Apple Pickin'

With fewer beautiful days ahead, we decided to head out once again and enjoy the weather while it lasted. Definitely wasn't as warm and perfect as last weekend, but with the sun shining and a nice brisk 60 degrees coming at us, there was definitely nothing to complain about!



We decided to go and hike some more trails at Matthiessen Park. The kids really wanted to see a site called "Strawberry Rock". The first thing we noticed is that things had changed a lot since last weekend. We hit the jackpot last weekend with the colors of the leaves and the beauty there, but after a day of rain and two very breezy days, most of the leaves had fallen off the trees. So, it wasn't as pretty out, but it was fun to kick through those leaves as we walked. :-)

You can see all the leaves that fell over the course of the week!

We walked the trail until we found this neat rock. The kids wanted to climb it and get their picture taken. We totally didn't think this was Strawberry Rock, but it was still fun to climb.

We soon found out that this rock was INDEED Strawberry Rock. The kids were very disappointed. They had discussed all the way over what a "Strawberry Rock" would look like. They thought it would be red or strawberry-shaped. Someone even mentioned that it might taste like strawberries (I'm glad no one tested this theory!). When we realized that this was the infamous rock, we looked at it from every angle - trying to figure out why it was given its name. Still have no idea. But, hey, at least it gave me a chance to take a really cute picture of my kids!

We decided to wander up the trail some more until we came to the horse trails. Livie and I took a quick breather on this log and Pete took our picture. :-)

On the way back down the trail, Noah played on this log while Madie and Livie inspected their shoes. I bought them both new shoes after last weekend. I found them some crocs that look like tennis shoes, so that they would have something that was easily washable. Livie's shoes didn't survive the washer last weekend, so we needed something that would hold up. The new ones aren't good for hiking, because they were hurting their feet too much. We had to head back to the van after just a short hour. But, Noah sure had fun climbing this tree while they figured out what was going on with their shoes!

Had to take a quick pic of 2 of my favorite people before we headed back! As we were walking back and everyone was complaining about leaving early, we decided to head to the apple orchard instead. At least that wouldn't hurt anyone's feet. No hiking involved there!

As we drove to our next destination, I looked in the back seat and realized that our "4th child" had found his own chair to sit in. ;-) Cracked me up!

We drove quite a ways to get to this orchard, but I'm glad we did! They had great apples for pickin'! We wanted to pick raspberries too, but the frost got them. We'll have to remember this for next time, so we go towards the end of Sept instead, when everything is ready for picking.

We bought a small bag and told the kids to look carefully and find the perfect apples. They were very good at inspecting.

They looked in every tree for the best ones.

They were just the right size for our kids too. Not too tall.

And, thankfully, when there were a few out of reach, we had some tall guy with us to pick them for us! ;-)

What a beautiful day for picking apples!

Noah carried the bag until it got too heavy. Then Pete took over the job of carrying it. The kids kept bringing him apples until the whole bag was filled to the tippy-top!

What a great pickin' crew!

Can you tell we had fun??

As we were leaving, some visitors came out of the pumpkin patch to check us out. They walked right up by us and then walked right past us.

They should've known if they walked casually by 3 kids that a chase would ensue.....

Once the ducks realized their error, they ran for their lives!!

We quickly spared their poor lives by making the kids (aka Noah) stop the chase. We went back to the playground and let them run off their extra energy there before heading home. Was a shorter afternoon, but still a lot of fun. Trying to soak up all those moments that we can spend outdoors before the winter weather shows up. Hoping that's not for a long, long time!

Picture Day Prints

We got the kids' pictures back today. :-) Yay! Madie liked her picture, which was great, because she hated last years. Noah never cares either way, but he always manages to get a really nice photo. Livie didn't do her scary Yeti face, but MAN is her hair long!! I know it is, but when they pull the frame back to get it all in ...... WOWZA! It's a little in her face, but we decided to keep it and not worry about retakes. She's still a cutie. :-) When I was filling the frame that I have all the school pictures in, it was so fun to look back at how much they've grown over the years. It's going by so fast! I also realized that this set of prints is the first time all 3 of my kids have had teeth missing! Lots of gaps in there, huh? All part of that growing up I've been talking about. :-)

Christmas Wish List?

Noah and Madie came running into my room last night giggling. When I asked them why, they told me to go look at Livie's back.



Noah had attached a note that said, "I want poop for Christmas". When I showed her the note, she got really mad and wanted to make a note herself.

So, she employed my help to attach it. You'll notice scribbles on there, but that's actually her "cursive". When I asked her what it said, she said, "It's something REALLY bad!", so I'm guessing her note went beyond a little poop talk for Noah.

Yeti Pre-Trial

When your daughter comes up to you and says "I want to be a Yeti for Halloween" you suddenly start trying to figure out ways to make that happen. I don't really sew, so I had to figure out a way to give her this costume. One scary-looking resale coat, some furry boots and hat later and we have ourselves a make-shift Yeti costume! We decided to put all the pieces together tonight to see if it was going to work and voila! Here it is! The red around her mouth was her idea. She wanted it to look like she was eating dead bodies. That's the dog's bone in her hand. Yet another prop to remind people that's she's eating carcasses. Between that and the recent joy she's found in trying to make farting noises with her armpits leads me to believe that she is not a normal 5 yr old girl!! So, watch out trick-or-treaters, come October 31st there will be a crazed Yeti on the loose!

