2013 Pumpkin Patch News!

It's that time of the year!

I don't know if I've covered this in previous posts, but it's Fall!  My favorite season (save for the back-aches), there's FOOTBALL, school is back in session, the leaves turn gorgeous colors, and it's time to hit some pumpkin patches.

For a few years, we went to Carrolls Pumpkin Farm in Grinnell Iowa.  It's a great place and we have nothing against it, save for the drive to get there and the drive to get home.  

Last year, we changed things up due to Robby's football schedule and Caleb's soccer schedule.  We decided to try a closer pumpkin patch to see what they had to offer.  

We went to Geisler Farms in Ankeny, Iowa, which is not terribly far from home and documented at that previous link.  If that wasn't enough, we had a blast doing the maize maze as well as the other stuff there.

Robby wanted to go back there this year as he said he had a blast in the corn (maize) maze.  

So after last Saturday's flag football contest, we went out for lunch (sushi and chinese food!) and then headed back to Geisler's Farm for another fantastic afternoon. 

That's exactly what we had!

Don't believe me?  Look at the pix:

That's Momma, Robby and Calebber heading up the sidewalk to the main entrance.

Ahhhhhh... we enter the corn maze and it becomes apparent that Robby wanted to come back here as he wanted to lead "the troops" thru the maze as Dear ol' Dad did last year.  Mom was shadowing him and off we went.

The "ham n' egger's" stopping for a pose.  We were still fresh at this point.

We arrive at one of the big clearings where we punch our team cards to indicate that we've been to all 20 places to punch our cards.  This was one of the letters in the word "Ankeny".

At some point, Mom became frustrated with Robby leading and not being too terribly open to receiving instruction.  Dad took over and things went a little better, but mostly due to the fact that Robby was growing tired and wanting a little instruction.

A map reading session, captured for all to see!

After a rather taxing trudging thru the corn field, we emerged mostly unscathed and decided to take a turn or two on the trikes.  That's momma, in case you were wondering.

That's Caleb, in case you were wondering.  Where's Robby???

Aha!!!  He needed a "little break"...

Yahtzee!!  The boy is back!

But then Dear ol' Dad enters the race and p'owns everybody!!

Declaring his dramatic victory, Daddy celebrates his amazing victory!

Robby, stuck, tries to overcome Caleb as Dad sprawls out on a bench in a pitiful attempt to recover from his one lap!

Next up?  The hamster wheel!

Next up?  The corn pit.

Next up?  The pedal go-carts!

Robby, kissing dirt on the bouncy ponies.

And there's Calebber, smiling while Robby is preparing to kiss more dirt in the background.

And we'll sum it all up with nice photo of the boys out searching for our pumpkins.

And we'll see soon what happened to the pumpkins that they captured with this wagon!

He's BACK! ...and they're 0-2-1.

He's back, baby, he's back!  

As you may recall, I posted a story roughly 3 weeks ago about a certain little long-haired hippie boy breaking his wrist. That was the day before the first flag football game of the season.

He's been practicing with the team ever since, but only in a role of playing quarterback, so not too much chance of him re-injuring said appendage.  This week they had practice on Friday night, instead of Monday night so Mom and Dad decided that he could try a little defense, and play receiver on offense, but only as a decoy.  

The coaches liked it and did just that.

He practiced well, no injuries, so we decided to allow him to have the same role in the game.  

You see, he starts swimming this week and resumes outside recess, so there will be some additional "testing of the waters" this week, both literally and figuratively. 

He was picked to be a team captain this week, which meant that got to go to middle prior to the game, shake hands, pick which way they wanted to go, and who got the ball first.  That's hippie boy in the blue do-rag, white football pants wearing the #5.  That little kid in yellow facing Robby was F.A.S.T.  In fact, Robby just informed me that his name was Zam.  That's even a fast name!

He got a kick out of it and then promptly went...

...to the sidelines.  What's funny about him on the sidelines is that he is as intense as he is on the field.  Check out his posture during this play.

Also on the sidelines worth noting!

Here's Robby out on defense.  This play, Zam got the ball, zigged, zagged and a few other words that haven't been invented yet, and made his way the length of the field for a touchdown. 

