Saturday, October 26, 2013

Sliding through October


I have spent most of October sliding...literally.

On the last day of the government furlough, our family visited Ticonderoga Farms. This place has a big pumpkin festival with lots of slides, a hay ride, animals, playgrounds, and a GIGANTIC outdoor pillow. A pillow? Yes, and it's the coolest. My mom said it was the perfect blend of a moon bounce and a trampoline and it was enormous! Seriously one of the coolest outdoor toys ever.


Gates spent most of the day "strolling" the farm, but he didn't seem to mind.
 

 
At school I decided to test out a slide going face first. No one else was doing this so I thought I'd show everyone how much fun it could be. Whooosh...I was flying...then splat. Splat is the sound your face makes when it hits the bark chips at lightening speed. It wasn't pretty. The medical term for my injury was "playground bark burn to the face," or at least that's what my teacher called it. I'll admit, I was a bit stunned. And I definitely don't recommend it. But the death slide did earn me legendary status on the playground, so it was definitely worth it.

My dad headed back to work but my mom, brother, and I didn't let that stop us from finding more outdoor fall fun. Our most recent find was Pumpkinville! (Doesn't it just sound like a fun place?!?!) This place is an extension of the Leesburg Animal Park which is open year round. During fall, they add a ton of stuff and call it Pumpkinville. So not only did it have cool giant slides, it had SEVEN outdoor moonbounces, a huge pirate ship for climbing, tons of animals, pony rides, a climbing spider web, a teepee, bike go-carts, and two camels! My buddy Dru and I spent the day wiping out on everything and we laughed and laughed and laughed. She's awesome.

Check out my mom on the swing. I'm told there's a video of her "takeoff" which was pretty hilarious. Are mom's supposed to do this kind of stuff? And check out me, my brother, Dru, and her mom just stranded in a pack of wild animals. My mom just left us there! We were surrounded by donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, and VERY feisty llamas. It's lucky we made it out alive.

We hung out with a few camels. Dru's mom got slobbered on by one of them - yuck!
 Gates did a lot of strolling at this farm too, but also hung out on the tractor with my mom and watched us play.
 How fun are these go-cart bikes!?!? It steered like a car, pedaled like a bike, but had four wheels. So cool!
And just because I love him, here's a recent close-up of my awesome little brother...enjoy!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Rain Rain Go Away

Continuing with our "furlough fun" - thanks to a Congress that is acting ridiculous and would ALL be fired if they worked in the private sector - we enjoyed Cox Farm's Fall Festival this week and then headed to Ocean City, Maryland, Lewes, Delaware, and Cape May, New Jersey for a few days.

Cox Farms always delivers a good time and this year was no exception. We went on a Tuesday and found out the best hidden secret - no one goes there on Tuesdays! We were the first people on several of the slides and never waited in a line longer than 3 people - is 3 people even considered a line?!? It was awesome.

My dad figured out that if he slid on his back he got a lot more speed. This new sliding technique provided a lot of comedy as he accidentally hit one of the side hay bails on a slide and proceeded to pinball from side to side until he landed at the bottom where a classroom of kids was hysterically laughing and pointing. Thanks Cox family for sharing your cool farm and letting us come play there year after year.


Ocean City, Lewes, and Cape May are all beach towns which is great UNLESS it is pouring rain so hard you think you should build an ark! Good grief!

We've had FOUR consecutive days of rain which isn't ideal for a fall beach weekend getaway. BUT, as with anything, it's all about your attitude. So I used the past few days as a fantastic opportunity to practice my puddle jumping - which, by the way, I'm getting pretty good at.

