It’s finally starting to cool off in our part of California—a part which, fortunately for us, is not currently on fire; there are many who are not so lucky. It’s going to get down to 42° Fahrenheit tonight, a temperature that isn’t that cold by Chicago or Nebraska standards, but still feels pretty chilly when you’re shivering outside the school waiting for the bell to ring.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that we don’t currently have a functioning furnace. Ours stopped working sometime last winter, and we decided against an expensive repair because we thought that we would surely be out of the house and ensconced in a rental by the time the next winter rolled around. That assumption has worked out really well for us.

For now, the first thing I do in the morning is step into a pair of cozy slippers and pull on a heavy sweatshirt before I head up to the kitchen to make the kids’ lunches. And, after they’ve gone and it’s time for me to get ready for work, I think long and hard before I turn off the water and step out of the warm confines of the shower onto the icy tiles of our bathroom floor.

Of course, the chill in the air means that Halloween is just around the corner. William carved a pumpkin (with Julie’s help) at school today, and had decided, the last time I asked him, that he wanted to dress up as Darth Vader this year. Fortunately, that’s one of the many costumes we already have in his vast collection, so as long as he doesn’t change his mind, we won’t have to buy a new one this year.

This Halloween, for the first time, neither Julia nor Joe seems to be interested in trick-or-treating. Instead, they’re planning to stay home to hand out candy or, just as likely, hide out in their rooms. Although this was an inevitable transition, it’s still bittersweet: they have so much going on in their lives, and so many stressors coming at them from so many different angles, I wish they could hang on to their sense of wonder and fun for one more Halloween and have a night of carefree jollity.

Speaking of fun, frivolity, and bittersweet transitions, we received an email from UPA this week letting us know that the registration deadline for students taking AP tests this year is coming up in a couple weeks. And, in a real first, Julia will be eligible to take the AP World History exam in the spring. I’m gobsmacked that our daughter is taking concrete steps toward (hopefully) receiving college credits, while the memory of her clinging to me every morning as I tried to drop her off for kindergarten is still painfully fresh in my mind.

In other fun news, Julia is set to have her wisdom teeth removed over the holiday break after we return home from Nebraska. This step is a prelude to a series of other procedures on tap for the next couple years that won’t be fun—for us or for her—in the moment, but will pay off down the road if all goes according to plan.

We don’t have any new pictures ready to post at the moment, though I do hope to publish a set this weekend covering Halloween and some other fall adventures. In the meantime, here’s a set of previously unpublished photos from fall 2013 that I’ve finally gotten around to processing. The album contains lots of soccer pictures, any number of cute shots of baby William, and a few snapshots from my very first visit to the Airtime offices in New York City.

Gallery: Fall 2013