Zombie Walker

It's official, Gates is a walker! He's been teasing us for months, walking a few steps and then crawling away. My mom is convinced he's been break dancing in his room when we're not looking. But just in time for Halloween, Gates has perfected the zombie walk. He laughs the whole time - maybe he knows it looks like a zombie walk - with his arms and legs a little stiff shuffling along. Way to go little brother! I'm excited for our first race!

Festivals

Fall is a time full of festivals and our family partakes in all of them! From the hay rides to the corn mazes to the over-the-top 500 foot slides, what's not to love about this time of year?!?!

While I went last year, I slept through most of the action. This year I slid down the slides, road the bikes around the track, fed the animals, bounced in the moon bounces, climbed in the castles - if a festival had it, I did it. A few new discoveries this year included a ball sling shot - which, by the way, my mom says she wants to build in our backyard. A giant sling shot is attached to two posts. You insert a ball, pull back, aim at the target, and let 'er rip! Our mildly competitive family stayed at this activity for well over an hour.

Pictures tell the story best, so here are some of the highlights...

 

 

One of the biggest, and most random, highlights was bumping into the Hutchins family at Pumpkinville. It's a long story - and I was actually asleep in the stroller for most of this - but here's the gist. After playing all day outdoors at the Leesburg Animal Park and Pumpkinville, we headed indoors to a play yard because it began to rain. Most every else left at this point, but my mom and her friend chatted on a bench next to a half-wall while Bodie and his buddy played with a little girl on a playland structure. A woman walked over and said, "I can't believe it, it IS Lisa Lybbert." The little girl Bodie had met in the play yard was the niece of one of my mom's closest friends. Here's where it gets confusing...the friend, Amy Hutchins, lives in Washington state. Her parents live in Utah. Her brother's family lives an hour south of DC. They all grew up in California together. Anyway, it was Amy's parents who were visiting her brother's family, all at Pumpkinville at the same time - SMALL world and a big treat to see them.

The BEST part of the festivals was, by far, the events of this video. Thanks to my awesome dad and video technology, we have watched this seven seconds over and over and over again...laughing every single time. Long live the fall festivals!

Uncle Rick

Uncle Rick popped in town unexpectedly for a quick business trip. He was in DC for about 48 hours and we scored a whole evening with him!

We picked him up from the airport, showed him how to eat a variety of snacks in the car while we waited in traffic, played in the yard, ate dinner, tackled each other, and he read us bedtime stories. Pure awesomeness.