This is a blurry photo, but it's the only offensive play where Robby got the ball.  It was a broken play from the get-go, with a supposed fake hand-off and something else, but it didn't work.  Robby eventually yelled  for the ball, the qb gave it to him and he ran.  Not very far, but he got about 3 yards on a play that was dead from the beginning.

Not that we keep score, but the game ended 12 to 12 yesterday.  They're now 0-2-1 for the year.

I like football.

LCC Rock n' Roll, Sunday School Style Fall edition!

It's Fall, schools back in session, football is back and Sunday school starts up for another go'round. 

And where there is Sunday school, there are kids singing!

There's cute little China-Boy in practice before the 8:30 service last Sunday.

And there's larger American boy in the back row with the "Whatever" t-shirt on and a look on his face that shows mild embarrassment.  He had just realized that I had the camera trained on him.

This is during the actual worship service with both boys in the same frame.  Caleb appears happy. Robby, not so much.

And a bit wider shot of the collective.

One of the three videos appeared to have uploaded correctly.  Video, me and this blog service do NOT get along, so I'm not sure why the other two didn't work...  

 

This is the kids doing a variation on an age-old poem that we probably all know...  we being mostly the American's reading this.  The other countries?  I have no idea.

It goes like this:

This isn't the church,

It's only the steeple,

Open the doors,

The church is the people.

So, in a blog post about singing, there is no actual singing.  Talk amongst yourselves!

Caleb Strikes Back!

I recently wrote that Caleb was having a bad day as Robby had not only acquired one Halloween costume, but two! Oh sure one of them went back to the store in order to get the second, but he also got his long promised guitar on that same day! 

Well, last night, while Daddy napped, Robby went to a Birthday/Costume/Dance party with a bunch of friends from school and Momma took Calebber out to look at costumes.  

He found one he liked!
 

I don't care how you slice it, he's cute!

Need more proof?  Here 'tis.

And so, now both boys have their Halloween costumes for 2013.  We'll see if they can have them NOT ruined by the time beggars night rolls around.

Bets?

Robby: The Guitar Playing, Navy SEAL... kinda...

Robby had a pretty good week as far as in the minds of 8 year old boys go.

First off, a little back story.  Back in the Spring, Rob was having a bit of trouble after Spring break.  Nothing crazy, but just little things as youngsters get restless as the end of the school year approaches.

I had a talk with him and we decided, along with momma, that if he could finish the year without any more troubles, I would get him his first guitar.  He was interested in one (or two) of my guitars and I was not overly hesitant about giving him one of those, but that is not the same as having your own.

So we made a deal.  The boy lived up to his end of the bargain and summer came... and went...

Dad started a new job, complete with starting his own LLC, Momma graduated from nursing school and we made it out to Washington DC to visit friends we made in China while adopting Caleb.

As a result, the guitar kept getting delayed...  Lo and behold, the new school year came and we still had not fulfilled the promise!

So this week, after much reassuring that we were going to, Dad and Robby finally pulled the proverbial trigger and got him his own guitar.  

His FIRST guitar!!  

I remember mine...  it was a Woolworth classical with the three nylon strings.   Not quite conducive to playing along with KISS Alive II, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever!!

Here is the hippie boy with his first guitar!  The deal is, he has to learn one thing per week with it.  Not a big a deal as we've already touched on about half a dozen things so far, and he's only had it for about 30 hours, as I type.

If the guitar wasn't enough, Robby got two new costumes this week. The first was Ninja costume but it was just a bit too small and not of great quality, so it was returned for the Navy SEAL costume.  He has a great admiration for them and his understanding of what they do, so it was his second choice.  In my opinion, a good one!  I do think that hair is probably a touch too long for a SEAL...

Caleb thought the whole thing was a huge bunch of stuff, very similar to Rosey's poo!  From his perspective, he's absolutely correct!

He does not realize that Robby needed a costume for this Saturday's costume party, while his own costume is not needed for another 23 days or so.

The Deck Is Stained! At Least Someone's Impressed...

Back in August, I wrote about a certain long-haired-hippie boy doing some work for me. We curse the existence of our deck every time we have to stain it as it is no small feat to accomplish.

This year, we power washed it in August, obviously... based on the link above, and then stained it over Labor Day Weekend.  We spent the better part of all three days working on it, but it's done!

We didn't like it at first but now as it's had a couple of rains on it, dust from the mostly dry conditions and been beat up by the sun a bit, we like it quite a bit.

