Pumpkin Carving

This weekend it was finally time to carve our pumpkins.  The kids whipped them out in record time this year.  I think this is the first year Kelsey hasn't eaten the seeds straight from the pumpkin (gag).

Chase needed no help this year.  He drew his own face and carved it himself!

Sadi even carved her own this year (with a little assistance).  I think she was excited we gave her a knife to carve with.  Whoever invented the little carving sets...genius!

 It was quite the showcase of scary faces when they were finished. 

Sadi was pretty proud of her work..diamond eyes and all!

Kelsey's spooky jack.....

 We can't wait to light the night with our trio of Jack O' Lanterns!

Salmon Run

On Monday I took the little kids up to Taylor Creek to see the Kokanee Salmon run.  It is something I had heard about but had never experienced.  Beginning in October the adult Kokanee Salmon return to Taylor Creek from Lake Tahoe to spawn.  We started out on the Rainbow Trail not knowing what to expect.

The trail was an easy hike for the kids and took you right down to the river where there was more Salmon than I have ever seen in my life.  The photos really do not do it any justice.  There were hundreds of fish!  It was pretty spectacular.

The fish were huge!  It would have been nice to have an underwater camera to get some good photos.  I found it interesting that they were not spooked by people.

You can see how close you were to them in this photo of the kids.  You could really just reach out and touch them.  The kids had fun watching them "fight" and splash all over.

The trail continues on up the river and into an underground water chamber where you can see the fish up close.   It's a pretty remarkable journey these fish make.

We spent the rest of the day hiking more trails and looking for bears.  I think everyone we passed had seen at least one.  Even the kids on a field trip all got to see the bears eating from the river but we seemed to miss them all. 

The weather was beautiful, and the scenery was amazing.  The leaves were all starting to turn color and you could just smell the fall in the air.

We spent a few hours hiking and having a picnic and I think we all would have liked to stay longer but all too soon it was late afternoon and time to head back for baseball.   I think this may have to become one of our new fall traditions.

A bushel....or maybe a peck

This past weekend the kids had a 3 day weekend so when we weren't at baseball (most of the weekend) I had planned a few other fun things to do.  I found an organic apple orchard not too far from where we live and so decided to take the kids apple picking.  I remember doing this growing up with my family.  I must have been pretty young because I don't remember where we went but I remember the orchard's being huge!  I remember "trying out" many apples before picking them.  When we arrived at the orchard it seemed a bit on the small side...I was expecting the trees to go on forever I guess.  After we checked in and listened to how to properly pick (or rather cut) our apples we set off into the trees.  We searched low.....

  We searched high......

Some of us inspected our apples AFTER we had picked it...."he said it was still ok if it had black spots on it right Mom?"

We picked golden delicious (my favorite), Gala, Braeburn, and Cameo.  At the end of the day they all found their perfect apples.

I had to bite my tongue a few times as this one clipped many "so cute" quarter size apples.  Pretty sure I paid for quite a few apple cores by the pound.

Once their baskets were filled we were off to the weigh station.   Poor Kelsey had to listen to all of us crunching our delicious apples on the way home (one of the down sides of braces). 

I wanted to bake an apple pie when we got home but the kids lacked confidence in my pie making abilities so I bought an apple pie and heated it up so the house at least smelled like I baked a pie.  It was scrumptious!  A perfect end to a perfect day.

Pick of the Patch

This past weekend I took the kids to the pumpkin patch.  This year I planned to get there early in the season so we would get a good pick from the patch.   We spent a good portion of the day there and it was beautiful.  We had fun (well most of us) going through the corn maze.  This year it was cut into the shape of Nevada including roadways and all...they neglected to tell us that going into it which might have helped.

If you ventured too far out it took you to a bordering state.  I said to Chase "Wow you took us all the way to Oregon!"  He literally thought we had walked to another state.  It's hard not to get turned around in there, and we ended up visiting Utah and California as well.

 Someone wanted to "hitch" a ride on I-15 out of the corn maze!  She was "sooooooooo hot, and sooooooooooo thirsty".  Can't you just imagine a hot day in a corn maze with this one? 

We also visited the petting zoo.  Chase wanted a picture with this gentle(?)goat.  Ya, I avoided him.  If you have horns wrapped up in gauze there's probably a good reason.

We also made bets on who we thought would win the pig race.  They are really fun to watch, and run faster than you think.  Interesting tidbit: they race for Oreo cookies.

Before leaving we headed to the pumpkin patch..or patches rather.  30,000 pumpkins to choose from.  It didn't take too long this year to find the perfect pick.  We had some losers though.  Too heavy....

 Too "not perfectly perfect"....

Too white?....

 At the end of the day, we headed home with these 3 beauties.....

A perfect trio waiting to be carved.

Super Hawks

Last Friday was the first Citizenship assembly at Riverview.  One or two kids from each class is recognized by their teacher as Citizen of the month.  I was helping out the Boosters when the president came over and whispered "both your kids are receiving the award today" .  Because they keep the winners top secret until they are announced it was fun to see their reactions. Sadi was shocked and was ecstatic to see Chase's name called too. 

