Fall hike...

A few weekends ago when Jim was out of town I was trying to think of something fun to do so we could get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather and colors. I decided to take the kids for a hike around a local lake. To keep the kids interested I used a friend's idea to do a scavenger hunt. They had a list of colors to find and other related fall items that they had to collect. This had them excited and running down the trails looking for the various items except when Maren decided to stop to say hi and talk to the squirrel playing in the trees.

This is their collection they ended up with:

We had fun playing in the fallen leaves along the trail and throwing rocks in the water along the way.

Jonas especially loved tasting the fall foliage.

It was a beautiful afternoon to be out enjoying the wonderful creations around us and the kids slept well that night!

Make a silly face!

Playing with the camera can provide lots of entertainment. I love how Jonas was laughing and smiling with us.

Look, Mom a pumpkin!

We've had a string of graffiti incidents around our home of late though it's pretty easy to discern the artist when the artwork contains well formed letters. However today was the best when Maren came into the kitchen and grabbed my hand saying "Show you." She walks me into the living room to proudly show me the lovely pumpkin drawing she had made on her brother's car seat. We had a little discussion about only coloring on paper and not using pens followed by a short session in timeout. I tried to remain calm as I was glad she showed me right away so I could work to get it clean instead of finding it hours later. After using every ounce of hairspray in the house, a lot of scrubbing, and washing it most of the ink came out but it's left a faint yellow line. So if my hair is a little out of control the next few days you'll know I haven't made it to the store to buy more hairspray!

Nor'easter...

We've had an interesting last couple of days with a Nor'easter and the remnants of Hurricane Ida hitting us. The winds were gusting to 60 mph blowing the rain in every direction and the tides were 7.6 feet above normal at the height of the storm. Keep in mind that our home elevation is 11 feet and the normal high tide is 2-3 feet. Luckily the water only made it to the top of the curb in front of our house though the building next door had it up to their yards. The neighborhood looked like white trash with everybody's cars on their lawns to get them as high as possible. Jim was sad to see the tire tracks in his beloved lawn when he returned home today (of course he had to be out of town when this all happened) but that's a lot easier to fix than a flooded car.

Though our home didn't flood we were completely surrounded by water. To the north and west about a block each way is a river which came over the banks and flooded the road heading south that provided our only escape route. There was over 2 feet of water on the road at high tide, luckily we have a truck and were able to return home dry unlike our next door neighbor who had to park her sedan a 1/4 mile away and wade through the thigh deep water to get home. Here are a couple of pictures about two hours before high tide. It was much deeper a few hours later.

Here are a couple shots of the bridge to the base that you can normally take a motor boat under and the stacks of debris left by the receding tide and crashing waves. I suspect the waves were crashing over the bridge at high tide.


This seems bad but there were many in our area that had homes flooded and/or damaged by the wind and we saw stalled cars all over the place last night and today. The peak of the storm came after dark so I don't have any great pictures of the widespread flooding but my friend Cherie got some good ones of the aftermath today. Whitney was very sad that school was cancelled for two days due to the storm. We were blessed to only have lost power for about six hours during the day and it came back on just as it was getting dark.


This last picture I took a few days later at the base marina. All these boats were blown over a 1oo yards down the dry storage area, through a chain link fence and stacked up against the marina building and pilings. Some boats and trailers even ended up in the water.

No training wheels!

Since we live in a townhouse community there are very few areas that are conducive for kids riding their bikes and most of them involve riding down the sidewalks with car bumpers overhanging on one side. As such Whitney doesn't get the chance to ride very often even with her training wheels on. Whitney wanted to bike to school early in the year so I rode the almost 2 miles to school with her. Jim picked her up that afternoon to ride home and decided upon returning home that if she could ride that far that it was time to take the training wheels off. He's been working with her off and on the last few weeks to ride without training wheels and slowly her balance has gotten better but it is scary to ride with so many cars nearby. This afternoon was a nice and sunny 70 degrees so we decided to head to the newly paved jogging/bike trail on base that is nice and wide with grass on either side for a soft crash landing. She started out with me holding on the back for balance but before long she was riding on her own with me running beside her. We had a few crashes in the mile she rode but she eventually learned to stop properly and figured out turning when we got back to the parking lot. She still has some work to do on starting herself but is doing awesome considering where we started today. She did have one hard crash right at the end into the truck's tire and bounced off hard with her handlebar bruising her cheek. Maren has made some progress in the biking realm this week as she finally learned to pedal her trike on her own. However, pedaling and steering at the same time are still a bit of a challenge. For now she still feels that being a Flintstone is a much faster way to travel.

Happy Halloween!

We began the Halloween festivities this week by carving pumpkins Tuesday afternoon. The girls were so excited as they've been wanting to carve them since we bought them a few weeks ago. Maren ended up carving the little one that we got for Jonas as one of the pumpkins was stolen from our porch last week. We're just grateful that they didn't leave it smashed on our sidewalk. Wednesday night we headed to the church for Trunk or Treat. They had carnival games and a costume parade prior to going out for the trunk or treat. The girls also each got a medal for participating in the carved pumpkin contest.

This year we had the 3 D's in our house: a dog, Dora, and little Dr. Dahle.

Tonight we went to the Koertners for dinner and made mummy hot dogs and then headed out trick or treating since both the dads had to work tonight.

The girls had a great time playing with each other and didn't want to leave. Good thing it's Daylight Savings tonight so they can catch up on the missed sleep! In fact they were so busy playing that Jonas took the opportunity to raid their candy buckets when they weren't looking. He's a fast learner and already knows to go for the chocolate!

We hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!

Demolition Derby...

Ever since Jim had heard about this race he had wanted to go so when I saw it advertised I made plans for us to go enjoy a true "redneck" experience. There were 11 different events as part of the derby. The first was a tug of war where the cars would start bumper to bumper and try to push the other past the cone.

The second was the burnout event where the audience judged who won by the person who could make the most smoke come from their tires/engine in a minute's time. The third race was one of the best where the driver had a bag over his head and the navigator had to direct him through 3 laps around the track. This was further complicated by the barrels full of soapy water placed around track that would make it slippery when they spilled after being hit.

There was the reverse race where they did three laps driving in reverse and then a myriad of races where they had to drag various implements behind the car. The winner was the one who could keep their piano, boat, etc. attached and intact the longest.

One of our favorite races was the appliance race. It was five laps and each successive lap you had to attach another household appliance to the vehicle.

The longest race of the night was the enduro race that was 50 laps. It started with 42 cars and only 8 were still running by the end. As the cars broke down or were wrecked they were left on the track to become additional obstacles. We had a good time enjoying the beautiful, sunny afternoon and the interesting entertainment on the track and in the crowd.