Pumpkin Patch Party

Our realty office that worked with us on the purchase of our current house sent out invites to join them for a small Halloween pumpkin patch party. It was held outside their office building and it was a chilly and windy day per MN luck.  Of course it was sunny but the event was in the shade of the building sadly which meant that it didn't help one whit.

It would have been a great event if the lines for things such as balloon animals (or flowers as the blurry yellow and green object in the photo is) or the wonderful face painting stand had been in the sunlight!  So while it was a fun hour of diversion, we stayed long enough to stand in the two lines, pick out the pumpkins for the kids and bundle back into the car and out of the biting wind.  Hopefully we get a warmer event next year!

Clownin' Around the Playground

We made our first trip to the local playground at our new house finally (in between our multiple winters--melt, snow, melt, snow...SIGH).  It was a lot of fun even if our little man looks put out for only getting to swing.

Alyssa had fun being a monkey on some new things to climb...

Then there are the classics...

Driver.

Foreman and her worker.

...and of course, the swing?

Ummmmmmm....yeah.

Kinda creepy but I think it is the older part of the park that they kept.  The seats are neat though as they are baby swings with one side open to form an actual seat for that toddler who can't quite balance when swinging by themselves.

Mayan Calendars and 2013

It's COMING!!!  The End Of The World is HERE!!!

Oh....huh....oops, false alarm folks.  Go about your business.  Nothing to see around here.

Well, of course we do have a good amount of time to still implode or have impacting meteors or whatnot...but you should probably consider how the Mayan calendar system actually worked before jumping on that bandwagon still.  The basics of it that apply to today specifically are that the calendar being referenced was the Mayan's long calendar which worked on a cycle.  A new age comes at the end of each cycle (think a new shift in mankind's perspective as one possibility) that defines the next cycle.

If you want to simplify what this means to you personally...well, compare today on their Long Calendar to December 31st on your standard 12 month wall calendar here in the U.S.  (I have no experience with other countries' calendars so I can't say for sure which follow the same pattern though I know many do because of the Catholic influences in history).  January 1st still comes along the next day even if you haven't purchased your 2013 calendar for your wall....

So...if you don't already have one...I can't think of a better day this year than the apocalypse to purchase a 2013 calendar!  Do you have a physical calendar around your house?  Wall, planner, pocket, desk?  What is your favorite style of calendar?

30 Days of Thankfulness: Day Nine

I love the cool, crisp air of Autumn.  What I don't love is the clouds that come rolling in with it.  A person without any history of depression can feel the relief of a sunny day after a long stint of clouds.  I love a day of rainy weather but having day after day after day of clouds (rain or not) really starts to make me feel crowded and closed in.  I have a history of depression that is also mildly impacted by the seasonal darkness of winter or just gloomy days, so I am especially thankful for sunny Autumn days.