Catching up to Halloween...

Well, we have some fun friends and we all found ourselves father/husbandless one beautiful Saturday, so we took the opportunity to go apple picking. It was lots of fun. they had pumpkins and apples, toys, free ballon animals from a clown, apple cider pressing demonstations with yummy samples, and tons more. Lots of fun. Thanks Leigh and kiddos!

We found some leaves, and by some I mean a crazy amount! The kids had a great time, and did I mention it was 82 degrees that day? Yeah, we have had an AMAZING fall!

We carved our pumpkins... Kate did NOT want to have an orange pumpkin... apparently it is so last season. But they loved gutting, designing, and carving their pumpkins!

On to Halloween... Tanner was a little guy riding an ostrich, kids kept calling it a turkey and it seriously annoyed him... and Kate was an owl. It was not easy to get a picture of her, sorry.

Tanner was a sweet brother and held her hand for the costume parade... you can catch a glimpse of Grace behind them, she was a seriously cute ballerina. Sorry the picture is a bit blurry.

This is how Kate ended the party... Tanner had won a bag of cookies at a different party for his awesome costume and stood in front of the announcers at the ward party waiting to win... when he didn't he was very confused and was certain that they had made a mistake. I told him they wanted to let someone else have a turn winning. He was good with that.

Anyway, lots of fun! Happy November... can you believe it?

What was that? Tanner started school over a month ago?

Oh, sorry. He is loving it though. His class has already been assigned a new teacher, but they took a week to transition. So, that was nice. Kate misses him while he is gone, but she not so secretly loves having control of everything. The second day of school Tanner came home and told me about a little girl he had helped with her backpack. He was trying to remember her name, and finally just said "You know, the one with the good looking face?" I was trying to keep my laughter from him. It was too funny. He still tells me stories about her almost everyday, but we know her name now. And yes, she is cute.

Before his first day...

After his first day...

Aside from his glummy, I am too cool for school appearance, he really does enjoy it. I am glad he has somewhere to go a few hours everyday to do fun and educational things that I don't have to come up with or clean up after, I just get to experience the pride and joy of the end results!

A few things we've done...

We went to a Twins Game! It was fun, Cory is actually at another one right now with Tanner because if you can't tell from the pictures, Tanner really liked it...
Kate wasn't as big of a fan... this is saying something, because this little beauty doesn't just fall asleep!

Tanner and his first Major League hot dog...

Also, we went to the Minnesota Zoo again with Sam and Alisha a few weeks ago...

Tanner of course loved the John Deere tractor

My little chicky laid an egg! I am so proud!

Lovin the bears...

And really? That is just gross.

Anyway, the rest has been somewhat forgotten, Cory and Tanner went to a preseason Vikings game. Tanner thought the football was cool, but I guess it was so loud in the stadium he wouldn't take his hands off of his ears. It was a memory either way! But the little man starts school this week, so we will keep you posted! Ha ha... no pun intended.

Book Giveaway!!!

Over on A Reader's Review... she is giving away an autographed book for freebie!!! Go sign up, you have until tomorrow! There is a link to the left, to the left... everything you own, I mean the link is to the left...

Lumberjack Days in Stillwater...

We went to the Lumberjack Days that are held in Stillwater last weekend with some friends... it rained all morning, so quite a lot of the festivities were postponed, but it cleared up and heated up after lunch... we saw an old school fire truck... the side says something about fire and brimstone, the Vulcan Krewe... kinda funny...
We watched the bridge lift to let the boats pass...

Checked out a yummy candy store that Trish worked at in high school... this lady was making cookies and cream fudge... it smelled SO GOOD!

Kate trying to steal candy...

This was an old mill they converted in to offices and shops...
We hit up some great mexican at Nacho Mama's... it was seriously tiny in there and the waitress kinda forgot how to be efficient, but I really liked my food!

I had the baked enchilada... the other half was really good when I got home too... the thing was huge!

Cory had tacos... they were deep fried upon the waitress' suggestion... He said they were great but he wouldn't deep fry them next time...

