No explanation needed… Just know that we literally “LAUGHED OUR BUTTS OFF”!!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Our Pumpkins
We carved three of the four big ones and decorated our front walkway for Halloween. The kids really enjoyed carving them and I think they turned out great.
Ken carved a spider, Kenny carved the face of Jack from the nightmare before Christmas and Kale carved a Cyclopes face. I thought they did a great job.
Kenny and the Flag
For Pack meeting this month, Kenny was asked to participate in the flag ceremony. He eagerly and excitedly agreed and ran over to get the flag and get to his place.
He is a Bear now and is excited to be working on his new badge. The stake is transitioning from having den meetings on a ward basis to having them on a "building” basis and so they are off to a slow start. He wants to do so many neat things that are in his book.
Luckily for him, he has a mom and dad that believe in the Scouting program and are just as excited to help him and he is to learn and grow. He has decided he wants to earn the Conservation Patch and the Leave-no-trace Patch, besides his Bear, arrows and belt-loops. He will definitely be busy, but I am happy that he is enthusiastic towards scouts.
A day of firsts…
Almost daily during the month of October, Ken would ask if we could go to the pumpkin patch. I was reluctant to go and spend $8.00 per person to go to a field and pick out a pumpkin. It seemed like a lot of money to spend and I had gone to pumpkin patches in the past and had not been real impressed. But on Saturday, October 22nd, I had heard enough asking and was tired of saying no, so I gave it and we loaded up the van and headed out to the Bi Zi Farm.
It took us a while to find them because Ken thought he knew where he was going, but after driving for a bit, confessed that he wasn’t sure where they were located. Luckily, I had my phone (and it was charged) {1st first}. I looked up the address and we were back on our way.
We arrived, found parking and headed to the ticket booth to pay our fare and go “pumpkin patching”. The first thing we came across as we entered was a hay bale pyramid that the kids could climb on. Kenny and Kale had a race to the top and, as it was a close tie, they both won.
Next we hit the “Corn Box” {2nd first}. This has to be the coolest thing I have seen in a long time, even I got in. So, since most of you have no idea what I am talking about, let me explain. All of you know what a sand box is… well this is a corn box. It is a big area that, instead of sand, corn kernels fill the area and the kids, both old and young, can get in a dig and play. We buried Kenny and Kale so that all that you could see was their heads.
Yes – those are corn kernels. Ken even said that if he could come up with a way to keep the corn from going bad, he would put one in at his house. I had to admit, it was pretty cool and I even got in a played for a bit.
Next, we headed off to a hay bale maze. It was just right for the boys; a bit easy for Kenny but he and Kale seemed to enjoy it anyway{3rd first}.
Then we headed to the petting zoo (or so it was called). Of all we experienced at Bi Zi’s, this was the least exciting. The animals were not to active and the boys “had seen them all before” so they went through it pretty fast.
There was this spotted pig that Ken thought was really cute. He was after something in the dirt and although we weren’t sure what it was, it was something pretty interesting. As you can see from the picture below, he had his snout half-buried.
Kenny liked the donkey. He kept calling it a ‘Burro’.
The turkey was pretty cool. He was trying to eat a little girl’s hand and the boys thought that was neat. They even tried, but were more chicken then turkey.
After the petting zoo, it was off to the Corn Maze{4th first}. I haven’t done a corn maze since before Ken and I were married and about 3 minutes into the maze, I remembered why? Luckily for us, they gave us a sky view of the maze and Ken was able to keep us on track, or we would have spent half the day trying to find our way out.
After leaving the maze, we headed off to catch a ride out to the pumpkin patch{5th first}. The boys were excited they were going to get to ride on a trailer pulled by a John Deer Tractor. They laughed the whole ride. When we got to the patch, they bee-lined for the furthest side of the patch and started looking for the perfect pumpkin. Ken got a wheelbarrow and off we went.
