What a difference a year makes!

Last November 21, this was the scene:


The past couple of weekends, including this one, the high's have been in the upper 60's. Unbelievable!

Bird Watching

We are on the lookout for free things to do as a family these days, so last Saturday, we went on a bird watching hike with the county park district. This was one of those FFO's...Fun Family Outing, or as we used to call them when I was a kid, a Forced Family Outing. Luckily, we were enjoying unseasonably warm weather, which made it quite pleasant. Jacob and Katie spotted some bald eagles. All in all, I would dare to say the kids enjoyed it more than they thought they would. It was a morning well spent.

Halloween 2009

Halloween this year started with the trunk-or-treat at church. Katie was a cat. Emma brought a friend. Then Donna and Allison arrived on Thursday and stayed for the weekend. That made it lots of fun. I did a terrible job taking pictures during their visit, so I don't have a lot of pictures. But here are a few.

It was warm enough to carve the pumpkins in the garage.

Trick-or-treating in Burton with friends

Running

Joseph ran Cross Country this fall. He really enjoyed it.

Fall Festival

Also on Jacob and Katie's birthday weekend, we went to the fall festival at a local park for a cub scout family activity. The weather was super cold and rainy, but we had fun anyway. They had the most amazing balloon art set up, filling an entire large room. The kids got to see them make pumpkin ice cream, and of course sample some. We went through a corn maze, and ate lunch with the civil war reenactors. The pavilion was being used by a large group, so the reenactors let us grill our hot dogs over their fire. I wish I had taken some pictures of that.

Katie's party

Katie had her party the next night. She invited a bunch of friends for a movie night. They watched "Confessions of a Shopaholic." It was a cute movie, and perfect for this hard-to-pick-a-movie-for age group.




Katie wanted to write her name on the cake herself, so she did.

Jacob's party

Jacob chose to have a nerf gun war. We held it in the gym at church. The kids all had a great time. We didn't even have any major injuries.

Eleven!

Jacob and Katie turned 11 on September 24. Like I said, I am way behind here on posting. But we all woke up early so they could open some presents before Joseph left for school at 7. They were so excited the night before, I'm not sure they got much sleep.



After music lessons in the evening, we had cake and ice cream.

County Fair

I am way behind on posting here...Labor Day weekend was the Great Geauga County Fair. We had great weather to enjoy our time. We watched the races for a bit...we were sitting right behind a group of Amish teenagers.



This cow had just had her baby overnight.



I'm not sure the pictures do these rabbits justice. They were HUGE.

Jacob, Katie, and Emma wanted to ride some rides, so I took them while Joe and Joseph watched the animal auction. Jacob and Katie rode one of those rides where you go around and around, and up and down while it plays music.

They LOVED it.

Emma and I rode the ferris wheel. Likely the longest wait of any ride...only one car could load and unload at a time, so it took forever. But we enjoyed the views from the top while we waited for people to get on.

This picture is lousy, but the Demolition Derby was a great way to end the night. Redneck ballet, as my friend calls it. The cars go in the concrete enclosure and smash eachother until only one or two are still able to drive. There are several heats, and a grand finale with the winners of the heats. Good stuff. And we got to watch the updates on our friend's blackberry as BYU beat Oklahoma in the season opener.