Sunday Morning Coming Down

Sunday was a beautiful day for October. The temperature climbed up into the mid 70's. The trees are changing colors. Driving down the tree-lined streets of Topeka, Kansas, the orange, and browns and reds with the strong sun shining through them made the trees almost, but not quite, appear to be on fire. It was warm, with a slight breeze. The warmth, and the breeze and the firey color of the changing leaves and the bright, yellow light of the sun gave you a feeling like you would imagine the subject of Johnny Cash's song "Sunday Morning Coming Down" felt as he walked around his neighborhood smelling frying chicken and watching kids play.

I had to head out to the Wal-Mart to get knee pads for Courtney's volleyball practice. Her brownie troop went to a corn maze on Saturday night, and she stayed over with a friend. Niko and Cody had gone with their boy scout troop to the Cosmosphere space museum down in Hutchinson early Saturday morning and were not expected to be back until after three. So I went down to the Wal-Mart and picked up the knee pads and headed to the Mater Dei grade school gym to meet Courtney for her volleyball practice.

Mater Dei grade school used to be Holy Name grade school. It was a K-8 school until the Holy Name parish and the Assumption parish merged, Holy Name school became Mater Dei grade school serving K-5 and Assumption school became Mater Dei middle school serving 6-8. It's been quite a change for the kids, but the boys like it better because now they get to travel from class to class like a real middle school. They adjusted fairly well with a couple of bumps in the beginning.

But this Sunday...was a great Sunday. After volleyball practice Courtney and I went to the Dillon's and picked out some pumpkins for carving. It was nice; with her mom in Lawrence, and the boys in Hutchinson, it was just her and I. We hollowed out her pick of the pumpkins and carved it up. She chose a design that looks like a bat sitting on a jack-o-lantern. It was good times...just my daugher and I...hanging out, carving pumpkins on a Sunday in October in Kansas with the sun shining bright, a slight breeze keeping the edge off the heat and the trees that looked almost as if they were on fire.