The Pumpkin Walk

Every year during the month of October there is a phenomenon around these parts called "The Pumpkin Walk" which is unlike anything you've ever seen.  People make scenes using as many pumpkins and gourds as they can and then everyone comes and walks around to look at them.  That's it. That's the famed "Pumpkin Walk" that draws thousands of people every year. Sounds pretty silly, doesn't it?  I've done the math and discovered that during the course of my lifetime I have spent 8 Octobers living in this area.  All 8 of these Octobers I heard all about the Pumpkin Walk, but each time found an excuse to not go (it's free so most of the excuses revolved around cold weather and the fact that it sounded a little silly). Well, this year I finally made it to "The Pumpkin Walk" and even though I've heard all about how great it is my expectations were low.   My parents came up to go with us and I could tell that my Dad had about the same thoughts as me.

This isn't a great picture, but once again I forgot to take enough pictures to ensure a good one. Oops.

Here is a Gilligan's Island scene made over the sand volleyball court at the park. 

People are clever and I must admit that  I was pleasantly surprised.  In short, I've become a Pumpkin Walk fan.  I think my Dad had the same reaction that I did.  He actually quite enjoyed it, much to his surprise.  We had a lovely dinner after the pumpkin walk and then my parents left to go back home.

The rest of the week we saw a little cold spell, just in time for Britton's soccer team party at the American West Heritage Center.  The kids got to ride ponies and we went through a corn maze all while trying to keep warm.

I guess it is time for me to come to grips with the fact that winter is coming. . . and quickly. November is just 2 days away which around here is the magical month where fall ceases to be and winter takes over in a big way.

Road Trip

Every year when the kids are out of school for UEA we head south to visit Adam's parents.  We delayed our planned arrival a bit when we found out that Adam's parents were going to be in Provo for a funeral on Thursday morning. So, we planned to meet up with them when the funeral was done and caravan back south.  It wasn't too long before we encountered trouble.

This is not a parking lot, this is the freeway.  After it took us 45 min. to go about 1 mile we decided to stop off in the small town of Santaquin to get a bite to eat.  We figured we would let the traffic accident or whatever was causing the back up clear out so we could be on our way.  Adam's grandmother grew up in Santaquin so his Dad remembered a little Mom & Pop restaurant he used to go to.

Ahh, the Family Tree Restaurant--how fitting.  It was super mommy & poppy, if you know what I mean. The decor had us speechless.

It was family owned and they were determined to make sure you knew that. . . .and every member of the family that ever was, of course.  I enjoyed their excitement for Halloween.

Skeletons hanging off an antler chandelier-- nice touch.

We ordered 4 scones with our meal.  We didn't realize that each scone was about 2 feet long.

If we had known they were life sized we wouldn't have ordered anything else.  Hey, when it comes to scones they don't mess around!

After a delightful lunch we stopped at the Red Barn for some apples and picture taking with enormous pumpkins.

This is proof that Korinne actually volunteered to work.

After our pleasant Santaquin diversion we got back on the freeway which looked like it was back to normal.  After about 3 minutes it returned to its previous "parking lot" status.  All in all we figured we spent about 2 hours in gridlock traffic-- all in the middle of nowhere!

It turns out the back-up was because of a lane closer but when we finally reached the point where it went down to one lane we didn't see a single person working on the lane that was "closed". Double Grrr. If I'm going to sit in traffic for a couple of hours I want to see some worker bees actually WORKING, not this:

Seriously, people.  Lanes should only be closed when they filled with people working!

We only made one more pit-stop to use the restrooms and couldn't resist taking photos of the randomly placed gigantic rocking chair in front of the store.

We arrived at our destination about a day after we had originally planned on arriving, but had quite an adventurous time getting there.

Friday marked exactly 35 years since I entered the world at 11:53 a.m. in the great state of Minnesota.  For my big day I got a BIG head cold.  The likes of which I haven't seen in years.  How festive.  I felt it coming on about 3 days previously and did all of the things I usually do to ensure that it wouldn't develop into a bad head cold but, much to my chagrin, it came anyway.  We managed to celebrate anyway.

