Halloween in a small mountian town

We enjoy living in a small mountian town. Every year for Halloween the entire county, all 18,000 of them, seem to come into town to go trick or treating. It's great, they close off the city streets & the kids wander about trying to get the biggest stashes of candy in town. This year Micah decided to try his hand a trick or treating. The problem is, my son really doesn't like candy too much (I think I know where he gets it). But he does like suckers!! We walked through town with some friends & their kids. At every house Micah would stop, check out the candy & only take it if they had a sucker. At one stop they offered him a small piece of candy & a sucker, he politely returned the piece of candy & kept the sucker :-)


Micah prepares to go out & hit the town


You will notice that the sucker in his hand here is a different color from the one above. Every time he got a new sucker he put his half sucked one in his bucket & requested for the new one to be opened. I don't even want to know what the bottom of his bucket looks like :-)


My favorite stop through town is a local resturant which gives out deep fried bananas covered in carmel sauce!! Ryan tried to look real goofy for the camera.


Our church had a GREAT harvest party! After getting our fill of suckers we headed over there. They had a chili cook-off & a variety of games. Here Ryan tries to go "bobbing for apples" (without water).


Micah really enoyed the make-shift hay slide.


I think I'm going to be pulling hay out of his costume for a while :-)


Micah's favorite game was our version of a dunk tank. Micah loved throwing the balls at the target (and he got pretty close!!).


The pastor after he gets soaked by Micah's throw (with a little bit of help from the adults)

Fall in Yosemite

Well one of my favorite seasons up here is fall. It reminds me so much of living back east. The trees are full of color & create a canopy over the roadway. I was a little disappointed this year because some of my favorite places to drive were closed due to Ryan's consturction job (I'm trying not to hold it against him :-) But Micah and I headed up there last week to catch the tail end of the color. It was beautiful. It was about 75 degrees outside & the leaves were falling like snow. Micah loved kicking the large piles of dry leaves & picking up sticks. It was wonderful & relaxing.



kicking the large piles of leaves


Playing in the "Indian Villiage" at the visitor's center


preparing for a "giant" leap off this "giant" rock

Pumpkin Patch

Well Micah and I just got back from a weeklong visit home to Portland. I had a missions conference up in Seattle which I attended as a TMI representative. It was a great excuse to get home to meet my newest nephew, Cooper. He was born to Ben & Andree. He was a 10lbs!!!


While we were home was also slipped down to the Pumpkin Patch. I remember as a kid going down there in October & hanging out in the animal barn with the cows or riding the hay ride while mom filled the honey shelves. It was exciting to take Micah & Ella down there to relive my experiences. Obviously a lot has changed since I was last there...it's much nicer now, but still just as muddy.




Micah & I on the hay ride. Once we got out to the pumpkin patch we decided that the pumpkins were way too big to carry back & manage the kids at the same time, so we went back to the barn & picked out some small "kid size" pumpkins.




Micah & Ella check out the goats in the animal barn.

Our Little Monkey

As many of you know, Micah is a HUGE Curious George fan. As I type this he is watching the same episode for the 3rd time today. Well while watching the show today he asked to put on his Halloween Costume & I thought I'd share it with you all. Micah is going to be his own little monkey. We'll see how long he stays in the outfit on Halloween, but I sure think he looks cute :-)