We hit up the teddy bear park after lunch to run the kids energy out... that is a massive granite teddy bear... the kids loved it.

They have a lot of old time advertisements still on buildings, it made me laugh that the gum had a "purity package"...

This mill is a famous Stillwater landmark...

Tanner loved watching the police dog demonstration...

The lumberjack demonstrations... they raced up and down these posts, the guy on the right touched the post 4 times with his feet on the way down... crazy!!!

This kid is the son of the guy with the microphone... he was dang good at the log rolling...

On the way home, Trish and Andrew took us by their favorite ice cream shop... This was the kiddie size... again, what is with the monsterous scoops around here? Sam was kind enough to put that cup on top, yes it is full of ice cream! But it was good, well, what I was able to consume... I can't vouch for the rest, but I would assume it tasted the same.

Kate crashed before we made it to get ice cream... I guess that she had fun!

I thought Stillwater was a really cute little town, it was settled before Minnesota was a territory, so it is kinda old... Lumberjack Days didn't quite live up to my expectations, but it was fun to get out and see another part of Minnesota and hang out with some awesome friends! So I am trying to figure out tomorrow's plans... I think it will be a little more low key, we are getting tired. Anyway, enjoy your last few weeks of summer, we will be posting pictures of apple picking and football games before you know it!

Saturday Ventures...

We have been surprising Tanner with our Saturday activities, last week we went to the Air Expo at Fort Snelling on Saturday. It was cool, Tanner has been obsessed with fighter jets since he found a book about them in the library. He liked them before, but now it is love. He rambles random facts off all the time, and I just pretend whatever he is saying is correct, because I usually don't know what he is talking about... oh well, I also don't remember what all of these planes were, if you know, you should hang out with Tanner!


This was an F-16 or 15 or something... I think...

This was a hopper plane from 1941 or 43, I would never have flown in it! Those brave men!!!

Shiny cool plane...

This plane was HUGE!!! Seriously huge! Don't believe me?

Well, this is us under it!
After, we got kids meals at McDonalds, yes we had breakfast there the day before, what can I say, we are fans!

Then the next surprise was Minnehaha Falls...

We walked down the path to the bottom and followed the stream a bit... the kids stopped to contemplate life...
Rented one of these fun surrey bikes! Very fun! Totally worth it! Mom, if you ever come see us, we will do this!

This is a replica on Longfellow's home in Boston, only 2/3rds the size... He has a famous poem called The Song of Hiawatha... it is about an indian warrior and his love... Hiawatha and Minnehaha. The road behind the house is Hiawatha... I guess where Minnehaha and Hiawatha meet is a good place to build a replica of his home! Ha!

And I know this will excite everyone, but the Metrodome's roof is up again! I know you have all missed it!

Can you tell it is humid here right now? Our heat wave should be over tomorrow. They say that our dew point and temperature combinations lately have been worse than the Amazons. Cool. Sign me up for another week.

Anyway, Tanner thinks we have the best surprises ever! We will take it! We need to be cool as long as we can! Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying summer, it is flying by!

Random Fact About Last Friday...

We had a visitor! Our very favoritest Pop came into town! He was passing through on one of his business trips and decided to stay the night with us! So we took him to the Stonearch Bridge on Thursday night (apparently our favorite thing to do...)

Then it rained like it was the last time it would rain ever on Friday, so we went to McDonald's for breakfast...

Kate drank that entire smoothie by herself!

It didn't quit, so we picked up some umbrellas from Target (I know, kinda silly we didn't actually own any)...

Found some look-alikes of the kids in the dollar bins...

and went to the Conservatory...

Tanner with a great, big, huge leafy...

Tanner trying to see the snapping turtle... or fishing for it with his nose...

Then we had to take Pop back to the airport to send him home to Nana...

We were so sad after you left that Cory took us out to drowned our sorrows in some really good ice cream... Tanner ate every last drop...

So did Kate, even though this kiddie scoop was the size of her head...

Thanks for stopping to see us! We hope you fly though here again soon! Maybe we will have nice weather instead of the 100+ and relentless humidity when we moved in, and the torrential downpour of rain this time... We love you!