St Louis Canyon

We had a 4-day weekend starting today, so Pete took the day off and we decided to make the next few days all about doing fun stuff together as a family. :-) The weather couldn't be better, with it being a nice, breezy 80 degrees, so we figured might as well head out to the local State Park!



We've been down a couple different trails there, but they were always up high. We wanted to go into one of the canyons, so Pete talked to a guy at work who suggested the St. Louis Canyon. We had to take Tater with us on this trek, of course.

The fun thing about going down into the canyons were all these rock formations we came across. This one had basically a natural bench. The kids loved climbing in and sitting for this picture. Getting them to take pictures is sometimes a chore, but today they loved getting them taken. They wanted pics of themselves by all the "cool stuff" as they said.

We've never been to the park in the fall and we have missed out! The leaves were falling in the breeze today and the colors were changing. So pretty!! You'll notice that some of the walkways into the canyon were very narrow. Livie got a little nervous ... and so did MOMMY!

But, look at how pretty that is! And, that wasn't even the half of it!

Madie took this one of the mushrooms. Thought that was a pretty cool picture myself! Haven't seen a lot of yellow mushrooms before.

Pete lead the way with Tater most of the time, but the kids couldn't stay behind once we got into the canyon. They were so excited to see what lay ahead (is it lie ahead? Lay ahead? Laid ahead? I never know what form to use!)

Um, does Pete have 4 children or is that one in the black shirt a grown-up? ;-) Wonder what I'll look like once they all pass me up?!

This is a cave we saw in the canyon. Livie said it was the Yeti Cave. She was so excited!! Well, she was until she realized that there is no way in the world we could climb in there and find them! She said we need to bring a ladder next time. Ssssuuurreee....

A nice mom walked up while I was taking the previous picture and asked if I would like a group shot of all of us. Yay! Totally took her up on her offfer. :-)

Now, THIS was one cave they COULD go in and that is a picture of them all doing their yeti calls. My kids are strange.

Here is the canyon's end. The picture of the yeti children above this was taken in that cave on the far right. I'm standing at the top of a natural sand dune created by the rock face. The kids LOVED playing on it. Heck, they loved this entire area. Had a ball!

And, they weren't the only ones. Tater got to run in the water/mud and had a fantastic time!

At the back was a small waterfall. They kids managed to climb across broken branches, across the mud, to the waterfall. It was really cool back there!

However, as you can, our shoes got a little muddy. Livie actually lost a shoe in the mud. I had to fetch it for her. I, of course, thought it was hilarious and was cracking up at her trying to wobble through the mud in one shoe. She didn't find the humor in it.

Even with Noah's unique obsessions, he is still a very typical boy. He dind't mind the mud and ran on back there and played in the water and just generally made a muddy mess of himself. But, like I told them, it isn't a good day until you've got some mud on you!

Eventually, I just took of their socks and shoes, rolled up their pants, and let them have at it. That little boy in the picture just wanted his picture taken too. :-) He liked Tater.

Can you SEE the smile on this dog's face?! That is a mud-covered, water-soaked, joyful puppy! He splashed in every little bit of water he could find. And, totally submerged his face and body in the deeper pool by the waterfall. It was so fun to watch!

We had about 10 min where we were the only ones there, so the kids (and Tater) had a ball playing in the water.

Madie even stood directly under the waterfall - completely soaking herself.

Isn't this a beautiful area? And such an easy hike too!

It's like this hidden oasis of cliffs. Just gorgeous!

Once more people started coming in, we took our cue to head out, so they could enjoy some time there without our crazy family ruining it for them.

Can you see why I took this picture? As we were walking out of the cave/waterfall area, we saw a bride and her bridal party coming in for pictures. We stepped WAY off the trail, so there would be no chance that muddy Tater or muddy children could touch that beautiful white dress of hers.

We decided to climb up the mountain and go to the top of the canyon. We saw lots of cool rock formations up there too. Madie's a pirate in this picture. That's why she's so serious.

Noah found this cool tree to hide in.

While we were walking, we saw lots of wild turkeys. They didn't seem bothered by us at all. We probably saw 2 dozen or so throughout our afternoon there. :-)

We were about halfway through our walk at the top of the canyon when we decided to head back. Wanted to take a couple pics first though. I've got such a great family, don't I?!

