Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween. We decorate a lot and make fun Halloween food. Our wreath monster ended up looking more scared than scary!

  

 

We attended so many Halloween events this year. One of our favorites was our neighbors' haunted house party. Their son set up a very elaborate haunted house in their garage. It took him weeks to prepare, and it was a huge hit with all the neighborhood kids.

We also attended the Wood Lake Half-Haunted Halloween, a nature trail with trick or treating stops and activities at the end. We danced and had a great time. This year the girls dressed as Olympic Gymnasts.

We made a fun pop-out bat pumpkin this year, and did a taste test with pumpkin seeds. One batch was cinnamon sugar and the other was garlic salt. The vote: we all loved both equally! 

Halloween itself was terrific as usual. Our block had a party with a fire and lots of food. The street was blocked off so the kids could run around and play games. We trick-or-treated for an hour (until their pumpkins were full) and then Willa and I returned and joined the block party, and Jia and Joe continued for another hour and a half. Wow, did she get a lot of loot! We had so much fun.

Our girls earned a perfect score in the candy-getting category! 

Happy Halloween!

More fall fun

We went on our annual trip to Emma Krumbees, an orchard where we pick apples each year. This year, although the orchard was open for picking that morning, it closed by the time we arrived (late morning). But there were no complaints as there were plenty of other fun activities!

Back at home, the fall fun continued!

It's our favorite season!

Harvest Hoedown

We loved attending last year's Harvest Hoedown at Gale Woods Farm, so we made sure to attend again this year!

It was just as fun. We visited the animals, spun honeycomb, peeled apples, drank warm cider, roasted marshmallows, went on a wagon ride, played on the hay bales, and, of course, danced!

Here they are ready to kick up their heels! Unfortunately we didn't get any good pictures of the dancing...we were too busy having fun!

 

 

 

  

  

 

Fall biking

We have taken some beautiful fall bike trips. We drove west and did the Dakota Rail Trail the other day. What a fantastic trail! We biked under gorgeous fall foliage, and zipped by wavy grasses and lakes.

We had lunch at Gale Woods Farm.

 

  

Then we made our way to our final stop - the Minnetonka Drive In!

 

They had an area with a bunch of picnic tables, perfect for bikers. We parked our bikes, placed our order at the outside ordering station (two root beer floats!), and told them our table number. Super fun!

  

And yummy! A perfect end to the trip.

   

 
We actually went back to Gale Woods that night for a Hoedown! (Post to come!)

Apple Junction

We have been enjoying fall so much, as usual! Our first apple orchard visit of the season was to McDougall's Apple Junction. Here are a few pics from the day:

It was just the beginning of our fall fun! More to come!

Warrior Dash

Sometimes it is good to do things that are out of the norm. That would definitely be the case for my latest adventure - the Warrior Dash. It was a 5K mud run with 12 obstacles along the way (most of which involved crawling through mud trenches under barbed wire, climbing over things like rusty cars, or scaling tall structures). We also jumped over fire - twice.

I convinced my good friend Binh to do it with me. She's such a great sport in every way. I'd been training (some) for it but was worried about the obstacles. I needn't have been! They were fine. It was the running that was hard - particularly running without twisting an ankle. The race was on horse trails and the ground was very uneven. I was relieved to finish it without injuries! (I did, however, count over 30 bruises the next day, but thankfully I felt fine!)

Here are some before pictures:

And after!

In return for our efforts, we got a full mud bath! I even found it in my ears. We also got huge fuzzy warrior hats, t-shirts, a heavy medal and a free beer.

The girls are enjoying some of the items quite a bit!

Heard around the house

Here are a few things we've heard around the house recently:

Jia: Mama, you know what I really want for my birthday? A credit card.

Willa: I want to live in Bratland where everything you eat tastes like a brat.

Jia (complaining that Willa finished cleaning her room first and was doing something fun): It's not fair! Willa's just gifted at cleaning her room!

Jia (wearing one of her many funky outfits): I'm dressing up like a person who wears what's hot!

Willa: I have 1,000 hearts inside me.

The interesting thing was that later that day, when I picked up Willa from school, her teacher pulled me aside to tell me that Willa had been especially kind to a girl who was upset. I wasn't surprised by Willa's big-hearted behavior, but it was nice that others recognized it too!