Matthiessen Park

Our adventures continued today when we went to Matthiessen Park, which is within a couple miles of Starved Rock, the park we hit yesterday.



At the top of the trail is this old log cabin and an old log fort. Very cool! We had a late start to the day, so we didn't linger long at this spot.

We had tons and tons and TONS of stairs to walk down!

We decided to head towards the canyons again, because we loved the canyons yesterday so much.

There are lots of interesting fungi in this park. Since Madie and her Nana T have lots of fun looking at fungi together before, she wanted to take a picture of the kind on this fallen tree to show her.

It was more difficult to navigate the terrain compaired to the other park. We had to walk across narrow passage ways and over rocks...

... and under tree branches.

We did fine until we got to this spot. The leap between Noah and Pete there was a little wide. And, with Tater pulling on the leash and my arms not being long enough to help get them over, we decided to turn back and hit another canyon instead. This, thankfully, was our only fail of the day. The kids were upset at first, but once we got back up on the trail, they were fine.

I'm glad we started off this way though, because look at that view!!!

We climbed back up some of the stairs to get to this path again and went to the other side of the canyon to see if we could navigate that side better.

As we were crossing another bridge, we ran into our friend Miss Caroline! She left for college for the first time in August, so we haven't seen her for a while. We were very excited to see her. :-)

Noah found this cool tree branch on the other side of the bridge that he had to get his picture taken on. The key to getting the kids interested in picture is take them to a park and let them see cool things. They always want their pictures by them!

Another nice lady offered to take our picture and I quickly accepted!

And look at our happy puppy. Two days in a row of adventures! I do believe this was his favorite walk yet. So much water for splashing!

The canyon we went to yesterday you didn't really get to walk through until the very end, because of all the trees. Today, we walked down this way for a mile!

They had more cool hollowed out areas to climb in, which called for more Yeti roars!

It also had more trees to climb under, more rocks to step on, and lots of things to climb over.

So much beauty! It was like a hidden world down there. Loved it!

When we got to the end, we saw this amazing rock wall, complete with caves!

And, not just little caves, nice big ones!

And, ones with tunnels leading to other caves. :-)

Look at how tall those rock faces are! Pete and Tater are in the very back between the guy with the walking stick and the 2 gals there on the right-hand side of the picture.

One of the caves opened up into this side, but there was so much water, we didn't let them walk that far over. When the water is covered with leaves, it's hard to know how deep it is. Tater found out on a lot of them though. ;-)

Pete let Tater explore a lot of the water pools. And, Tater LOVED every minute of it!

We split into partners on our trip, even though we walked together. Madie and Noah were calling them "The Little Adventurers", so they paired up. Pete and Tater always pair up. So, that left Livie and me. We were great hiking buddies. :-)

Just another shot of the fantastic view from the canyon. There were several trails we didn't hit in this canyon alone. Want to save some for next time!

When we got back to the stairs to climb up and head towards the waterfalls, someone spotted this little snake. Smallest one I've ever seen!

Here's a look from above on the bridge. That was after climbing just one ste of stairs. We had another set to go before making it back to the main trail. And, another set to get back to our car. Gives you an idea of how many stairs we climbed!

Noah really wanted to see a waterfall, so we headed back to the lake, because there was supposed to be one in that area. The view here was amazing! And, look at that happy family of mine. Aren't they awesome?!

While looking our over another bridge, we found out that one of the waterfalls was directly beneath us. So, we decided to look for the stairs and climb down to see it.

But, before we did, we had to take a few shots on the bridge. :-)

And, a few more overlooking the lake off the bridge. I seriously can't believe autumn isn't everyone's favorite season! It's amazing!

Just another fun family shot - minus Pete would so graciously offered to take the picture. :-)

After those pictures, we found the stairs and went on down. This canyon wasn't as tall, but there were more fun pools to splash in.

Because this little waterfall was surrounded by water, we let the kids take their shoes and socks off and just wade through. We didn't get all the way up to the waterfall. Just waded up to this point, because Tater got in and it got pretty deep. He was our test diver in all the pools. :-)

Even thought this canyon wasn't as deep, it was still absolutely beautiful. Maybe even more so, because of all the fallen leaves and pools of water. And, the solitude. There weren't many people left in the park at this point in the day. It was nearly 5pm by this point.

Just some toes in the water.

The water from that little waterfall fell in a stream all the way through the canyon. The kids loved putting leaves in it to see how far it would go.

Once we started walking away from the waterfall's end, to see where the canyon led, we found this taller waterfall that ended in this bigger pool.

We all waked down, but decided not to head down that path any futher, because it was getting late in the afternoon and we didn't want to cross the rocky terrain. So, I sent Pete, the kids, and the dog up and I took a picture of them at the top of that waterfall.

We went back down the trail to get back to our car. The park was packed with people when we first got there and nearly empty when we left. This trail was so pretty, but we didn't hike it today. We'll save that one for next time too. It was another amazing day, taking in the beauty of God's creation. He really made a fantastic world for us, didn't He?

And, once again Tater dropped from exhaustion as soon as we made it to the van. I don't think we had backed out of the parking lot before he looked like this! What a great day we had!