Halloween

I know I'm super late posting this about Halloween (yes, it's almost Christmas!) so I'll just do a quick run through with photos...

Two days before, Stevie carved the pumpkins with the kids.  I consider that's his job since he's the surgeon and he does a pretty good job at it!

On Halloween day, the little ones get to go to school in costume.  Emmy wanted to be a wolf.  I made the body of the costume out of a rabbit fur coat that was mine as a child.  I had hauled it back from Hilton Head with me!  London wanted to be a hawk.  We made his feather vest and mask, but got help from Amazon for the wings.

In the afternoon, at school, the kids each had a party and then the whole school does a parade around all the classrooms.  It's quite loud and boisterous and fun!

That night we decided to join our friends in Bremerton, the Bailey's, for trick-or-treating.  They were having an open house/party so the kids got to not only go trick-or-treating, but also play with friends and run off all that sugar.  It was lots of fun!

About Cannon's costume, the Witch King from "Lord of the Rings" - he made the whole thing himself!  He started working on it in June and made all the pieces individually out of cardboard, spray paint, foam, etc.  It was pretty amazing!  He had a blast on Halloween night as he stationed himself at the end of the Bailey's driveway.  As people came up to him to see if he was real, he moved and screamed at them.  Lots and lots of people (big and small) were pretty scared!

Emmy and her friend Ben

Our Soccer Star

London is naturally gifted at playing soccer and he couldn't wait for this fall so that he could play again.  Last year we missed the sign up because we had just moved to Washington, so this year I made sure I didn't miss the deadline!  We signed him up for the Harbor League which offers the "fun" type of soccer versus the "serious" type offered by the other program in town.  Nevertheless, he got assigned to a great team with some amazing players.  His team was called "Lightning" by the league, but the players renamed themselves the "Sounders Junior" (for you non-soccer people, the Sounders are the professional team in Seattle.)

We had a great time watching the games which were usually blow-outs in favor of the Sounders Junior.  Only the first game did they get their tails whooped by a mainly Hispanic team whose members were all destined to be national soccer stars.

Here are some photos from a VERY windy game in late October.  It was so windy that day that one of the goals blew over!


After taking these photos, I realized that London plays with his tongue sticking out!

What's that dog doing there???

Chasing down the ball - the boy's got SPEED

Does this tell you how cold and windy the game was?  Even Stevie is bundled up.

With his coach and other players

 

Debate

Cannon had his first debate tournament this weekend and so we had to fix him up with some "professional" clothes to look the part.  Doesn't he look smart and grown up?  Yes, those are his dad's shoes he's wearing!!!

Pumpkin Patch

This fall has been a busy time what with soccer and water polo and Brownies and school and debate team, etc.  And then of course, Stevie has been studying like mad to take the oral board exams in November.  So this weekend Stevie had the idea of putting down the books for an afternoon to do something fun, like a pumpkin patch!

We bundled up and stuffed everyone and the dog in the car and headed to a place I'd read about online, a cute little family farm that had pumpkins, gourds, and tractor rides.  Perfect.

I'm not sure why they're running.  Perhaps they thought everyone would take all the pumpkins before they could pick one???

On the pumpkin swing

 Since our neighbors had already indulged us in their pumpkin patch we really didn't need pumpkins, but how can you resist these brightly colored orbs?  Of course we had to pick some!

Emmy loved the tree swing.  I think she should have lived on a farm...

Down to business - picking the perfect pie pumpkin.

Playing on the little kid toys while we waited in line to pay for our pumpkins.

Taking our stash to the car.

E & L on their hay ride.

Can you tell I made them sit together for this one?

 And what better way to end a trip to the pumpkin patch than a pumpkin pie blizzard from Dairy Queen???

Apple Pickin'

Our good friend Kelly introduced me to another new friend, Jillian, by way of association.  Turns out Kelly knew Jillian when she lived in the same town in northern Washington and then Jillian and her family ended up moving to Gig Harbor.  The coincidences get weirder - like Jillian bought the house that I was seriously considering buying on Fox Island when we moved here.  And then her son and Cannon played water polo together.  It's a small world, isn't it?

Anyways, Jillian is one of those super mom types that we all aspire to be but fall dreadfully short of.  Like she makes her own bread (which I sometimes do), but first she grinds the wheat to make the flour (which I don't do).  I think she stops short of actually growing her own wheat, but that could come next summer...

Anyways, she was most fascinated by all the apple trees growing around the area here this fall and decided to harvest all the apples instead of let them go to waste.  Well, maybe she didn't hit up every apple tree, but she did clear the trees of several of her neighbors!  One morning she invited Kelly to come down from LaConner and me to come over and we attacked some more trees.

Heading down the drive with apple pickin' equipment

Our first method was to shake the branches - you got wet from the dew!

 Then we got serious and got ladder and pole-thingy and pulled down tons of apples.

A small part of the stash...

 Once we had knocked off all the apples we could, we hauled the stash back to Jillians to make some apple cider.  Jillian has a professional juicer which made quick work of it.

Jillian and Kelly

Making the juice

 Jillian has perfected this art so we boiled the juice to 160 degrees to pasturize it.  It was delicious!!!  Jillian's next pursuit is to turn some of this kid-friendly cider into adult-friendly cider...

Nature pics from Hilton Head

Yes, I can't help it, here are a few shots of Hilton Head's natural beauty...

Sadie

This is not fake.