Pumpkin Patches, Football Games, and Lots of Family Time

This is our third year of going to the Willamette Vally Fruit Company on the state-wide school inservice day in October.  It's a great place to pick out pumpkins, play at all of the activity stations, and navigate a giant corn maze.  This year, Living Social offered a fantastic deal which made the choice even more solid.  The only thing that wasn't solid....the rain.  I guess it's decided to make up for lost time.  Fortunately, we came prepared (after a stop off at Walmart), with rubber boots, gloves, and rain jackets.

This is kind of a dodge ball pen - the kids played in here for a long time while we scrubbed down all of the muddy pumpkins and tried to make them all fit in the back of my already-loaded vehicle.

The boys were in a super goofy mood - Brayden, about to take Traig down (or maybe the other way around...not sure how it ended)...

After being soaked to the bone from cruising through the corn maze, we went in to the cafe/gift shop for lunch.  The corn on the cob was SO GOOD!  

Michele and the kids rode home in my car, so that Michael could join us at our house by driving down their vehicle after work.  This weekend will be remembered as one of the coziest and "ideal" that I've had in a long time in terms of embracing all that I love of this season. 

It turns out that Michael got to be the photo target this weekend...making up for lost time when the rest of the family is around and not him, I guess.  This is him making up for lost time with the "growing-way-too-fast" Whitley on Friday night when the Whites came to join us.  Heather stopped by to hang out as well.

On Saturday morning, Mikayla introduced Michael to the app, "100 Levels".  I've watched (and slightly helped) Mikayla play through this logic/puzzle game for the last couple of weeks.  Sure enough, Michael was HOOKED.  All five of the kids were surrounding him, either offering hints for the level he was on, or asking him for help on the levels they were on.   (For the record, he completed all 100 levels by the end of the day, using "cheats' for only about 5 of them...impressive!!!)

Shortly after that picture was taken, Mom and Dad showed up and took all five of their grandkids to see "Hotel Transylvania".  There was a mix-up with the tickets that they sold them, so the crew had to make do with the 2D showing vs. 3D.  The good news, though, is that they refunded all of their money for the tickets....NICE!

While Mom and Dad had the kids at the theater, we were tuned into the Beaver game watching OSU play BYU.  Earlier this week, their quarterback (OSU) underwent knee surgery which was a huge blow to the Beavers - as they were in the midst of a (surprisingly) awesome and undefeated start to the season.  As a result, hopes were lowered in terms of pulling off the win, but instead, their back-up QB came out super impressive - and through a whole lot of joint team effort, they did indeed win.

 

According to the AP Poll (I'm ignoring the SEC-skewed BCS), the Ducks (who had a BYE this weekend) are #2 in the nation, and the Beavers are now #8.  Way to represent, OREGON!  This makes for a whole lot of fun supporting the teams throughout the season, doubling up on the "must-see" games.....but....it could be one heck of a very-tense Civil War on the Saturday following Thanksgiving.  There will be a lot on the line for both teams during that game.  (Which John just bought tickets for the guys to go see together -including Travis and his bro-in-law, Brian).  Hmmm, I will choose to not worry about that scenario until we get there, and in the meantime rejoice in the success of both Oregon teams, which are currently making our entire family very, very happy.

Throughout the weekend, we had the fire roaring.  Multiple travel mugs of Russian Tea were consumed.  Michele and I spent Saturday filling in our 2013 "Daytimer" calendars with all sorts of rub-ons and stickers (it's kind of an obsessive thing for both of us).  Books were read, magazines flipped through.  Mom and Dad were able to hang out for the second half of the OSU game, and Heather popped by for short visits on Saturday and Sunday (borrowing our camera).  The kids played and played - inside and out, and were very happy.   It was a WONDERFUL WEEKEND.