Splash and Meow!

We're celebrating Halloween a little early tonight as we head off to the church Harvest Party...

I'll have a full report for you tomorrow.  Ah, who am I kidding?  Probably later tonight! :)

Finally Fall!

Guess what!  Our season changed!  For weeks I've been hearing all the fall reports from friends and family in the Midwest while we still endured 90 degree temps.  Then, one day we're sweating in shorts while we take a walk and the next day we're bundled up in coats and blankets while rain pours down on us at a football game!  Last night we came home from the game and did two things we haven't done in forever: put the heat on in the car and pull the winter jammies out of the tub!  With the same hot weather and blazing sun every single day for the past half a year, this weekend we're totally celebrating overcast skies, rain and a major cool-down!

Field Trip to the Fire Station

Today I got to go along as a parent chaperon on a field trip to the local fire station.  The trip included demonstrations of pole sliding, explanations about what all the gear is and opportunities to practice fire safely and play with the equipment.  I found this as exciting and informative as the kids did!

Ella and Chloe, her best friend from kindergarten.

Taking her turn practicing crawling under "the smoke" and out the door to safety when the smoke detector went off.

Ella testing out a seat in the back of the giant ladder fire truck.

 Getting to try the big hose with Firefighter Jason.

The whole kindergarten class, much more wise about fire safety and the workings of a fire station after today's trip!

Bad Apples?

 Though we've been making an annual fall trip to Apple Hill for 3 years now, this year was unlike any we've experienced before.  Saturday traffic was unbelievable.  The roads winding around the 40 orchards and bakeries were at a standstill for long periods of time as cars just waited to pull into lots.  Then our favorite U-Pick place informed us that a late spring freeze had wiped out most of the area's crop, leaving just a few random farms with any apples even on their trees!  Was making the trip up into the hills even worth it this year?

The answer is "Yes!"  With a little extra effort, we found a new place that let us pick apples.  We skipped the places that were obnoxiously busy and just endured the crowds of those whose apples fares we couldn't live without.  We are the masters of the day trip, nothing can bring us down! :)

No trip to Apple Hill would be complete without a horse ride, and the girls are getting old enough to remember and remind us of this now!  At our usual pony-ride place, we even got the same horses as last time!  Since this made such a huge impression on Delia last fall, we heard about Cosmo, the horse she rode, all year long.  What joy to reunite with him today!

I always love the actual apple picking.  Today we plucked a little over 30 pounds of Fuji, Golden Delicious and Matsu apples off the trees.  We munch away as we're hard at work reaching for those high ones and lugging around those heavy buckets.

Something new this year was finding a farm that offered crafts for kids.  The girls pasted a pine cone with peanut butter and rolled it around in birdseed to make a feeder. 

Our day in Apple Hill concluded with the world's best apple donuts (still warm!) and fresh apple cider.  Some things are just worth waiting in long lines for. 

Though we were quick to say, "Uh-oh" when we first arrived in the traffic-a-plenty/apples-not-so-a-plenty Apple Hill today, the day was by no means a disaster.  One of the best parts of it was a visit we got to make to some good friends whose premature baby has been residing at a nearby NICU for 5 weeks now.  We got to meet sweet little Danielle and take her amazing parents out for dinner.  All in all...a GREAT day.

The Prize Box

Ella's teacher manages her classroom with a lot of positive motivation.  Each student has an envelope of smiley faces on their table.  When students act inappropriately, a smiley face is taken from their envelope.  Each day that a student keeps all their smiley faces, they get a smiley stamp and when they get 5 smiley stamps they get to visit the very exciting Prize Box.

You will not be surprised to hear that Ella has never lost a single smiley and has serious plans to keep them all, all year long.  But, you may be surprised to hear that in all her trips to the Prize Box, she has bypassed girlie things like bracelets and nail polishes and has always gone for one of these goofy disguises!  She's come home with fang teeth, crazy whistling lips, and some of the things you see pictured here.  I love picking her up on Prize Box days because she bounces out her classroom, proudly displaying her newest reward and thinking she's pretty funny!

Family Fun

Nope, we haven't disappeared.  With Dave having back-to-back whole weekend commitments and us operating on a schedule that is timed to the minute at times and leaves room for nothing that isn't school, down time, eating, bathing and sleeping, I just haven't had much that's blog-worthy to share.  For these reasons, we were all SO excited for the day of family fun we had planned for today!  Dave started the morning at Ella's school, eating a special breakfast, attending a special chapel and taking special tours of the classrooms for Pastor Appreciation Day.  Ella was so proud to show off her daddy.  After school, we met up for a pizza lunch and began round two of Pastor Appreciation Day at Funworks!  (Aren't we spoiled by all this appreciation?)  The owner opens his place up once a year to all the area pastors for unlimited fun for absolutely no charge. 