Another fun family shot on a cool rock formation. :-)

One good thing about diabetes is when you have a child that is low, it's imperative that you get him a snack. And, what better snack than ICE CREAM! Once we were finishing up the trails, Noah said he was low, so we checked him and knew it was time for a snack. We had snacks, but we figured we were so close to the end, we'd just walk back to the van and head to the nearest ice cream shoppe for some goodies. I wish I had a picture of Noah's face. That boy does NOT know how to eat ice cream like a normal person! He had it all over his face AND his hat! Cracked me up. Guess he wanted to bring his sugars up fast!

My sweeties! All 4 of them!

On the way home, we decided to hit Buffalo Rock and see the buffalos. They only have a couple of them, but the one was right by the fence! The kids thought that was awesome!

I mean, look how close he is?! We went for a short walk after that and when we got back neither one was in sight, so we were very lucky that we showed up when we did. :-)

We had a really great day getting messy and enjoying this beautiful October season. :-)

And, we wore Tater out so much he feel asleep on Pete's backpack on the way home! It was a good day, Tater!

Projects

Yesterday we had a special project day in Sunday School. The kids made trees to put up in the windows of the sanctuary.



I made an example and left the rest up to them!

They got a pot where they put their sticker on it with the poem about the beauty of autumn and God's love. Then they added playdough to the bottom of the pot and then stuck sticks in the playdough. The kids and I were at the park the other day gathering all those sticks! So, there were a lot to chose from. Then I had used the die-cut machine to cut out leaves in all the fall colors. They punched holes in the leaves and attached them to the branches with ribbon.

When they were done, they filled the pot up with floral batting (or whatever it's called) and put a big ribbon around the top.

Madie took this picture of the one they did when it was up in the window. I think they did a great job and now our sanctuary has touches of autumn made by little hands. :-)

Over the Years

Starting in 2005, Pete's sister Jill and her family have joined us 4 times at the pumpkin patch. I thought it would be fun to go back and see how much everyone has grown over those years.



I was pregnant with Livie the first year they joined us. In fact, the whole Trolinger family joined us that year! Jill and Adam and the boys, Nana and Papa T, and Uncle Andy were there for this visit. Trevor was just a week shy of turning 4, I believe, and Tyson was a week shy of turning 1. Their bdays are Oct. 10th and 11th. :-)

They didn't come down again until 2008, when Livie was 2. I remember how much fun they had that year. Tyson was still just a baby and wasn't able to get out of the stroller and play when we had gotten together before. Heck, Livie was still in my belly! And, here they were able to all run around and enjoy the whole farm together. :-)

They came down again in 2009, when Madie was 8, Trevor was almost 8, Noah was 6, Tyson was nearly 5, and Livie was 3. You'll notice the rain boots. It was so muddy and cold that year, but they didn't care. They just loved being together. :-)

And, here we are in 2011 and they got to come again. Now Madie is 10, Trevor will be 10 in about a week, Noah is 8, Tyson is nearly 7, and Livie is 5. I can't remember a single time they've been together during the past few years at the pumpkin patch where they weren't having a super-fun time together. They keep growing up. Becoming more independent. They might even face new challenges - first patch visit with diabetes!. But, nothing stops them from having a great time and loving their time together as cousins and friends. :-)

Pumpkin Patch 2011

OK, I tried to make this go in order, but I screwed something up in the process of uploading and since it took me an hour to do that, I'm just going to go with what I have. I know most of it will be out of order, but it's still fun to look at, right? ;-)


Today was our 9th year at Dollinger Farms! Can hardly believe we've gone for so long. It's gone by so quickly! This year I'm titling "The Year of Independence". For almost a decade we've had one kid or another that needed our constant supervision and help. This year, they were all old enough to navigate the things on their own and they wanted to do that. They loved the freedom that came with going from one thing to another without mom or dad following them along. I mean, I had to do that a little, so I could take pictures, but they enjoyed a new freedom they haven't had their before. :-)




Our first out-of-order picture is at the new installment at the farm - the castle! Livie loved this thing. Not only did it have a drawbridge, but TWO slides in the back! Every year we go back and there seems to be something new. So, this was a really fun new piece they added!



You'll see I got a few more pictures of Livie. She was slow enough for me to keep up with most of the time. :-) Here she is driving the firetruck.

The champions of the hay bales!!!

Noah wasn't up for just driving the firetruck. He wanted to ride on the roof!

Livie looked all over for a thing she was tall enough to peek her head through and she was very excited when she found this barrel of apples. :-)

This was where we started our day. As we waited a couple minutes for Jill, Adam, and the boys to arrive, we took this cute shot by the corn maze. They are holding up corn cobs they found on the ground. This is the first year we've done the corn maze, so they were very excited as you'll see later....

