Halloween Happenings

This was a week of Halloween Festivities. We kicked it off with pumpkin carving. Can you match the kid to the pumpkin? Hello Kitty Witch, a Cat sitting on the moon, and Lightning McQueen. I know...it's tough.

Cass and Mom left on Wednesday to travel to Utah for Shan's Grandmother's Funeral (more on that later). Brian stayed home and accompanied KK and Brogan on 2 different trick or treating outings. Here is a photo of all the cousins dressed up: Kayla (snow princess), Brogan (Lightning McQueen) Ben (Monkey), Jack (Lion), Zoey (Fairy princess), Abby (doggie). They had lots of fun and brought home plenty of candy.
However, at the risk of feeling left out, Cass and Shan returned Saturday with enough time to dress the kids up at take them to our ward Trunk-or-treat party. Which, because it was raining (no surprise there) was actually held indoors. It was crowded but fun. The kids returned home with even MORE candy.

You would think that we might have had enough Trick-or-treating by now. Not so. We dressed the kids up for yet a FINAL round candy collecting and marched them through the neighborhood.


We are now OFFICIALLY done for the Halloween season. I have 8 gallon bags of candy on my kitchen counter. Can you freeze chocolate? I'm going to try. Plus, Brian gets to collect his 10% finders fee (although Mom did all the walking this year....he stayed home to hand out the treats). Interestingly enough, Brogan prefers smarties, tootsie rolls, and kit-kats, so he has donated a fair share of treats to Brian. The girls have lovingly given him anything hot or spicy (red hots, fire balls, etc). There is still an impressive amount of candy remaining for child consumption.

Is it wrong that I am relieved this holiday is over? Bring on Thanksgiving! :)

Cassidy was baptized this Sunday! We put together a short slideshow of eight years of growing up.

Yet ANOTHER pumpkin patch

Let us introduce you to BIZI FARMS. Awesome. Best pumpkin patch yet. They had everything:

HAY RIDE:

HOT CHOCOLATE:

PONY RIDES:

PUMPKIN LAUNCH:

CORN SHUCKING:

HAY MAZE:

PETTING ZOO

Complete with the 3 little pigs!

HAY PYRAMID

And, of course, PUMPKINS (they each got a free pumpkin as big as they wanted!)

Simply awesome!

Joe's Farm

We LOVE Joe's Farm in Vancouver, WA. It was such a wonderful pleasant treat to visit here (especially after our FAILED pumpkin patch experience earlier that day...see following post).

We got to go on a fun tractor pulled Hay Ride, play in a large castle maze, climb in a straw hay maze, and pick lovely pumpkins to carve later this month. Oh, and we ate apples. Yummy.

We are grateful for this experience and for the chance we had to share it with family who live near by. We are enjoying all the time we get to share with them....and are looking forward to even MORE time together.

Fall FAIL!

The girls only have a half-day of school every Wednesday. This week, the weather was AMAZING and we wanted to take full advantage because, let's face it, the rain is about to start (and not stop until May, or so they say). Because it's FALL, we figured a trip to a pumpkin patch would be prefect. We did a little research and found a place about 50 minutes away called "HOFFMAN'S". It boasted a Merry-go-Round, Bounce Houses, A petting Zoo, An exotic animals Zoo, and more. It sounded like the perfect place. We drove the 50 minutes and were greeted out front by replica "Alvin and the Chipmunk" and "The Simpsons". Cool. But it went down hill from there.

Below are some of the more unusual animals at the zoo. There were located in horrible cages behind 2 different fences, so getting good pictures wasn't easy. The first charming fellow you can't see very well is distantly related to the raccoon and was busy trying to chew it's own leg off. Next we found 2 charming little "Joeys", as Kayla kept referring to them. We wandered around and located the very cool 3 month old Tiger and Lion cubs. SO playful (and Brian's favorite part of the visit). But the winner of the weird, hands down, belonged to the final figure below. To appreciate it, you might need to click on the image to get a clearer shot. This unfortunate animal is what you would get if you crossed a DEER (a very small one) and a RABBIT (a very large one). The head looked like a deer, and it had LONG skinny front legs like a deer. BUT it had the body of a rabbit. It was classified as a member of the rodent family. It was the freakiest thing we have ever seen. It could walk around like a deer, but also jump like a rabbit. So wrong. It joins the platypus as one of those animals that shows us that God does indeed have a sense of humor...or, nature messed up.
There was also a field of HUGE white pumpkins begging to be climbed on. Our kids kindly obliged such an obvious ploy.
And here we have the cousins lined up in a row. From Left to Right: Zoey, Cassidy, Brogan, Abby, Kayla and Jack. (Sadly baby Ben stayed home to take a nap. He really didn't miss much though).
Now, this place might look fine. The photos make it look cooler then it really is. Everything was SOOOO icky and dirty and not well kept. In order to take part in any of the activities, you had to pay...cash only...which you had to get from the ATM with a $4.00 service charge. And, it smelled like urine. So, although the kids probably count this as a cool experience, the adults involved give it a big FAIL. Too bad. Fortunately, it sets the bar pretty low and we left from here and directly drove to Joe's Farm. 10 minutes from our home. Lovely. Charming. Clean. Perfect. We are hoping to try 1 or 2 more pumpkin patches before the season ends, or the rain begins to fall.

Brz and Cass go to UTAH

This past weekend Brian and Cassidy were able to travel with Grandma Reynolds and Grandpa Bob to Utah for a VERY special event. The newest cousin was blessed. Little Miss Madeline Rose Johnson. According to all accounts she is one very sweet baby and as you can see from the photos below, she is beautiful.

Cassidy came back ooo-ing and awwww-ing over this sweet little bundle. We are all looking forward to spending some time cuddling her this Christmas. Hooray for extended family! We love you!