Pumpkins & Leaves

After a trip down to a conference in Anaheim for me (hi Koning & Vander Linde clan!) and a short week in Utah for Melis & Abee (hi everyone in Utah!), life is back to normal (as normal as it gets for us). We were greeted upon our return with great fall weather.

Capitol Lake is a great spot to run, play or just enjoy a nice day. Melis often walks/runs around it, and Abee was thankful for some time outside of her jogging stroller! She and her friend Lucy are enjoying the crispy leaves.

Practicing those runnin' skills!

An old piling in front of a railroad tressel.Our veggie crop was pretty meager this year. Abigail didn't really help it out too much. . .but she does enjoy both picking and eating tomatos!
Our TNBS (Tues Night Bible Study) carved pumpkins again this year. We're still finding seeds in places like behind our toaster. I wonder how they got there. . . ;-)

The fruit of our labor (or are they veggies?).

A 30 second exposure of the clouds lit up above Oly.

Lattin's Cider Mill

A trip to Lattin's Cider Mill every fall has quickly become a family tradition for us. And for good reason. Not only do they have a petting zoo with all sorts of farm animals, an apple sling-shot that you can aim at a target in a field filled with cows (the target is optional), a tractor/hay ride driven by a wild-bearded old farmer, award winning apple cider, a pumpkin patch, but they have hands-down the best apple fritters on the planet!

Unfortunately for Abee, the most humorous part of our trip involved a goat in the same pen as pictured above. She'd fed a few sheep with the grain I'd pick off the ground, and seemed to enjoy the animals licking her palm. But when one particularly large goat became frustrated that Abigail wasn't standing close enough to easily get the treat, it let out a deep grunting sound. I personally didn't really know goats could make that particular sound. Abee didn't either - she fell back into my arms, and a few seconds later decided to let the goat know that making that sound was definitely uncalled for. The tears falling down her face helped emphasize her point.

Pardon the plethora of kid pics below. . .but I thought the fam might enjoy them. Kisses!? What's up with that?! Get those yucky wet lips off my cheeks! That's my girl!
On the wild-man's hay ride, with Brian, Hudson, Jocelyn, & Bristol.
Now this is what I came for! Give me more of that fritter!!!
I know, it's a little early for a boy to have his arms around my daughter on a park bench. . .so I'm glad to say she looks a little skeptical (no offense Hudson).

We have a park a couple of blocks away that we often go to on a whim (like we did tonight). We're often the only ones there. It has plenty of grass for Matty to romp around in, and Abee loves the tennis courts and the play area. Here you get a flash of Matanuska fur in the foreground. Hmmm. . .what mischief can I get into?
Speaking of mischief, she's quickly learning what no means. When she gets told 'no,' she'll shake her head no, leave what she doing (usually), and get a big smile on her face. I'm not sure if the smile is from her being proud of herself for understanding what we're saying to her, or if she's just being a stinker. I'm afraid it's probably the latter.
Yup, she does love her books.
And she gets quite a kick out of playing peak-a-boo.
On a not-so-happy note, we found out two weeks ago that our pellet stove has a hole in the exhaust pipe, and the repair man recommended not using it. We were hoping to replace that anyway in the next couple of years. If that wasn't enough, our gas furnace stopped working a few days ago. So after a few failed attempts to fix the furnace (my best guess what that the flux capacitor wasn't getting the 1.21 gigawatts that it needed), I turned my attention to the pellet stove. There's something motivating about waking up to a house that's 57 degrees, and no way to warm it up! The good news is, I spent $12 on materials to patch the exhaust pipe behind the pellet stove, and that's up and working. The bad news is that my fears about the the furnace came true. That's going to be a $600 fix. Ouch. Maybe I can talk Melis into using only the pellet stove for heat this winter ;-)

Saturday @ Rainier