Halloween

This year for Halloween Ethan decided to be a knight. Which was a surprise to me because he has always wanted to be a fire fighter each past year. So Ethan got a knight custom, and of course what is a knight with out a steed. Since it would be too dangerous to have the real horse trick-or-treat, we found a substitution. He was very happy to be included but tired by the end of the night.

And yes, I made the saddle. Rob thought I was a bit nuts. But it was a big hit with everyone! Thanks to the switch in daylight savings half the time was still daylight and the other half dark, so many people saw and loved it. One house even asked where the dog with the saddle was when Ethan went to the door.

For daycare this year, we have cheese and crackers as our snack for the party. I made mini pumpkins. They went okay, but were really no competition for cupcakes!!

Busy October Weekend

We had a really busy weekend. It was Ethan's last soccer game - Ethan was not really into it that much this time, I think he may be a little tired of soccer right now. But, he says he still was having fun. There were 6 kids on the team, usually 5 showed up for games, 1 did not really want to play soccer, 1 was not fast at all, and the other three (including Ethan) were generally fairly good.

After soccer, we went to a pumpkin farm. Tried a new place this year. They are also a U-cut Christmas tree farm. Was pretty good, spent a lot of time there and was not too busy like other places. We did their Spruce Maze (through the christmas trees), train ride, pig races (where Ethan was a sweeper - to get the pigs to run),petting zoo where they had a baby reindeer, and picked pumpkins.

Sunday we spent most the day working in the yard. Getting ready for winter. Mainly raking leaves and covering the roses with them. We had a LARGE pile of leaves that everyone, including Mom and Dad had fun playing in. Ethan even had his own fun riding in the wheel barrel and then being dumped just like the leaves.

August

I know it is now October, and the middle of October for that matter. But, we have finally gotten the photos of Ethan's stay in Wisconsin with Grandma and Grandpa off Rob's camera. Ethan really had a good time being spoiled and playing. Best of all he enjoyed the camping at Dunes State Park with the Boy Scouts.

Here are some photos of him having fun at their house.

While in Wisconsin Ethan attending Gregg's birthday party. Here are some photos of the three kids, Ethan, Gregg, and Mikey. Lots of blond hair among them all.

Grandma and Grandpa took Ethan to A Day Out With Thomas. So they got to ride the train and have an entire train day. Ethan talked about this a lot too. Unfortunately a lot of the photos did not turn out. But, it sure looked like fun.

Ethan also went to a small amusement park with his Grandparents, and my Aunt Laura and her family. Ethan enjoyed playing with his 2nd cousin Alex and going on the roller coaster together and not holding on! Ethan and Alex are in the middle section of the train.

I think by the end of the day on the merry-go-round he was pretty tired.

At the end of the week. Ethan went camping. He really enjoyed it. Loved cooking and having a camp fire and being dirty and sleeping in the tent. He also enjoyed jumping rope around the sites and learning to play cards. We picked him up from the camp, which he whined and cried about leaving for a long time.

I am not sure if this final photo is from August or not. But one morning I got up to find Ethan had decided that sleeping in his bed was not working. So in the middle of the night he must have gotten up taken his blanket and stuffed dinosaur and fell asleep under his bed.

South Dakota

This year for the 4th of July we ventured out to South Dakota to sight see around Mt. Rushmore and be there for the fireworks at Rushmore on the 3rd. It was a really good trip, or at least I think so, with only one real stinker of a tourist trap. And of course it was one I picked. We paid 5.75 a person to see a waterfall in a cave. Basically you walk 60 feet into a mine and there is a waterfall in the back, not too large of a drop on it either. At least that you can see. So I would not reccommend Thunderhead Falls to anyone you like. Everywhere else was good and the fireworks were awesome. And it was so much easier to get out of the park after the fireworks then I ever imagined it would be. So here are some photos of the trip. It was Rob, Ethan, myself, grandma and grandpa Harman. We left Michigan to WI for the night in Grandma and Grandpa Pavlik's new house and then continued on to South Dakota - another 13 hours away.

On the way to the west side of South Dakota we were lurred in by the billboards for the corn palace. This place is decorated with corn cobs, kernels and husks differently each year. For some reason they were in the process of starting 2009's design over the 4th week. We all thought that was kind of wrong since the tourism should be higher that week. It was free which is nice and a good stopping place for a quick break.

The first place we visited was Reptile Gardens. Plenty of snakes and reptiles to see. Gators and giant tortises too. Now I can remember riding them when we went when I was little, but that is not allowed. However, you can pet them and one was 124 years old!

Just down the road from Reptile Gardens was our next stop. Bear Country USA. A drive through wild life park. Or as wild as animals will be when raised in a drive through park. Most did not mind the cars at all. The bears especially just went about routine life being bears. We even saw some "adult" bear activities.

Here are some photos from a lake we found with a walking path. The walk ended up a bit shorter because Ethan got a sliver and it was the end of the world. When he fell asleep in the truck we were finally able to pull it out.

Another place we went to was Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Ethan got his first Junoir Ranger badge there and really enjoyed climbing on all the boulders, until he fell and got a small cut. This first photo is one of our favorites, it shows Ethan "hiking". And yes, this is how he hiked the majority of the path around the Tower. And when he was not hiking, he was resting (2nd photo)

We also rode the 1880's steam train. Keystone, our departure city which had shops and ice cream places, to Hill city. A town that had little we saw. Everyone had to leave the train and then reboard in 45 minutes. Enough time to eat and get back in line for a good seat. The train let us on just in time because it began to rain. Really one of the few time rain ever threatened something we were doing.

Ethan really enjoyed the ride with Spidey. He also rode the horse behind there. It was the wildest horse ride ever. That thing really rocked, anyone smaller would have really had a hard time holding on!

We did some driving around. Discovered that if you want to be on a US hwy, in some spots you have to pay park admission to continue on the rode. But, we had some good sights at both parks, the Badlands and the Black Hills. Some very interesting rodes (pigtail bridged, U-turn bends, and tiny tunnels through the rocks. Had to think skinny in the truck.

At some point between the first day and before Mt. Rushmore, we did several other stops. Including the Cosmos Mystery Area where things are not as level as the "appear" and the air force base. Both where fun, Cosmos lead to lots of jokes later on about being on a slope and it being a mystery why you lean. Below is a photo of Grandpa Harman standing on a wall at the cosmos area. We also went to Roo World (or Garden/zoo, I don't remember). It was almost a bust until we got to enter the interaction area where you can pet Wallabys! It was neat, something I do not think we will have many chance to do. Ethan treated them like strange looking dogs and that is basically what they were like. Lazy indifferent about you dogs, but a bit softer.

Okay, and the reason we went to begin with. Here are the photos from Mt. Rushmore. We spent an entire day there. From about 10am to after fireworks. Ethan was very content to play with new legos on the blanket all day. All the running around really left him no time for playing all week, so he really enjoyed the break. Which worked out really well for all of us. The waiting got really hard the last hour or two. They estimate 30,000 people there, we saw a few fly overs including a B1 stealth and a B2 that when it did the real thing we heard it and saw afterburners but that is really all. It was a great fly over! They also did a flag ceremory and gave the flag to the last WW1 veteran. The fireworks were amazing, Rob caught some on his camera. Ethan loved them too! It was his first time seeing fireworks and he wants to see them again.

I am sure there are other things and I know there is a lot more detail to our trip. But, that would take a long time to do. So you will have to live with these until we see you next and can tell you all about it. At some point we will have to take a vacation that actually is not as busy so we do not need a vacation after the vacation.