My one request for my birthday is that Adam take the day off from work and hang out with me all day.  This year he planned to do just that, but then he had a couple of loans go into crisis the night before and spent most of the day working from his parent's house.  We did manage to sneak away and have lunch so that was good.

The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins while we were there. The first night everyone came to Adam's parents house for a birthday party for me and the second night everyone went to Aunt Jaclyn's for a Halloween Party (I still need to get pictures from  her because I forgot my camera).  Jaclyn is a party planner extraordinaire so it was an awesome Halloween party.

On Saturday morning the local college had their Homecoming parade so we went to check it out.  The crowd was sparse. I took some pictures so you can see how few people were on the other side of the street watching the parade.

This meant the kids didn't have a lot of competition for the candy.  They got a LOT of candy, which made the parade a raging success in their eyes.

The weather was great the entire time we were there.  Unfortunately we weren't able to visit Grammie or Grandma Great because of my head cold so yesterday after attending church we headed back north and found more of this:

Another freeway parking lot.  It just wasn't our trip when it came to traffic.  This time it was caused by an accident, but it added time to our already long drive.

The kids sure loved visiting their Gramma and Grampa. Thanks for a great trip!

Brace Yourself, It's Kora.

Britton got his full braces on Monday.  He has had 4 brackets on his front 4 teeth for the last 17 months and now the time clock starts all over again.  It is anticipated that he will have his full braces for about 2 years.  He is gifted in so many ways but was his teeth were "dentally challenged" from the beginning.  He first 2 teeth came in crooked and it was downhill from there.  He even had the Orthodontist scratching his head when his normal cement stuff didn't work on Britton's teeth.  We got home from his initial appointment and before nightfall he had lost a bracket and had another 5 or 6 that were only in his mouth because they were wired together with some brackets that were holding.  He wasn't eating a carmel apple or anything, he was eating soft serve ice cream. Yeah, you've got a problem if you lose a bracket over some soft serve.  The Ortho thought he had fixed it the next day when we went back, but they started coming off again before Britton even left the office.  He ended up having to scratch his teeth a little with a diamond so they would finally stay put.  Wow.  I REALLY hope this seasoned Orthodontist knows what he is doing. Right now I'll just have to trust him and hope his years of experience mean that my child's teeth will look great when he is done and not permanently scarred.

Just because I knew you were wondering this is what Korinne wore to school today.  I've never had a lot of success getting her to wear tennis shoes (or socks for that matter, but that is another story) and the one day she decides to pull out the old' strawberry shortcake footwear is the day she decides to wear a skirt. Go figure. The shirt didn't match so well, but hey, we've seen worse so I sent her off with a hug and a smile.

A few weeks ago we were talking at dinner one night about how Korinne was named after a great-grandmother on Adam's side--Kora.  Most of the time she is ok to write out "Korinne" on her school papers. . .

. . .but every once in awhile she decides to take the short cut.

I can only imagine how confused her Kindergarten teacher is.  Korinne loves to keep people guessing.  It's her specialty.

Yup, she dresses herself and I let her.  I took her all around town with me in this sweet outfit and didn't think twice about it.  Underneath the plaid vest was a T-shirt with a butterfly picture that clashed with the skirt even more then the plaid vest.  It was awesome.

Mystery

Last Sunday night we went on a little family walk to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.  It was then that I first noticed a red spot on Korinne's face.  I asked her about it, but she told me it was nothing.  I told her it kind of looked like a burn, but she said it wasn't a burn so I thought maybe she had gotten some lipstick on her face or something.  Korinne is our family hypochondriac so I was sure she would be crying and practically hysterical if it was something that hurt so I didn't worry about it.  When she woke up the next morning the area was covered by one big blister.  That is when we knew that it was indeed a burn.  We asked her about it again, but she kept saying she had no idea how she got it.  I told her that she wasn't in trouble so she could tell us how she got a burn on her face. "I don't even know, Mom.  Really. It happened so long ago I just can't remember."

