Halloween Humor

I received this last year in an email and it's back around again and this time I thought I'd share it since I've been on my political soapbox on here already.

Ha!  Ha!  Hope you got a good laugh out of it too!  (BTW, if you are a democrat, I know there are tons of republican jokes out there all the time...just watch any news channel except FOXNEWS!)

Happy Halloween!

Fire! Fire!

No, there really isn't a fire, but there was a fire truck at Riley's school this morning to kick off their school's Health and Safety week/fair.  Here is a picture of his first grade class in front of the fire truck...Can you spot my little man amongst the sea of students?

That's him cheesing in front of the firefighter on the right.  What a good looking group of kiddos, huh?  I think little kids in school uniforms are so cute!

Will The Great Pumpkin Appear?

There is a family owned apple orchard up the road that puts on a great family fall festival.  They show "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" once it gets dark and also have food (including hot apple cider and cider donuts!), a bounce house, games, vendors and a hay ride.  We decided to head over Saturday night to check it out.  Last year we had intentions of going, but the weather did not cooperate.

My two munchkins enjoying the maze

Hanging out at the fishin' hole

Riley caught something...maybe a tootsie roll?

Trying to get the bean bag into the clown while our friends cheer him on

Watching the movie while snuggled up on a blanket

Hayrides are so much more fun in the dark!

We had such a great time and ended up finding two families there that we are good friends with to spend time with too.  It's really starting to feel like home now that we are bumping into friends at different events throughout the area.  Which, if the past is any indication, we'll start to feel really at home and comfortable here and we'll get the call that the company wants us to move again...part of me has been hesitant to get too attached here for that exact reason, but I think I'm finally hooked.  This place is too beautiful and my Utah friends are so accepting and kind that I find I'm starting to grow some tiny little roots... 

Fun Down On The Farm

As I mentioned in my last post, the people of Utah embrace Halloween and spirit of autumn.  There is a working farm nearby called Wheeler Farm.  Here they have all types of farm animals, machinery, tools, old buildings, etc. to show what life was like on a farm (fortunately for Andy and I, we can pass that down to our kids rather easily from our childhoods in Pennsylvania!)

The farm offers a variety of fall-themed activities for all ages.  I was able to snag tickets for the maze, pumpkin and wagon ride for $3.50/person instead of the $7/person they typically charge.  Gotta love City Deals, Groupons, etc.!  We decided to take the kids this morning and enjoy some time in the beautiful sunshine while taking in the changing colors of the leaves with the incredible Wasatch in the background.

See how Kendall is looking away from the camera?

The kids had fun getting lost in the maze and picking out their pumpkins afterwards.  We were fortunate that the guy who ran the farm was there and offered us an extra pumpkin since we only had three, but there were four of us in our family.  What a sweet man.

Notice Kendall's tongue in this one...

Lost in the maze...while trying to terrorize a poor rooster!

After we put our pumpkins in the car, we walked around and I snapped a few (thousand) photos.  I took my tripod in an attempt to capture at least one or two family photos...If you've ever tried to capture my daughter in a posed smile, you are lucky!  She will say "cheese" while she's looking in a completely different direction than the camera.  Poor Riley.  He tries so hard to keep a smile while we're waiting for her to cooperate.

The kids love playing around in this tree, but it's a rather popular spot for photographers so we had to sneak in and snap a few while there was a quick break in the action.

After our rather unsuccessful photo shoot, we headed over to take a wagon ride.  The kids enjoyed riding around the grounds of the farm and checking out their Halloween decorations.

You'd never know by this picture that I had my daughter looking like a million bucks when we left the house...well, I take that back, if you know my daughter, you know why she no longer looks like a million bucks...check out her wild hair!

It was a fantastic day for a family outing to Wheeler Farm.  It appears that the weather may be changing this week and we wanted to get outside as much as we could before it turns colder (more fall-like weather).  It was 76 degrees and full sun at 1 pm today!  It felt much warmer than that though!  Maybe next time I'll have Kevin come along and snap the photos or learn to bribe my little girl with fruit snacks...

"CHEESE!"

Hope you and your families are enjoying fall as much as we are...Fall happens to be my favorite time of the year...apples, pumpkins, cinnamon smells everywhere, color landscapes, wedding anniversary, football games, crisp, cool air and sunny skies...What's not to love?

A Bewitching Time!

There is this cute little shopping center out here called Gardner Village where they have adorable boutique style shops.  Every year at Halloween they deck out in everything WITCHES!  They have women dressed up as witches strolling throughout the village, a ride on the back of an old pick up truck that takes you to an old railroad car converted into a witch's home as well as a scavenger hunt to find witches doing a number of different things from hula hooping to cannonballs into water!  The kids have so much fun doing the scavenger hunt and being rewarded with cookies from the bakery at the conclusion.

Last night we took the kids there as soon as Andy got home from work.  We rode out to see the witches in the rail car while it was still light out so they wouldn't be as scared.  Kendall dressed up in her little witch costume (she's actually going to be Minnie Mouse for Halloween, but the tutu was for ballet and I found the hat on sale).  Riley played his part by wearing a glow in the dark skeleton shirt!

Such a cute couple!  Don't you agree?

This was our "ticket" to get into the witch's home!  Both kids thought it was a pretty cool "ticket"

The witch had two real spiders in her home.  K thought this one was fascinating!

My little cuties - K got so many compliments on her witch costume which made me smile since it cost next to nothing to put together!

Checking out the witch version of a spa day...mud baths!

Not even scared to touch the pet spider!

Who knew witches kept cute little goats as pets?  My little witch was happy making a new friend!  I unfortunately wasn't fast enough to snap a picture, but she was holding this little guy's head in her hands and looking into his eyes as if she were a mini goat whisperer...