We ended up with 4 big ones and 4 small ones. The four big ones were included in the cost of the admission and the other ones totaled a whooping $3.50 – Quite a deal for a wheelbarrow full.
Kale had a hard time finding the perfect one. He was up on row and down the next, over two and back up three more rows until he found the perfect one. Then it was back on the tractor-trailer ride and off to the farm. While riding back, we saw a sheriff walking up the rode and all the adults began to speculate: perhaps there was a drug deal in the pumpkin patch, maybe immigration was coming to bust a worker, maybe someone was trying to steal pumpkins… We never found out why, but it was quite the discussion on the way back.
Once we returned to the farm and off-loaded our pumpkins, we got to scrub them down and clean them up so they wouldn’t dirty the van{6th first}. I think the pictures speak for themselves:
While Ken took the pumpkins to the van, I took the boys over to the duck races{7th first}. Picture two (2) rubber ducks, four (4)hand-pumps and four (4) rain gutters, two (2) laughing children and you have about 30 minutes of entertainment and fun. This had to be another one of my favorites. It was truly ingenious and the kids loved it. Simple, easy, and totally enjoyable; what novel concepts.
After Ken got back, we walked over to the pumpkin sling-shot area {8th first}. There was a long line, but I think this allowed them to watch and build up anticipation to what it would be like to launch a pumpkin into the sky, using a man-made slingshot.
Here are the boys picking out their small pumpkins. The slingshot was huge and the boys could only pull it back a little ways. I grabbed the belt loop on their jeans and pulled them back further and they aimed and let go. We toppled to the ground, laughing and watched their pumpkin soar through the air, hoping it would land in the bucket. None of us were luck enough, so no prize, but we did witness one person get their pumpkin into the bucket. I was quite impressed. It was not as easy as it looked and even harder to aim then I would have thought. But it sure was fun.
Overall – it was a wonderful family outing and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, got a little muddy and experienced a lot of new things. I loved watching the boys explore and create memories that will stay with them through the years; memories they will share with their kids and grandkids.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Karate Kids
These are the three foster kids that we had when we lived in Vegas. Ciarra, Nickali and Brandon. Kenny and Kale had been participating in Karate for a while before they came to our home, but once they arrived, we enrolled them also. It was quite hilarious the looks we got when we took all 5 of them in at the same time and many of the parents would comment on our “bravery”. Below are their individual poses:
KENNY:
KALE:
BRANDON:
CIARRA:
NICKALI:
And here is one of the whole rowdy bunch…
A fantastic bunch that brought us a handful of laughs, a few tears and a lot of adventure.
Canning Tomatoes in Hurricane
I was going through some of the pictures on my phone tonight and came across these great pictures of the boys canning tomatoes at the Haley Prete’s parents house over Memorial Day 2011. I thought I would share them with all of you.
Smile for the camera!
Kenny, Sarah & Emma Prete
The kids helped us remove the skins off the blanched tomatoes and “stuff” them in the bottles to be canned. They really enjoyed getting sticky and making juice, but the fun only lasted about 10 minutes and then they decided it was off to the backyard to play again. I thought the fact that they came in to help a little was pretty cool.
Miniature Golf with the boys
On Friday the 23rd of September, we took they boys mini golfing at the golf-a-rama in Hazel Dell. They have been wanting to go golfing for quite some time and have been bothering us a bunch so we decided to go for 18 holes and see how they would do.
They were really having a blast, and doing pretty well for the first few wholes and then I think they got a bit bored, because their strokes were more and more and the balls were not going in the holes.
When we got to hole 14, Kenny looked at the strip and said (and I quote), “ Oh my curvy mother, you need to hit this one with uumph!!” (see photo below for the pic of hole 14)
All in all, we had a great time. The scores ended up being:
Dad: 47
Mom: 66
Kenny: 84
Kale: 92
The course was a 41 – so you can judge for yourself how well we all did. Afterword, we enjoyed a meal at Steak Burger and then went home and watched movies and ate popcorn. A great way to end the week.
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