Last year we had that crazy rain and had to play inside (which was still fun), but this year it was over 90 degrees.  With the weather cooperating and the girls finally meeting the height requirement, we got to ride the go-karts!  Dave and I took a turn with each girl and they loved it.  Ella kept trying to high-five me while I whipped around the turns, Delia spent the ride laughing and throwing her hands in the air. 

It was the first time we actually felt like doing the bumper boats too.  Though we had a deal to not soak each other, Delia just couldn't resist our boat's water cannon.

 Delia has always been terrified of the big colorful play structure, but this year she was finally brave enough to give it a try-- on her own terms.  We knew she'd love climbing and flying down the fast slides, indeed, she said this was her favorite part of the day.

In the petting zoo we found some very aggressive goats and the fattest pot belly pig I've ever seen. 

The Word of the Day came in the corn maze when we hiked for almost 3 miles to find all six stations: Persevere!  We persevered though heat, bugs, scratchy, low-hanging corn, allergies being activated, totally tired kiddos and even getting a little turned-around at times.  Our reward for finding all six signposts?  Four rounds of free mini-golf.  Since Dave is given a card for unlimited mini-golf all year long, this was a pointless prize.  Good thing the prize was in the satisfaction of completing the maze, right?  The whole day was the prize actually-- a whole bunch of much needed family fun.  Anyone want some mini-golf passes? :)

So I Don't Forget...

I'll record 2 of my favorite long-standing Delia-isms here on the blog:

1.  The way she gets the numbers mixed up and always calls her forehead her "two-head."

2.  How I've learned to ask "Where?" when she tells me she has a tummy ache because Delia's tummy aches can refer to any ache or pain anywhere in her body. For example, "I have a tummy ache in my finger."

Brought to You by the Letter P

We easily survived another long weekend without Dave.  Tonight he returns from a 4 day youth worker convention in San Diego.  I answered the phone Friday night to the Newsboys singing us (and thousands of others in San Diego) "Something Beautiful" live.  They were just one of the big name Christian artists Dave had leading him in worship this weekend.

Instead of escaping or finding big distraction without Dave, though, we just took it easy at home this weekend and put things like "sleep in" and "clean the house" on the to-do list.  We still had some fun, though, and looking back with Ella we found a fun theme: the letter P!

On Friday night our big treat was making PUPPY chow together and watching a movie.  On Saturday we went to a PANCAKE breakfast at church and then walked to the PARK with some friends.   You read about the PUMPKIN PATCH.  The weekend's highlight was a birthday PARTY for Helia.  With just the members of their family and grandparents, Phill and Jetta already had a party-sized crowd and were kind enough to include us.  We stayed for 5 hours enjoying their POOL and a PINATA!

So, there's the recap of our weekend.  The girls and I got a kick out of the way everything we intentionally did to make it special unintentionally started with the letter P!

Hello, October!

 As is usually the case, our calendar says it's fall, but our weather does not.  So, we sweat it out in shorts at the pumpkin farm today, then chugged cold water and blasted the A/C on the way home.  Our favorite fall farm just opened yesterday and we had the place to ourselves (guess no one else felt like picking pumpkins in the 90 degree heat!).  Farmer John even let us wander around his pumpkin patch, which was something new to see this year.  Here are the annual pictures of the girls posing in the pumpkins and jumping on the hay trampoline:

We'll have to head back when it actually feels like fall.  I think you just need to be wearing a sweatshirt when you take a hay ride!

Kitty for a Day

I've mentioned before that Dave and I are certainly not cat-people.  When he came home from walking Ella to the bus stop with a tiny black kitten mewing in his arms, I thought he lost his mind!  I guess this little lost kitty found the kids at the bus stop this morning and was quickly adopted by a family of older kids.  Since they were about to get on a bus, though, they couldn't take it home.  Out of the goodness in his heart, Dave agreed to keep the kitten for the day until they came home from school to claim it.

Would you believe this sweet little creature completely disrupted my day?  First there was the work of finding a box it wouldn't break out of like a monster, feeding it, listening to it cry then worrying that it had died when it was silent.  Next was Lily, who has named cats as her arch-enemy.  She spent the whole day on edge, running around frantically, barking at nothing and trying to break down the door the kitten was locked behind.  Then there was Delia who has named cats as her most favorite animal in the whole world.  Within minutes of meeting the kitty she was professing her love for it.  When it innocently scratched her in its frisky kitten way, she was not just physically hurt, but betrayed and broken hearted.  By the end of the day she didn't even want to see/talk about/be around the kitty anymore.  And then there was Ella.  She also formed a fast and strangely intense bond with the cat and wept when it was time to hand it over.

Kitty-sitting was a treat for some of us for a little while, but mostly it affirmed something we already knew...we'll NEVER own a cat!