Halloween & Conner Prairie

With Halloween coming and fall rapidly turning to winter we decided to make one more trip in the camper. We went to Cicero Indiana to White River Campground. We did not know until we got there that it is a Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Campground. They have a lot of acreage right along the White River with walking trails and equestrian trails with plans for a great deal of future development. They have several hundred acres to work with and from the looks of their early projects it will be a very impressive park. The best thing about the park is that it is only about ten miles from Brian and Jennifer's house.

The real reason we went was to take Cole & Quinn's pumpkins to them. We had been growing them in the garden all summer. Saturday evening was pumpkin carving night and the boys were all excited. Mom & Dad joined right in and we had a good time watching the boys with their pumpkins. They were not sure about the gooey insides but they plunged right in and helped clean them out.

Above is Cole with Mom working on his pumpkin. They did a great job of outlining their faces and then carving them into the pumpkins. Cole's had such a thick shell that it took a lot of effort to carve out the design. Below are Cole and Mom working on his pumpkin and Dad working on Quinn's. Brian carved a very intricate design and worked diligently to get it finished.

Quinn was helping out big time also. He wanted to be doing everything that big brother was so he got a scraper and went to work on his pumpkin. With a little(lots) of help he got it done.

Sunday we went to Conner Prairie, which is a historic settlement with museum and recreated communities based on the 1830's time frame. It has a couple of recreated communities with most of the buildings being authentic and moved to the site from other locations. They came from all around the area, one even came from Steuben County.

We had a great time and the weather was beautiful. The leaves were turning and the buildings mostly had fires going in their fireplaces. It was just a beautiful fall day. The boys had a great time exploring all of the buildings and especially the animals. In the above picture Cole, Grandma and Aunt Alyssa are checking out the pig pen. They had an old bank barn with an assortment of animals running around, or in some cases laying around. Quinn was fascinated with the animals he would go up to each one and try to pet it. I think there may be some farmboy in that young man.

Weddings and wood cutting

We got to see Matt and Seri again a few weeks ago when Ryan Frey, a friend of Matt's, got married in Fort Wayne. It was a whirlwind trip for Matt and Seri (two days out of four spent in travel time), but we had a great time visiting with them and attending Ryan's wedding. Matt was best man, so we enjoyed talking with Seri while Matt was involved in best man duties. We did have the opportunity to take these pictures of Matt with the groom and with Seri.

Back on the farm, it's time to cut wood! We know that winter is coming because we had our first snow on Friday. It didn't stick, but we had enough to make the ground white for a little while. The pictures below show Dewey after we have loaded the Kubota. We have found that the Bota is a work horse when we get to the woods and is much more maneuverable than a tractor and wagon. With Dewey cutting and Marcia loading, we can have this much wood in a half an hour. We also reminisce about times in the woods with the family when the kids had assembly line wood loading. Remember that Jennifer, Alyssa, and Matt? I bet you wish you we here helping now!