A couple of weeks before Halloween, the Skidmores invited us to go to a Punkin' Chunkin' event in Aurora. Amateurs (I use that term loosely, only because the big-money sponsors haven't yet discovered the sport, and because Oakley doesn't yet have a line of anti-splatter pumpkin goggles) build catapults, cannons, and trebuchets to launch pumpkins as far as they can over the fruited plains of Eastern Colorado. The cannons launched their gourdian ammunition between 2,000 and 4,000 feet (that is to say, they told us that's how far the pumpkins went: when a cannon fires a pumpkin fast enough to send it 2,000+ feet, you can't exactly SEE it fly).
We had a blast, and we learned that when you're a middle class family that builds a huge cannon to launch pumpkins on the weekend, the only place you can store your giant cannon-on-a-flatbed-trailer is on the street in front of your house, which could make for interesting discussions with your neighbor.
Foreman Micah, making sure everybody's working hard.
"Hey you!! Get back to work! You think these punkins are gonna chunk themselves!?!"
"Don't worry, cousin Aimee, I won't let them launch you."
Sarah and the kids continued their adventures at the zoo through the month of October, going about once a week. From the first time they went to the zoo in September, Micah has wanted to ride the little train, and they finally got to go. Sarah is the only one who appears to be having "fun," but Micah and Isla were awake, alert, and interested - if not obviously happy.
Micah and Sarah also collected spare change from around the house to save up to ride the carousel. After a couple of weeks, they had enough. He chose the leopard -- he has a Little People leopard at home that he likes to play with. He was somewhat trepidatious at first, but he ended up having a great time.
And the hippo statues are a perennial favorite. One of Micah's new games (has has so many "games" -- the "running game," the "spinning game," the "tiger game") is to pretend his dad is a hippo, climb up on his back, and then slide down, just like he does to the bronze hippos at the zoo. He also has a chant that he learned at story time at the library and that he loves to sing to his grandmas and grandpas:
Hip- Hip- Hippopotamus,
Got, Got on the city bus
All, all, all the people said
"Help, help, help, you're squishing us."
And then he squishes his cheeks together with the palms of his hands. It's like a 9.7 on the Cuteness Richter Scale.
Beautiful Miss Isla is a trooper. She goes wherever her mom and brother go, and rarely complains. We've taken to calling her "Smiles" and "Smiley" because of the big grin that immediately consumes her face whenever anyone smiles at her.
Micah was a monkey for Halloween again, just like last year. But we're big believers in "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," and we think he makes a frightfully cute monkey.
The whole gang at the Lakewood Ward / Alameda Branch trunk-or-treat party! I think we consumed far more candy that we distributed this year. But hey, at least Halloween is the last of the "food" holidays until St. Patrick's Day, right? right? . . . ?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, we also went to "Boo at the Zoo" on the Saturday before Halloween (what can we say? we're animal lovers. Plus, we already sprung for the pass, so it's free on the margin, and that's tough to beat). As we overheard one clever gent say as we waited in line in the parking lot, "[The] place [was] a zoo." There seemed to be thousands of little kids there with their families, all dressed up in their Halloween costumes -- flocks of Elsas, gaggles of Annas, tribes of Spider-Men and Captain Americas, and even a small hive of bumble bees, like this little one pictured below.
This picture of Micah reminds me of Jabba the Hutt -- he just looks so content after a day of collecting candy.
Our monkey standing in front of monkey island, where the real monkeys "hang out."
If he were wearing some Baby Gap clothes, instead of a monkey suit, you'd think he looked pretty stylish with this fashion-model pose.
I couldn't choose which picture of Isla I liked best, so you'll just have to look at all of them.
Sarah made a "spooky" Halloween dinner for us, with these ghostly baked potato pizzas . . .
. . . and these weird witches' fingers . . .
. . . and these glasses of green goo . . .
Horrifying!!
Oh yeah, and these cute little sweet potato jack-o-lanterns :)
We'll be looking out for you next month!
Readers' Roost
Halloween and its aftermath is a busy time for us (making costumes, toilet-papering houses, binging on bags of discount candy, etc.), so we haven't had as much time to read, but we're committed bibliophiles, so we've managed to get a few good hours in. Michael is reading and enjoying a couple of comic books he borrowed from Caleb - Cul de Sac and One Big Happy, and Sarah is starting to re-read The Work and the Glory, thanks to a kind sister in our ward who has gifted us all nine volumes. Micah has been enjoying Curious George and the Berenstain Bears. We were saddened to learn that Stan and Jan Berenstain have both passed since we last enjoyed their books, when we were ourselves in the bloom of youth. Those bears are a wonderful, moralizing bunch, and we're glad that Micah is enjoying them as we did.