As I said, this was the year of Independence. The kids all rode on the train by themselves for the first time! Livie was a little scared without us, so Ty had her sit on his lap to make her feel better. I mean, seriously, how sweet is that?! These cousins LOVE each other!!!

As we were walking back to get some lunch, we passed the horses they use for the hay ride. They were so pretty!

We had the kids sit or stand by these wood carvings. I remember last year the guy was actually there carving them while we watched. So cool! The kids liked them a lot too.

Not only did I have trouble uploading the pictures in order, but my camera died about 15 min into our day there, so I had to upload from my phone AND my camera. Not enjoyable. Not to mention the fact that I'm old-fashioned and really do not enjoy taking photos with a cell phone. You should've seen how many pictures I took of the ground and my coat pocket, because I couldn't figure out how to work the thing! But, anyway - again with the independence thing - after Jill and Adam got there, we headed into the corn maze. And, every attempt we made to get a picture of the kids while in this maze resulted in a picture of their backs!! They weren't slowing down for anything. They were determined to find the exit to this thing all on their own without any help from us. They eventually took a short cut and cut through a row of corn to get to the outside and once they were out, they realized the REAL exit was only 4 rows over! :-)

Now here we are back at the lunch pavilion. This tractor was inside the building and the kids really wanted a picture by it. With full bellies, they were ready to go!

First thing on the agenda after lunch were the HAY BALES!! Usually we're helping them climb up, but Livie was the only one who needed a boost this year and Uncle Adam happily complied. But, not before Ty was KING OF THE WORLD!

The kids loved jumping back and forth between the bales. Usually there are a lot of people at the patch, but because we went so early, there weren't many there, so this gave them the chance to play on them fairly uninterrupted for a while. It was great!

I try every year to get a picture of the kids in the windows of this little church. I remember holding Livie up in the window when she was a baby. Time has gone by so fast!

Of course, everything stopped when they discovered a daddy long-leg. There were a couple bug encounters while we were there today as you'll see.

I wanted to get a long shot of the patch. Now this isn't the whole thing obviously, but it gives you an idea of how fun it is! These are just some of the little houses and the hay bale thingy. You see the rows and rows of pumpkins they have there. We spent a long time looking for the best pumpkins today. :-)

Here is more of the house area. The firetruck and new castle is back there.

Our other bug encounter was with a praying mantis. Since those buggers fly, I didn't want any part of it. But, had to at least get a picture of the action! All 5 kids were there to see/play with the thing.

Livie really wanted to go see the goats, so while the kids played, I took her over to see them. They were pretty nervous though. She wasn't able to get very close to any of them this time.

They had these big crates of gourds. The kids spent lots of time picking out just the right ones to take home. We got a big cart to carry them all in!

You can see everyone was involved in the picking process. :-) I really wanted a ghost pumpkin, but we got so many others, that we decided spending over $40 on pumpkins was getting a little crazy, so we didn't. Maybe next year!

Trevor decided that some of the gourds looked like "battle gourds", so Madie, Noah, and Trev got them ready to fight! They are "The Gourd Warriors"!!

Trevor was in charge of pulling the cart. I felt bad for him and offered to take it off his hands a couple times, but said he really enjoyed doing it. He's almost 10, so he liked having that fun responsibility. Boy, they are growing up fast!! By the way, check out Trevor's MASSIVE pumpkin! Can't wait to see it carved up!

Had to get the prerequisite shot of the kids on the pumpkins. Aren't they awesome?! I swear, it's always so fun to have the Schutz Family join us!

And, had to get one of just our kids too. Using the cell phone camera prevented me from seeing anything I was taking, so I'm actually shocked I got some centered shots of my kids smiling!

Livie and Noah picked out their pumpkins pretty quickly, but Madie went on a perfect pumpkin hunt with Pete. They found a great one too!

One of the gourds Madie picked out was the teeny-tiniest gourd ever! She wanted a picture of it by the biggest pumpkin in the place - the one Trevor got. :-)

We had the kids stand by their cart of pumpkins and gourds when we were finished pickin'. Nana and Papa T, this is one for the frig! Look at how much they love each other. Happy, smiling cousins with their big finds of the day! What a great day we had with Jill, Adam, and the boys! Wish we could do it again next week (with a working camera!). ;-)