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| Carving pumpkins with the crew... |
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| The result of our labors! The one on the left is Amy's, the one in the middle is Andrew's and the one on the right is Alex's. |
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| Our good neighbor friends the Byers family had an awesome Halloween party on Saturday. The theme was Prom so Nick and I donned some 50's sock hop gear. Bet you didn't know I was a natural blonde, huh?! |
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| Alex as Bumblebee from The Transformers... |
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| Andrew was a Jedi... |
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| Trick-or-treat fun! |
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| Alex getting a jack-o-lantern painted on his hand... |
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| Andrew got a jack-o-lantern on his cheek but then was disappointed when he couldn't see it on his own face! |
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| There was a guy throwing pots there and he let the boys help... |
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| On the pumpkin train that is painted like...a cow? |
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| Andrew on the ginormous hayslide... |
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| Add caption |
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| Yay PumpkinFest |
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| Here are the boys in the car. Mostly, though, notice the BACK of the car, which is loaded up with so much stuff that even Clark Griswold would say, "Wow, that's a lot." And it was only for one overnight. Exceptional. |
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| Here are the kiddos all ready for our hiking adventure. As soon as we arrived at the trailhead, it started POURING rain. And then started hailing. Seriously. We were all sitting in our cars wondering why it hasn't rained a drop all summer but the second we decide to get back to nature the sky opens up?! |
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| At The Devil's Punchbowl. (Nice name.) |
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| The Touch-Me-Nots were a big hit! Here is Alex making one explode... |
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| Our whole crew (minus the Photographer--me) If we look cold and wet, that's because we were. |
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| As it turns out, wodden stairs are extraordinarily slippery when wet. Add some wet leaves and it is downright precarious! Here's the crew making their way down the trail to the waterfall. I can report that no families were injured in the making of this picture. |
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| Alex by the convex waterfall... |
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| Nick back at the campsite trying to get dry and warm... |
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| The boys trying out their accomodations for the night. Around 4:30 in the morning, it started thunderstorming and rained for a couple of hours. There is no tent fabric that can withstand that sort of torrent and it got a tiny bit leaky in there! Overall, though, we actually stayed nice and dry. By the way, do you know how LOUD a thunderstorm is when you're outside in it? Very. |
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| Andrew making his Hobo Stew for dinner... |
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| Our campsite. Car camping is fun! |
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| Alex and Nick enjoying their Hobo Stew... |
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| Roasting our apples for Apple-Pie-On-a-Stick... |
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| The kids around the campfire that night. Andrew took Dwayne's headlamp and would not put it down. He was like a deranged unicorn with that thing... |
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| Here's Andrew telling a scary story around the campfire. Notice that he still has the headlamp on and is using the flashlight as a microphone. |
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| On the hayride around the orchard. Actually, there is no hay so I guess it's just a wagon ride! |
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| Both boys used Nick as a cherry-picker this year...don't know how much longer he'll be able to do that--the boys are getting so big! |
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| Alex and Andrew shooting these awesome injury-proof bow and arrows. |
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| OK, this is me in all my pre-historic glory throwing an Atlatl, which is a weapon ancient people used for hunting mastadon. Step back. I'm awesome at the atlatl. |
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| Nick will tell you he was also awesome at the atlatl but he would be wrong. And since I'm writing this blog, you will have to trust me. :) |
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| Here's Alex all helmeted in preparation for the rope course. That was a whopping 2 feet off the ground. A helmet? Really? |
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| Alex on the super-dangerous ropes course. Of course it takes two grown men to supervise this life-threatening activity. |
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| Alex with a real cowboy learning to rope cattle. |
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| Andrew was convinced he was the real cowboy. |
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| The boys in a rope battle. Whoever pulled the other off the black box won. For once, Andrew did not dominate in the freakishly strong category. |
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| My boys on a horse-drawn hayride through the autumn woods. Lovely. (P.S. It had been raining intermittently that morning which is why Nick has an umbrella. He's not pretending to be British.) |
