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Monday, October 31, 2011

October Fun

Several of the local churches in Venice host fall festivals. We visited one on Saturday night. Here are the kids eating snow cones while waiting for a pony ride.


Abby was a pumpkin by default (we had the costume and she was excited about it), Noah wanted to be a conductor again (which was easy since that's what he was last year!), and Julia was a ballerina (which was also easy since she had been given this swimsuit over the summer!) We definitely don't put much thought into costumes at our house. : ) The kids were all happy with their choices, and, of course, I thought they were all adorable!



We also carved pumpkins:






The kids drew their faces on, then Daddy cut them out with some kind of power tool.


And to round out our October fun, tonight we played candy corn bingo!

Noah and Abby loved it, and caught right on!


Julia loved it, too, but only because she got to eat all her candy corn! : )


Happy October everyone!

Pumpkin Patch Express

My sweet boy Noah is still in love with trains, so as a special treat, we bought tickets for the whole family to ride the Pumpkin Patch Express. It's this old train (our coach car was built in 1924!) that's part of a railroad museum. They have a variety of different themed events throughout the year, and right now happens to be a train ride out to a pumpkin patch and other fall activities.


Everyone was excited to get started.


Noah and Abby looked out the window the whole ride, looking for spiderwebs in the trees of all things.



And Julia, of course, didn't want to be left out!


Once we arrived to our destination, there was a hay maze


a gigantic hay pile to play in


Noah got to go up in the engine


and everyone got to bring home a pumpkin!


It was a happy and exciting day!


Our Camping Adventure

We've been wanting to take the kids camping for some time now. Julia's finally reaching an easier age to do things like that. So Luke took a Friday off work, and we went up to Myakka River State Park (about 45 minutes away) for a long weekend.

Here's our campsite:


Luke is the master fire builder. No camping experience is complete without a roaring fire, no matter the outside temperature.

Here he is passing on his legacy:


Luke made his delicious pancakes for breakfast.


We went hiking



hunted for alligators



went on LOTS of bike rides



climbed on all the fallen trees



did the canopy walk



roasted marshmallows for smores





and made lots of special memories!