Bouncy fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN

My kids all have birthdays pretty close to a major holiday, but of them all, Carter most associates his with Halloween. In fact, it’s only been in the past year that I have been able to convince him it would be good to be able to say the actual date when asked, “When’s your birthday?” instead of answering, “The day before Halloween.” Carter’s not one to fuss with unnecessary details, lest it occupy valuable memory space inhabited by facts about spiders, pirates, and Star Wars.
Every year, I ask him what theme he’d like for his party, and every year it’s Halloween. Thank goodness there is plenty to choose from to accomplish that! This year he decided he wanted his party at the “Bouncy” Pumpkin Patch, so we booked it for a week early, and an afternoon during the week, since that place would be NUTS on the weekend or the week of Halloween itself. (Plus, this time of the year is so FULL, it was kind of nice to not be trying to cram it in as an afterthought.
It figured the week of his party the weather would be unseasonably rainy. All day Tuesday I kept peering at the sky, willing the clouds to separate, lest we have to relocate to the still fun, but much less fun pizza place down the street. I’d have kept a smile on my face and acted like it was the best dang idea ever to have his party there a third time (he really likes the pizza place), but, as the day progressed, I started to become irrationally mad at the weather in case it turned. You better not give us sun all day and turn rainy at 3 to spoil this party, I’d silently think up at the sky, as if that were not at all insane.
Thankfully the weather was perfect, just a few clouds, a nice chill in the air that offset running and climbing—and it seemed to affect the numbers of kids at the patch, too, so our party guests had no real waiting in lines to play and slide. Perhaps thinking crazy thoughts at the sky all day does help! (or not)

WATta Day.

Walkathon time is a big deal for our school. It’s also a whole lot of fun for everyone.

                          ::no zoom lens here; I ran like heck the second I took this one shot::

Can’t believe we’ve already been to 6 of these… and how little Bun was way back when…

2008, first grade

My Silly Eldest Son

 

Last night we were going through photos from Carter’s party on Tuesday afternoon and had to make a GIF out of a few that cracked us up. This is Carter to a “T.”

Bulls eye!

Sunday morning we awoke in our yurt at Mt. Madonna, and the air was clear, the birds were chirping, and my children--Carter in particular--were dying to unleash their inner Robin Hoods.

Bunny had been briefly taught archery at girl scout camp, Paul and I had been taught a little in our own childhoods, but this was all new for the boys. Carter’s not in the best “continual listening and rule-following phase” so we had one bow to share between us all this first time. It worked out well, since everyone needed little breaks after shooting a dozen or so shots.

psst: Paul has quite the collection of “old man” hats going…

hard to make out here, but Paul’s impressed how well Cole drew the bow and he hit the target first try (with a little help)

All in all, I’d say stationary paper caribou are safe from our family, though Paul and I did have some decent shots after warming up. It was a lot of fun trying something new!

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P.S. How rad is this camper? It was a few sites over from us, and the owners said it’s a ‘67 Corvair. My kids loved it because it smiles. :)

The Ruins

Like all kids, mine love climbing and scrambling, so the Miller Estate ruins are a hit with us. We hiked there early-ish Saturday morning and mostly had it all to ourselves.

We hiked back to camp for lunch, but Paul, who’d been feeling under the weather since midway into our hike could not eat. It became obvious that it was his turn with the stomach bug that all the kids had been taking turns getting for the prior week and a half. So, he needed to spend some time ruined, too. I was very thankful that I like “easy” camping for our family, and that we were in a comfy yurt in gorgeous woods, so the kids and I stayed outside setting up dinner and making a fire. Paul said he was as comfortable as he’d have been at home, and I made sure the kids still go to make s’mores, etc.

The next morning Paul was largely recovered and we still had one more thing on our do list, archery!

After a hearty breakfast, we packed everything up and headed over to the range…
to be continued (one last time)…

Last Camping Trip of ‘12

Our family went camping last weekend at Mt. Madonna County Park. I’m not feeling 100% today, so I am going to let the photos lend their 1000s of words and keep comments light. Read: lots of photos to come.

this is their favorite ‘silly’ pose

crazy, crazy moss-fern covering trees everywhere

what you can’t see here are the thousands of bugs filling the air, bird lunch!

next: the kids are “ruin”ed…

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

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