They each got a certificate, spirit shirt, pencil, and at lunch got to eat together where they set up a special table for the kids and were also given ice cream.  The also each received a free meal ticket for Jack in the box.  Guess where we headed that night for dinner? 

It's nice to see them rewarded for being such good students.  Super proud of my little Hawks!

Whatcha been up to?

I have had so many people ask me what I am doing with all my "free" time now the kids are in school.  Well....I HAVE NO IDEA.  Seriously the days fly by, and I really cannot believe the kids have been in school for 6 weeks.  All I know is I see a lot of this...

Filler up AGAIN!

and this...

SERIOUS back seat driver.  She is always dancing to the music (here she is "puttin her hands in the air as the music instructs).  She is constantly demanding I put on HER music...that means make the radio station magically play what she wants.  She can also now spell S-T-O-P and knows what it means.  Do you know how many stop signs there are here and just how many times you can spell S-T-O-P until you reach Carson City?  I now do....A FREAKIN LOT.

 

So on further examination of exactly what i have been doing, let's take this last week and examine it.  I'm skipping straight to schedules here (feel free to fill in the rest of my time with all the fun stuff I get to do every week i.e. mop, laundry, dust, vacuum, clean the bathrooms, grocery shopping, make breakfast, pack lunches, make dinner, do dishes, make beds, give baths, do homework, etc.)

Sunday- Take Kelsey to school at 9 a.m.
               Take Chase to Baseball in Carson City(30 min. drive) at 10
               Pick up Kelsey at school at 5 p.m.

 Monday-Pick up Kelsey at school at 3:30ish from her mtg.
                Race home to get little kids off bus at 3:45 and get Chase
                ready for Baseball.
                Take Kelsey back to school for powder puff game@5:00
                Race Chase to Baseball game in Carson City @5-8
                Pick up Kelsey in Dayton @ 8 when game is over
*note to self throw food at kids and plan to be in 2 places at once...have no idea how.

Tuesday-Take Kelsey to school at 5:30 pick up at 8

Wednesday-Take Chase to BBall practice at 6:00-?
                    Take Kelsey to school at 6:30-pick up at 7:30?

Thursday- Take Sadi to Dance at 4:00 in Carson City done at 5:30
                  Miraculously be in Dayton at 5:30 to drop Kelsey
                  at school-pick up at 9

Friday-(Also Chase's Birthday) Work at the school from 8-12
             Take Kelsey to school at 6:30ish for FB
             Take Chase out for Birthday dinner in Carson City
              Pick up Kelsey at 9:45

Saturday- drop Kelsey off at school at 10 a.m.
                 Pick up Kelsey at 2 p.m. but also be in Carson City
                 by 1 for Bball
                 Bball should be over by 6ish
                 Race back home don't get Chase out of the car,
                 pick up girls to take Kelsey back to school @7
                 Pick up Kelsey at 11 p.m.

So..that is what I have been up to.  Not sure where all my "free" time is people talk about...I'm still looking for it. 

Having a Ball

Like I said it was a birthday weekend.  On Sunday we had Chase's birthday party at the bowling alley.  A few weeks prior to the party he handed out these bowling ball invites to his friends.  It said something like:  Come have a "ball" at Chase's birthday party..hope you can "spare" the time to celebrate. 

Chase was counting the days until the party..and then the hours.  When the guests arrived they each received a bowling bag (also party favor).

Inside their bags was a shirt I had made for each of them, and also some "spare" treats, and gutter ball gumballs.

While we got everyone their shoes I had set up a guessing jar for them...funny how far in both directions their guesses were.  The closest guess got to take this home at the end of the party.

Once they had their shirts on, they were ready to bowl!  I loved how the shirts turned out, and it really made us stand out in the crowd which was nice because the bowling center was packed!

Chase was ready to knock em down!

 I knew they would have fun, but I had no idea how much fun.  They stood almost the entire time.  They had fun watching the score board(have to keep track of who's winning), and watching each other bowl.

The first game we played normal, but after pizza and soda I decided they needed to mix it up!  It was time to play Funky Bowling!  Never heard of it?  Well....I made it up.  I had made bowling balls that when they opened each one it told them they had to do while bowling.

They LOVED this.  Some of the funky bowling included: bowling between the legs,

 bowling criss cross applesauce,

hopping on one foot,

we also bowled like monkey's, doing a funky dance, and yelling like and animal until the ball hit the pins.  Quite frankly it was hilarious!  I missed alot of shots because I was laughing so hard.  When we were done bowling everyone got a score sheet of their game to take home and we crowned the bowling champ (Korree).  I had acquired a bowling pin and painted it for the winner to take home. 

Birthday boy got another chance to blow out his candle (didn't get them all out on his cake).   

This boy got loaded up on presents.  He could barely carry them all out the door.  Like the special touch I added to the birthday boy's shirt?

It was a fun party, one I hope he won't forget.

Apparently the shirts were a huge hit with the kids, they ALL decided to wear them to school today.