I have tried for days to get it out of her.  I've brought it up when she was happy and relaxed and in a good mood and still she has not deviated from the "I really have no idea how I got it" answer.  How does a 5 year old hypochondriac get a second degree burn on her face without knowing about it? This really has been quite the mystery.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that she got her school pictures taken 2 days later?  Sweet.  I'm pretty excited about that. Now let's hope we don't receive any surprise visits from the child protection people.

Korinne made it through her semi-annual Dentist appt. this week.  It is always a sigh of relief when we are done for another 6 months.  She gets so worried about it even though we tell her over and over that they are just going to clean her teeth.  This time the Dentist put some sealants on her teeth that are completely painless and yet she almost wouldn't do it.  I could hear them in the back (Adam and the Dentist) explaining to her that it didn't hurt and it was just a bright light, but she wasn't buying it.  Finally Adam told her that the Dentist might have to drill next time for a cavity if he couldn't put the sealant on her teeth and she promptly opened her mouth and let him work.  Adam had to go with her, of course, or else she wouldn't have even walked into the building.  We have gone through this every 6 months for 3 years and even though she has never had a painful experience she continues to be deathly afraid.

Hmmm...freaks out getting her teeth cleaned, but doesn't know how she got a nasty burn on her face.  The only thing that is predictable about Korinne is the fact that she isn't predictable!!

Phase II

I have noticed that our little family has officially entered a new phase of life.  I like to refer to it as the "Mom is now a full time taxi driver" phase.  If you aren't there yet, you will be.  If you are already in this phase you can just nod your head and smile and welcome me to the club.  I naively thought that if I limited my kids to just one sport or extra curricular activity and one type of music lesson that I could somehow avoid this phase altogether. Wrong-o.  The problem with this strategy is when your kids get older and 2 of them choose a sport that has 2 games and 2 or 3 practices a week in with some locations being about 20-30 min. away from home. Whoops.  Throw in Activity Days and Scouts, homework, and music practice and lessons and Mom becomes a card carrying taxi driver.  This fall we've been the busiest we have ever been, but we have also adapted and still manage to get all of those most important things done.  In essence we have created a new normal. It's fun to see the kids throw themselves into something new and work really hard.  I used to go to soccer games and just laugh at all of the little kids running around, now I can appreciate the newly acquired skills and watch my kids make decisions and play as a team.  I must confess that having older kids and watching them develop in school and in the "extras" is fun, even if it does mean the car is my second home.

So, for clarification we have NOT had a shortage of soccer time in our family this fall.  Jenna is number 10 and has come a long way this soccer season. 

Her team has only lost 1 game all season. They are definitely the team to beat in their bracket.

With Adam as her coach Korinne finally decided it was ok to actually play soccer during a soccer game.

It always helps to have your BFF near when kicking off to the other team.

 Mostly she still prefers to play "defense" by standing in front of the goal.  This way she has less of a chance of  getting hurt by any other players.

I got letters this last week from the school informing me that both Britton and Jenna have been selected to participate in the Gifted and Talented program at their school.  While it usually starts in the 4th grade they are piloting a program this year to begin in the 3rd grade which is why Jenna is eligible a year before I thought she would be.  I don't know what it entails yet, but I'm happy for them to have the opportunity to participate.  We'll see how it goes.

Britton's new favorite thing to play with Adam is "Wizard Wars."  He made a list of all the magic spells from all 7 Harry Potter books and then they "cast" spells at each other while trying to undo what the previous person did to them with their spell.  The other night Korinne was participated and there was a whole lot of pointing at each other with wooden chopsticks and dodging imaginary things and saying a lot of Latin sounding words.

Adam needs a cheat sheet seeing as he hasn't actually read any of the Harry Potter books.

Britton using a chair to deflect/ protect himself from a spell.  The whole game is a great exercise in imagination and doesn't cost me a dime. Truly a win-win.