What a fun annual family event.  These witches are sweet and friendly, not scary and haunting.  This will be one activity that we will miss when the time comes to leave Utah...It is something that perplexes me though...Back home, in the "Bible Belt" of Pennsylvania where I grew up amongst the Mennonites and the Amish, Halloween is a holiday that is celebrated but often with caution.  Trick or Treat is not always on October 31 as it is in most parts of the country.  It does not get near the fan fare it receives out here in the middle of mormon country.  In reality it is a pagan holiday, so I was surprised how many people embrace it as much as they do out here.  Even "This Is The Place" which is a park dedicated to the mormon pioneers gets a scary, gory makeover each fall.  Oh well...We choose to celebrate Halloween by dressing in non-scary costumes, trick or treating and carving pumpkins and will continue to do so, but was something that surprised me about life in Utah.

Fall Vacation Part 2: Bryce Canyon National Park

The second part of our tour of southern Utah included Bryce Canyon.  Bryce is different from Zion in many ways.  First of all, in Zion, you enter the canyon from the canyon floor.  In Bryce, you enter at the top of the canyon and get to see it from the highest elevation...which is anywhere from 8,000 to 9,000+ feet above sea level.  Even though it's called a canyon, it's technically an amphitheater that was created by erosion.  Bryce is famous for it's unique hoodoos.  Riley enjoyed seeing the interesting structures, but after a few too many viewing stops, he adopted the attitude "if you've seen one hoodoo, you've seen them all."  He kept saying how much more fun Zion was than Bryce.  I have to admit, I felt the same way.  I'm so glad that we got to go and see the hoodoos, but there wasn't nearly as much for us to do as a family as there was at Zion.  Since we were at the top of the rim of the "canyon" we were on heightened alert so that one of the kids didn't get too close to the edge.  There weren't fences or guardrails at every lookout so it was a little stressful that way.

Riley earned his Junior Ranger badge for Bryce Canyon as well on this trip.  One of the requirements was to attend a Ranger session.  We listened to one about geology.  It's so interesting to hear a scientists' perspective on how old the earth is and how things have occurred over millions of years!  Andy and I spent some time explaining to Riley the difference between evolution and creation.  He understands that God made EVERYTHING and the flood most likely had a lot to do with the formations that we had seen.  Unfortunately now he's not interested in becoming a scientist because in his mind, all scientists believe in Darwin's flawed theory of evolution.  In time, he'll come to see that there are scientists who believe in creation and have taken steps to prove it.

Another difference between Bryce and Zion was the temperature!  It never got out of the 50's at Bryce.  On Saturday morning we woke up to a thick layer of frost on the windshield of my car!  The kids handled the cold well.  We tried to keep them bundled up and kept them out of the wind when possible.

There is a neat old lodge at Bryce Canyon that was built by the Union Pacific R.R. so of course we had to go and check it out!  UP figured out that these NP's would be a great way to bring in rail business so they built the lodges to house guests that came by rail to see the park.  They also built some at a few other parks nearby, but Bryce's is the only one still in use.

We got to see a raven up close and personal.  The bird wasn't afraid of my daughter terrorizing it!  She was talking to it, chasing it, etc. and it just kept a few feet ahead of her.  One man started feeding it and Riley got VERY upset because as a Junior Ranger, he knows that one of the park rules is to NOT feed the wildlife!  We also got to see some pronghorns (look like antelope), chipmunks and squirrels.  We were hoping to see some prairie dogs, but no luck!

Here are some of the pictures I took while we were there.  The scenery is so beautiful and unique, but you can understand why Riley got bored after a day and a half!

Our customary shot entering a National Park

I think this is from the trail that heads to the amphitheater from the lodge

Lots and lots of hoodoos

I love the colors in this one.  I think it's from Sunset Point.

Such incredible shapes

These were called "grottos" and could be seen from Bryce Point

This reminded me of Balanced Rock from Arches National Park

Natural Bridge...another reminder of Arches

You can see the result of one of the many forest fires at Bryce.  From what the Ranger told us, the weather in Bryce is pretty freaky...Cold, snow, ice in the winter and random storms in the summer months that result in trees being struck by lightening and starting fires.

We told Kendall that this was Cinderella's castle.  She kept talking to the princesses from the trail until we left!

Can you find the castle in this shot?

Daddy and his kiddos at Bryce Point

The girls at Sunrise Point

Mom and her favorite boy at Sunrise Point

Another view from Sunset Point

We would have loved to hike down into the canyon, but it wasn't practical for us to do with the kids at this age.  It's pretty steep and lots of loose rock on the trails with steep cliffs.

We had a great trip, but we were all anxious to get home.  No one slept well while we were gone.  We need to take Kendall's pack and play along with us next time.  She and Riley slept together for a few nights but we kept waking up to Riley's shrieking "Kendall get off my property!"  We started putting her to bed first and then Riley, but that didn't solve the middle of the night fits.  We then decided that the boys should sleep in bed together and the girls together, so instead of hearing Riley screaming, I just had Kendall kicking me all night, sleeping on my pillow, her arm across my face, etc.  No wonder the poor boy woke up frustrated!

We had a great time and Riley is excited to visit more National Parks to earn more Junior Ranger badges.  I bought him a Junior Ranger baseball hat and he's got his 3 JR badges attached to them.  He earned one in Alaska while visiting my brother a few years ago.  We bought the annual National Parks pass which will pay for itself if we visit two more parks within the next year.  It also gets us into American Fork canyon which is an even better plus since Andy rides his dirt bike in AF canyon!

Hope you enjoyed the photos from our trip!  If you ever get the chance to visit either Bryce or Zion, I highly recommend it!  We are considering a trip to the Grand Canyon next summer...Got to try to see it while we live this close, right?