The Gunden Kauffmans: Hustle and Bustle of the Fall

This time of year always feels really busy to me. It seems like when October comes around it might as well be January because the fall flies by so quickly.

I am involved in a few groups within the neighborhood, which individually do not include big time commitments but collectively add up.

The first week of every month I have a Civic Club board meeting. I am the Hospitality Co-Chair, and our neighborhood Fall Festival is this weekend so I have been quite busy with that lately, including several additional weeknight meetings.

Then there is the Moms Group, which is a good resource and has proven to be a great way to make friends. The second week of every month we have Ladies Nights Out (which I don't make very often), and the third week of the month are our regular monthly meetings. Since I am an Officer I also have occasional Officers meetings, and in between those we use email extensively to keep the organization going. It was established over 15 years ago and we have close to 150 members, so it does require a little work.

The fourth week of the month is the Babysitting co-op meetings. We have to work around the Moms group schedule since most of us are members of both. This group also has occasional play dates so we can all get to know each other and our kids.

A new and very informal "group" is those of us who are considering sending our kids to the neighborhood elementary school next fall for school for pre-k. The school had been going downhill and the neighborhood slowly stopped attending, but over the past 5-8 years it has really turned around as more and more neighborhood people are attending and getting involved again. This group has "connected" on email and will be gathering in a few weeks to share information we know about the pre-k program.

Our weekly commitment is soccer. We practice every Thursday at 6:45pm and have games every Saturday at 8:30am. Oh, and I am coaching.

We also have Norah's birthday and Halloween in October. And then there are the annual holiday activities, the Christmas shopping (no, I do not start this early, but I do think about ideas), cookie exchange party, pictures for holiday cards, etc.

I really do enjoy each of these activities, but it's just too much at once. I will definitely work to minimize having so many at one time in the future. Seth and I have had to come up with an entirely new system for communicating about our schedule because we couldn't keep track of everything going on. I have to say, I think we are managing pretty well despite the disruption that evening activities can have on a regular routine with the kids.

And now some random pictures from the past month...

(Friend and neighbor Philip bought this enormous Hello Kitty for Norah for "helping" take care of his pool while he was on vacation. She's like another member of our household.)