Ocean City, Maryland was hosting an enormous outdoor car show...insert the bummer music here...because only a handful of the cars chose to put their cars in the rain. I guess if you have a car worth a gazillion dollars that you haul, rather than drive, places, leaving it out in the rain on the shore of the beach isn't the most ideal conditions for the paint.
So we found an old school arcade on the boardwalk and blew $5. Twenty quarters goes a LONG way in an arcade, especially if you're me and attempt to play skee ball. I threw the heavy wooden balls in several directions, causing a few people to jump. Rarely did the ball go up into the actual game, often ricocheting back at me allowing me another opportunity to throw it. The eight ball, skee ball game lasted a really, really long time. Wack-a-mole was another adventure. My dad watched me play and then grabbed the wacker, pushed me aside, and went crazy. Tickets started flying out of that game like it was broken. My dad is awesome.

Regardless of the rain, we had to enjoy the beach, I even found a football to play with! I guess positive attitudes reap positive rewards!




Friday, October 4, 2013

Furlough Fun

When Congress gives you lemons, you make lemonade...at least that's what we've decided to do. Thanks to a bunch of adults who have completely forgotten how to lead OR compromise, my dad has some bonus days off of work. It would be easy to sit at home and be grumpy about this, but not MY dad. He said, "Bonus days off? Yahoo! Let's go have fun as a family!" And that's just what we've been doing.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Pennsylvania to visit the Crayola Factory. We'd heard it was pretty cool and it DEFINITELY lived up to the hype. It's four stories of pure awesomeness. Painting, molding, coloring, boating, jungle gyming, melting, drawing, experimenting, observing, and scoring lots and lots of crayons!

We got to make personalized Crayons - how cool is this...
We climbed into a 50 foot high playland! Even my parents did it and shot out the bottom of the swirly slide.
My mom had so much fun she did her first "jumper" photo post baby #2 (ignore that I was still in jumping position on the ground - I need to work on my timing with the camera).
 
Lastly, people keep asking for photos of my brother, so I'm just including one. Perhaps it's because he's growing like a weed on steroids, folks are interested to see how much he's changing. Well, here are the changes I've noticed. He's MUCH heavier - I can't hold his head up for much more than a few minutes before my arms want to fall off. He's awake a lot more these days and when he's awake, he says a whole bunch of stuff. While their not actual words, his jibberish is pretty easy to understand and I usually know what he's saying. And he smiles a bunch and here's some proof of that...


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The Sea, the Great Outdoors, & Big Head

Two weekends ago I sailed the wide open sea. Okay, actually I went canoeing on the Potomac, but to a kid who's 3 feet tall, it might as well have been the ocean! Our awesome neighbor Alan is a life-long canoer and he and another neighbor (Andrew) invited me and my dad to join them for a paddle. So we strapped on our life jackets and faced the danger.

The water was a bit low so it was running fast and included what I call "the extra scary part" of bumpy rocks. The day was a little overcast so there wasn't a sound on the river - total peace and quiet. Lucky for Alan, Andrew, and my dad they brought me to fill that void with non-stop chatter. I was so excited I talked THE ENTIRE car ride there, THE ENTIRE canoe trip, and THE ENTIRE drive home. I heard the adults say something about being exhausted and that it was okay to nap, but who naps at a time like that?!??! Summary...it was awesome.

Then Friday night my dad and I went on the annual church Father/Son Campout with a few hundred other crazy dads and sons. My mom and I reminded my dad that he had two sons he should take camping. Apparently if you're still drinking from a bottle you're in an "other" category and don't get to go. Sorry Gates, next year! (Hey mom, dad said, "nice try.")

We roasted marshmallows and ate s'mores. I got to play in the dark with a bunch of my buddies and shine my flashlight into everyone's eyes. Then we headed to bed where I promptly passed out from a fun overload.

As for Big Head, I'm referring to my little brother Gates. He is DEFINITELY related to me because he is officially a member of the "big head club." He had his two month doctors appointment and measured in the 50% height, 80% weight (14lbs), and 99% head! I had a 99% head for my first two years of life (and they they no longer measure your head). Luckily big heads photograph well. I'll need to show him a few of my tricks for not always tipping over, or if you do, doing it with style.