Apparently, so does this blasted varmint!

He was so impressed with our work that he decided to bury a walnut in the Noahs Ark hanging pot on one of the poles. This too, appears to be no small feat!!

Vacation 2013 - Post #2, Gettysburg, PA. (Pt 1 - The Museum)

So, late into day 2 of vacation, we arrive in Chambersburg, PA.  Why is this significant?

Good question!

It's because it's the point of the first beer store we found on the trip.  I don't recall the name of the joint as it wasn't much more than a Morton building on the side of a 4 lane road thru town, but there it was in all of its neon decorated glory!

We pull in and Dear Ol' Dad goes into the store to peruse the wares. I selected a 12 pack sampler of the Smuttynose variety and a Yuenglings Porter case!  When I got up to the register, the lovely young lady working there explained that they only sell things by the case so I had to go grab another 12 box of the Smuttynose sampler!

Oh the horror! Oh the shame!

So I carried it out to the car in one load and nearly died doing it!  I haven't carried 48 beer bottles (full) since my much younger years and it's harder than you think!

Anyway, moving on to the point of the post...

The town is, roughly speaking, about 15 - 20 miles West (and just a hop, skip and a jump North) of Gettysburg.  You can really start to see the lay of the land described in so many of the stories of the civil war, not to mention that there are a whole pile of period buildings in town that have been preserved in between the Hardees and Morton buildings filled with beer.

Very cool.

We leave there and continue on Southeast towards what's basically the mythical town of Gettysburg.  It's one of those places that we always hear about in the Midwest, but never really expect to visit.

We arrive there quite late in the evening and it's dark. It's dark and the roads are curvy.  It's dark, with curvy, short roads and suddenly there are old wood fences and cannons visible by the dim light projected from the 45 - 90 degree angle of the headlights!

VERY COOL!  ...and a little spooky.

We find our hotel shortly thereafter and hit the proverbial hay after a dinner at the hotel restaurant.

The next morning we head into the Gettysburg visitor center and get the day going.

Let's cut to the pictures so perhaps I'll shut up...

This is the Museum/Visitor center that was built fairly recently. This houses the ticket booth, the gift shop and the museum and probably other stuff that we did not experience.

This is the left side of the Museum/Visitor center from the shot above.  The big round-a-bout thing on the top will come into play later on in this post regarding a mural that some fella painted.

Robby with a Abraham Lincoln hat on.  It was HARD getting the boys out of the gift shop!

Calebber McCheese with the aforementioned hat on.  His favorite president is Mr. Lincoln and he might be the only prez that Caleb recognizes.

The boys with their soldier caps on.  Notice that Robby is wearing blue.  Mom had set out clothes for him that morning and they happened to be grey shorts and a grey shirt.  Robby said, and I'll paraphrase, "Mom, I don't want to be picky, but this stuff is grey and we're in Gettysburg.".  So be it!  Momma helped him get some other clothes that more closely represent his inner feelings.  :-) 

Now we're in the museum.  This is one of the official uniforms and rifles.  These guys appeared to be small!

Again, more stuff from the museum to give an idea of what kind of stuff is in there.

Caleb by one of the many preserved cannon muzzles.

I was creeped out by the "Sale" documents that have been preserved.  Notice the doc in the upper left side of the photo titled, "Slavery   Ordained By God".  This conversation could go in SOOOOOOOOOOO very many differentways.  Talk amongst yourselves...

Here is the first shot of the mural that is called the Gettysburg Cyclorama.  It was painted by a fella named Paul Philoppoteaux depicting Picketts Charge.  It circles that entire big round area in that second photo up top.

certain young lad who is fascinated by all things Civil War/Presidents/history in general.  What you can't tell from either of these photos, is that they went thru the trouble of building a 3D landscape that leads from the viewing platform down to the wall where the mural starts.  It's all to scale so the stuff right up close to you is much larger than the stuff, say, 25 feet away.  A fella had to look pretty hard at times to figure out where the actual mural started and the more "real" stuff leading down to it ended

Some of the musical instruments used during the war.  I say some, as there were more scattered thru the museum.

Some of the guns used in the war.  Both the guns and the instruments were both donated items as well as "stuff" collected from the battlefields themselves.

"Small Chinese Boy" posing next to one of many displays of medals of honor issued during and after the war.  One room was dedicated to this alone!