus in height and she is still growing. She's going to be a BIG GIRL!

Cross country started for Silas. He is going great! He is a strong fast runner and very competitive, which gives him an extra push to do well because he wants to medal and try to set a PR in every race that he runs.

Sarah and Owen attended one of the first home football games in Manhattan against Army. Unfortunately, it was a loss, but I think that they still had a good time.

Silas has caught four sticky feet frogs so far. They are pretty interesting to observe in their terrarium. One frog has discovered the little cave in the terrarium and likes to hide in there.

Eric took Silas and Phoebe camping one Friday night. They had a good time swimming, kayaking, and fishing.

Silas has gotten a medal in every cross-country meet that he has run in so far this season. He also broke a school record in the 1.5-mile race, landing himself in second on the school all-time leader board for the 7th grade boys with a time of 9:38. Keep running fast Silas!

Sarah has been working hard at school in her classes. She stays caught up and seems to have a lot of spare time so far this semester. She had her first Biology test a couple weeks ago and aced it. She is pictured in the group of K-STATE EDCATS on the bottom right.

Eric and Phoebe helped me get some new fall decorations prepared, and we went to Clearwater to put them on Mom's grave. This time of year is SO hard. It is like a count-down to the day she died and the weeks after. Remembering certain days as they go by marked by what happened on that day three years ago. There are some memories that will live in my mind like a snapshot for as long as I live. Grief is hard and tricky. I wish that I had known exactly how hard life would be when you lose your mom... (In the last few days of her life she didn't tell me that it would be this hard. SHE KNEW because she had lost her mom.) Instead, she told me, "I'm not ready." I know now that was her way of saying that SHE KNEW that I still needed her. She was right. WE ALL STILL NEEDED HER. SHE KNEW that some of us would be lonely, feel lost, and so sad, and SHE KNEW that we wouldn't know how to go on with our lives as we knew them with her as our family's anchor. SHE KNEW EVERYTHING would change. She wouldn't be just a phone call away (no matter what time it was) anymore. And SHE KNEW that she was going to miss so many important events in her grandchildren's lives too. It is just heartbreaking when I think about the things she has missed and will continue to miss. No one could ever take her place. Life is different in so many ways without her, and it is still changing and spinning. We have all dealt with and are still dealing with grief in different ways. Grief certainly never leaves you but may lessen as time goes on. One thing is certain, though, I will miss her forever while I am alive on this earth.

Sarah was invited to spend a weekend with Owen visiting some of his family in Nebraska in mid-September. His grandparents have Nebraska football tickets and shared them with Owen and Sarah for the home game while they were there.

I love decorating for Fall and I have some fun fall and Halloween decorations inside and outside our house. I normally get lots of pumpkins to put all around the front porch. I have lots of fun going to the stores in search of the perfect shaped pumpkins. 

This is 48. We celebrated my birthday with flowers from Eric and other great gifts from my family. Lunch with my Dad at Panera Bread. Dinner with my family at Red Robin and Nothing Bundt Cakes for dessert. Then we had a VERY FUNNY FaceTime birthday call with Sarah. It was a good birthday.

Phoebe called me one Friday afternoon while I was still at work to tell me Silas had gotten home, captured a spider, and brought it into our house. I had her put him on the phone so that I could ask some questions....after talking to him, I knew it was a Garden Spider (Golden Orb Weaver) and I would help him release it later so that we could watch it and try to feed it. The next day we let it go in a bush by our front porch. She made a fantastic web, and we fed her some grasshoppers and mealworms. Dad even helped us feed her one evening. We love these spiders. My Mom use to have one of these in her classroom every fall so that her students could observe it and learn about spiders. I think she probably helped several students overcome any fear they might have had of spiders with this fun project every fall.

Sarah had a surprise knock on her door one evening...when she opened the door she found her friend Kenna! These two were super good friends through middle school and their first year of high school until Kenna moved out of town. Sarah and our family sure did miss her. They made a great team on the basketball court and always had each other's back. What a great surprise!

SYATP (See You At The Pole) was on Wednesday, September 24th this year. Most of the schools in our district participated this year. I have pictures from Silas's school and Phoebe's school of the students gathered around their flag poles with fellow students to pray for their schools, friends, leaders, and our country.

We went to Manhattan on Saturday, September 27th for K-State Family Weekend. First, we went to Sarah's dorm. Then we walked to the football stadium to go to the KSU vs. UCF football game. It was a good game, and we got to see a Wildcat VICTORY. After the game, we went to Aggieville to eat some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. After ice cream we headed out to our good friend's house - Rex and Angie. We went to dinner with their family and had a good visit with them. Eric, Silas, and I spent the night at their house that night, and Phoebe stayed at the dorm with Sarah for some "sister time". They watched some "Dancing With the Stars" and part of a movie before going to bed that night. The next morning, we met at the IRC to pick up an Erg (rowing machine), then got some quick breakfast before saying good-bye and heading home. It was a good weekend with our family and some long-time friends.

Phoebe was recognized at a school assembly for scoring so well on her pre-ACT. She was given a certificate and a medal for being a "Rising Star" - a "Rising Scholar", which means she scored in the top 10% of all the 8/9 students who took the PreACT in the United States. These students represent the highest academic achievers from all of U.S. PreACT 8/9 composite scores. YAY PHOEBE!!!!