A long time coming

I like to do my Halloween post on Halloween.

If you have not met James, this guy LOVES to dress up. I mean, LOVES IT. We started talking about Halloween back in August when we got our first "costume magazine" of the season. James went through a couple of costume choices, but settled on his choice of Darth Vadar early on. I was a little concerned about Andy. He is old enough to have his own opinions, but not really old enough to care. Lucky for us, Andy seemed perfectly willing and happy to dress up in James's monkey costume from two year ago. However, like I mentioned, James LOVES to dress up, so we have several backup choices.

Our first Halloween festivity was at our church. James was beside himself too finally be Darth Vadar. Andy was excited also. It was time to get ready...here are our cute kids. First Darth James:


And our cute little monkey.....Oh, Andy! What a buzzkill!


Andy went through the whole evening completely oblivious that he was the only kid not in costume. Here he is in the costume parade:


James was busy battling the light side of the force:


We made James earn his light saber light any good padawan with a sticker chart.

Well, that was a bust, although Andy love the other aspect of Halloween ie the trunk of treating with CANDY. Lucky for us, we have many other chances to wear costumes. I asked Andy if he would like to be an elephant. He loves elephants, loves the "elephant song" from The Jungle Book, got him a little grey sweatsuit, some ears on a headband, a nose, a tail, off we go to the downtown trick or treat.

Ooo, buzz kill again.


Now we come to the 31st. The Day. Mark and I debated if he should be allowed to trick or treat if he won't wear a costume. Dinner is over, the choice is made, there is a little whining when we put the sweatsuit on, grab the ears, the tail, and nose, and...


success!



I believe it was the idea of CANDY that opened his mind more than anything else. Trick or treating was a huge success. We met up with neighbors, and James, Henry, and John just ran from house to house.



After all this planning, you would think that James would have been upset that Christopher was also Darth Vadar, but it turns out it was Christopher who was bothered by it:



Andy, although he had to explain what he was at every house, didn't miss anything.



James was a little taken aback when I mentioned that Halloween was OVER. Luckily, the toy magazines have arrived and he is moving onto the next thing.

Star Wars Light Show 1997

I had James watch this a few weeks ago, and he has just watched it again over and over. I decided to share.



I am at the top left, 4 from the end.

The light show was one of our traditions. They tried to do it every other year, if possible. Requirements include: had to be a night game (duh), not on tv, no visiting band, past the time change.

The light in the light show are glow sticks that were stuck in the "shako" hats where the plume would go. The flags, twirlers, and drum majors all had light sticks as well. The feature twirlers twirled fire.

The flashes at the end were from an old-timey flash cube with 4 flashes that was taped to our instruments somewhere. We would wear a paper clip on a string around our neck. At the end of the show...instruments down...find paper clip...feel cube...push thru one slot...and second slot...third...forth...giving the flashes. They would take a slow exposured picture of this and it was always a cool picture.

I think this particular show is actually our tradition Western Show, just done to Star Wars music. However, the ending Double T really should have been our traditional T-E-C-H drill.

Light Shows are not done any more. I think they have a hard time finding the flash cubes, most games are on tv with a visiting band, the time change is later, and I think it is a major safety hazard to turn off all the lights these days. Too bad, it was super cool!

Denver Downs 2010

We have been pretty busy this fall and we weren't really sure when we were going to get to go to our beloved pumpkin patch. We had to squeeze it in on a Sunday afternoon. It is funny, every year, the kids want to do different things. This year, all James wanted to do was play hide and seek in the mazes:



The waterpumps for the duck races were working. Well, only 2 out of 4:



Andy was super excited by two things: the farm animals and the cow train. He rode the cow train several times.



James was really excited to see The Tiger there. Andy only waved at him from a distance:



Last year, James did the big slide, but only after thinking on it for a LONG time. This year, he went right down:



So did Andy:



They both rode the horsey swing:





The boys had a great time in the corn box...although I keep finding corn everywhere!



This year was the first year we attempted the corn maze. We didn't get far:



We left after about 2 hours...didn't even get a pumpkin! They need to have season passes!

2009
2008
2007

Tailgating

We live in a college town. That means, on football days, we have 80,000 guests who come into our little city. Mark and I would love to be able to get season tickets and go to all of the games, but it just hasn't worked out so far. We do try to at least go to campus and join in the festivities with the kids and everyone has a good time. We went this past saturday for the Maryland game and invited John et al. Mark was excited because he got to have a ham biscuit from Hardee's.

As with any good tailgate, there is lots of drinking and eating:





We got a good spot by the P&A. James and John had a great time running around and climbing trees:



We always try to go to the "90 min before kickoff concert". The boys decided this would be a "bad guy walk" with light sabers.



They liked the band once we got there.



The light sabers turned into instruments.



We plan on tailgating this weekend sans kids if anyone wants to meet up!

Fall Tour - stop 1

It is fall and that means it is time to skip church for our fall tour. Mark and I were recovering from strep throat, so heading up to the mountains really didn't sound all that fun, but we are busy the next 2 weeks, the weather was beautiful, so we went.

Unfortuately, we didn't have the energy to put any thought in it, so we just went to Whitewater Falls. Again. What a dump! ;)



In hopes of getting some different shots, Andy found this rock to climb on:



Then he wanted to pick it up:



So, Andy asked James for help:



James decided to try a different rock:



The boys were very impressed with the falls:



Mark and I both have our own cameras...which is a little much:



James did really great! He ran all the way up to the falls, walked down the stairs to the viewing platform, walked back up, ran all the way down. He wanted me to take a picture of him running SO FAST!



So did Andy:



Afterwards, we had a nice little picnic. Andy, of course, couldn't stand to sit down and eat.



Before we went home, we had a rousing game of frisbee. Good times!