Wisdom and Warrior

Many collective hours where logged in determining the kids' names. Names to represent personalities that had yet to develop. Sophia was from Wisdom and Merrick from Warrior at time the names are so appropriate in how they behave that I have to question the existence of predetermination at other times not so much. We gutted pumpkins this weekend in the annual pagan ritual of Halloween, and by we I really mean Sophia and I. Merrick, aka Warrior, it seems did not have the stomach for pumpkin innerds. He told me that the pumpkin stank and then proceeded to evacuate his own stomach not once but twice before just standing up and handing me his gutting spoon. If it wasn't for his excessive abuse of every other inanimate object that his Y chromosome can rail against I would have to question my own wisdom in a name such as warrior. That being said we had a great, read busy, weekend. Surrounded by bright sunshine, multiple friends and even a surprise visit from the grandparents. Friday night was laid back and we were able to hang out on the living room floor munching popcorn and reading a short story called the Panther about a shape shifting old women. The kids really had a great discussion about the book and we ended up doing it again on Sunday night with a Bradbury story called "All summer in a Day." I was really very pleased at the questions both kids asked and the level of empathy they showed for the characters. Saturday morning was mostly filled with general domestic duties before we headed south for a brew session and the kids set up a Mario cart marathon on Wii and then returned home in time for a visit from Bob and Nancy. We were able to head over and watch the deer at the compost heap in town and nobody was disappointed in the massive head dresses of the 15-20 bucks that showed up to munch on piles of garden refuse. The hours between were easily filled with the kids' new tricks since seeing the grandparents last. There was Sophia's kitchen gymnastics of handstands directly into the splits and Merrick's pill swallowing ability, and with my ears still ringing there was apparently an ample amount of harmonica playing. Sophia also spent a great deal of time lobbying grandpa with her well worn copy of an American Girls catalog. Sunday we needed to make another run to the apple orchard although we found that most of the eating apples were long gone from the trees. We did pick up some red delicious for baking and were able to get those peeled/sliced and frozen for later in the winter. Sophia also learned the word ironic as she quickly determined that as far as eating Red Delicious is a misnomer. A short visit from some more friends in the afternoon was then followed by an all out baking spree that found Sophia in charge of making bread sticks from scratch and me cranking out some fresh pasta for solidly filling meal. Tonight is a faced paced evening as Monday's tend to be as we push through homework and run off to the Y for Sophia's gymnastics. This Monday should have a few more smiles as Sophia's new leotard showed up in the mail for her today.

Snack Cornacopia

Another beautiful week on the lakeshore, as we slowly transition from one season to the other. Wednesday night we started off what would become a pretty serious trend in snacking by heading down to the Farmer's market for some rootbeer and kettle corn. The nights are darkening early, but we needed to get brewing supplies and the allure of rootbeer on the street and live music was too much for the three of us to overcome. Friday night we put those brewing supplies to good use and invited several friends over to help. The kids ran around like crazy and polished off popcorn, pop and multiple bags of chocolate candies as they played variations of tag until well after the sun went down. By the time it was over Sophia had parlayed the brew into a sleep over for one of her friends, so after clean up it was time to wrangle out the cots and bags and set up the movies. The kids didn't stay awake long. Saturday morning was brisk with fall clearly in the air, but a solid pancake eating competition had everyone ready to hit the day. We headed over to another music/fall fest and listened to some great tunes while playing in the bouncy house and various game tosses. The kids played in the corn maze and fire trucks and spent a good deal of time petting the various livestock on display. Although I suspect that the baby rabbits stole the show even above the hamburgers and hot apple sauce topping on ice-cream. The kids were having belly fulls of laughs hiding on my while in the corn maze. They seemed to lose their sense of humor when I hid on them however. The looks on their faces were honest fear. Sophia even convinced me that she needed a fluorescent pink hair extension in her hair. Must have been the open air music or the smell of over priced pumpkin chi in the air, but I caved. Not a major social scheduling shock, but Sophia had a birthday party to attend later in the day so Merrick and I were able to take care of some of the domestic chores. Saturday evening the kids and I were spent and everyone was lights out by about 8:30. We meet Sunday morning with a smile and headed out to the woods to hunt for partridge and although we didn't see any, it was sure beautiful in the woods, with the trees at about 30-40% of peak color. No birds but we did manage to sneak in some snacks. We cleaned up when we got home and then dragged the rockets we built Thursday night out to the launch field. The launch had went so well a couple of weeks ago we upped our engines considerably. We should not have done this. Even after we planned for the wind we out shot our large field considerably. Merrick's rocket was the first (and only) launch of the day. It was last seen drifting well over the freeway and just to the left of an incoming cessna. There are no pictures of this event and we will never speak of it again. Sophia and I winterized the camper and made some minor repairs to the truck before everyone settled in front of the Packer's game with solid quantities of snacks. Hard to have a better fall weekend than that.