Leaves, leaves and more leaves!

Madi caught a squirrel

and a Bailey pic

(she was too interested in eating maple seeds to lay nicely)

Covered Bridge Festival and Riding

Towards the end of October, one of my best friends, Jane, and I went to Covered Bridge Festival in Bridgeton, IN. Covered Bridge Festival is a multi-town festival that showcases arts & crafts vendors, business vendors, bakers, flea market and of course, covered bridges. This was our second year going together.

Jane had a caricature done:

Then we headed over to Greencastle to meet up with a college friend, Candice, who has a barn there. The route there was mostly back roads, and we came across a covered bridge that we had to drive over. 

It was quite scary, but we made it! 

This is what most of the route looked like. Parts were even gravel road.

Now, I have ridden once in the last 5-6 years and that was a walking trail ride. I was pleased that my position still looks decent. My camera does not like action shots, so please pardon the blurriness. This is me and Ahba, a 26-ish year old Shagya Arabian mare. She was so sweet and comfy. Like riding on a couch ;) 

Video - Jane is first. This was her first time cantering in an English saddle. I'm towards the end. The little boy is Candice's son on his pony :) 

Jane on Fauna, me on Ahba. 

Fauna is an Arabian mare.

(We had matching shirts, just different colors, on older grey mares. haha...)

Candice's place is lovely. This is the path between the two pastures. It's a really nice set up. It'd be perfect for one person to handle everything. If our place was set up different, I'd love to do something like this.

We rode in the outside ring for a little while and switched horses.

Me and Fauna

Candice decided that I needed to "jump" a "course"

Video:

I don't know why I trotted the whole thing, but whatever. 

Candice and I

Halloween!

I have another post to do about a trip to Covered Bridge Festival, but I'll do Halloween first :)

We carved one of our homegrown pumpkins. He drew the face on and I cut it out.

Connor's pre-kindergarten class had a fun filled Halloween party. They went trick-or-treating at the school and played games. Connor's favorite game was "wrap the high school teachers like mommies" (mummies) with toilet paper. He made sure I knew that it was clean toilet paper, not dirty. Thank goodness for that! lol This was his haul from school:

We were supposed to have severe thunderstorms last night. At least two neighboring towns rescheduled trick-or-treating. Ours did not, and it ended up being a perfect night. Not too cold, not too warm, and a fine mist at the end.

Connor was a fireman. It's a raincoat he was given for his birthday, so that worked out nicely. I painted my face just for fun. His cousin came with as a vampire.

I didn't take a picture of it, but he got a ton of candy. Even a few full size bars. We had beef stew and chocolate cake at home.

Throwback Thursday - This is me in 1995, 15 years old. This was the night I met my future husband :) 

Fire Safety Week

This last week was "Fire Safety Week" at school (and apparently nationwide).

The local fire department visited his school. His artwork for week was flames and a firetruck. 

Yesterday, we went to a Fire Safety Day.

He "fired" the machine gun once. He said he was done.

CN brought out their Operation Lifesaver "train". 

I had to get this picture for my uncle. He worked on a railroad for years and also worked with Operation Lifesaver. 

Lake County Sheriff helicopter came to visit.

Putting out a "fire"

Putting out a Fire!

Fire department taking apart a car

Do not put things on the tracks! 

So it was a touch of railroad safety too! 

First Days of Pre-Kindergarten!

Connor started school! He's going three days a week for 2 1/2 hours. It's a program run by the local high school. There are high school seniors who participate in the class and get college credit.

On his first official day, he had a hard time getting out of bed. He told me that he needed to take a little nap before he actually got up.

He loves his backpack. It has a detachable lunch box that he takes his snack and drink in.

He was so excited! 

His first day went well. No tears from him. I held it together (barely). The second day was not as good. He grabbed my hand and asked me to come do a puzzle with him. I told him, "No, you go do the puzzle, I'll be back later." He took off, but right after I was out of the room, I heard him come running and "Where did my mommy go?!". He told me later that he cried. 

This last week was fine. We had talks about how he's going to go to school for a few hours and then I'll be back to pick him up. He's having a lot of fun and has already earned a sticker for his folder! 

He already brought home his first Scholastic flyer. I am so excited about that! He loves to look through books and be read to. I hope he always enjoys books!

Brookfield Zoo and Hesston Steam Museum

Ok, I'm really far behind on updates. I need to blog about the New Kids on the Block concert, but I'll wait until I'm a bit more awake :)

Last weekend, we went to Brookfield Zoo with Jon's mom and niece.

The kids rode a lion.

Played with dinosaurs.

Rode a zebra and a warthog.

Visited butterflies

and giraffes

and Connor got to be a vet! 

On Sunday, we drove out to LaPorte, IN and visited the Hesston Steam Museum for their family day. 

steam roller

1/4 scale steam train, how cute is that?

1/8 scale steam train, this one was the most fun! 

the largest one, can't remember the scale

found some neat tractors in an old garage

!! 

found these two lovelies in a different garage

how cute is that caboose?