I kept waiting for it to "feel" more like fall, but finally decided to go check out Dewberry Farms on the last weekend of their fall festival, despite temps climbing into the low 80s still. I'd heard a lot about it, and the kids missed the corn mazes of falls past. I was a little wary of crowds, but we were able to maintain our own space most of the time and wore face masks regardless. We had such a blast!
We started out in the playground area, which had a few extra diversions, like the black mamba (a long, hanging black corrugated pipe that only Hadley could crawl down) and a hay mountain with swing ropes.
Kids also enjoyed the pedal cart track! Mom tried it too, but my legs were a little too long...
Next up were the "special items", like these apple cannons. Splat! So satisfying. Of course, Owen enjoyed the paintball guns, and Hadley led the way on the gemstone mining station.
We strolled through the animal barn and pens on the way to the big slide. Our favorite was this bike pedal-powered conveyor belt feeding system leading up to the goat on a platform. We watched him climb up a ramp to get up there and wait patiently for a few groups to feed him. There was a little container strapped to the conveyor which would dump out (or he would stick his tongue out to get) food at the top.
Finally to the corn maze! It was a little underwhelming, since we stepped in and could see a straight path all the way to the far corner, but we made it a little more interesting for ourselves, even without a map or clues like our previous experiences! At least we had it pretty much to ourselves.
And working our way to the exit, the kids took a spin on the ferris wheel. That's them at the top!
And a couple of parting photo ops as the sun was setting. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, for sure!
The kids had parent-teacher conferences on Friday, which meant that they didn't have to go into school that day. We only had one conference scheduled for late in the afternoon and I was able to take the morning off of work, plus the weather was decent, so we decided to do something fun and out of the ordinary - the Houston Zoo! We had only been once before for the Christmas lights in December 2013, and neither kid remembered that trip. Looks like the zoo was getting ready for this year's lights display again.
We saw lots of animals, including sea lions, tortoises, cheetah, and gorillas (Hadley's favorite). This bald eagle had a wing injury and can't fly (and thus couldn't survive in the wild), so she has a secure pen she can hop around in. And who doesn't love a meerkat colony? It's like the dogs from Up, "Squirrel!", when the sentries are on watch.
The zoo also has an Asian elephant herd. The little baby was adorable, and we were totally fascinated by watching their trunks operate up close to pick up all the food from the ground. Here, mom and big sis were pointing at something together.
Owen's favorite is the reptile house, because snakes and lizards are always interesting. Kids requested their picture with this big python, as they remembered the scene from the first Harry Potter where he made the glass disappear.
I think this was a green mamba; not sure where he thought he was going. Again, glad for the glass!
After our picnic lunch, we noticed that a lot of the animals were having naps, including this fossa, who was dead to the world (but still breathing!), and the clouded leopards, one of whom was draped over the limb like a rug. They reminded us a lot of Tibbs, the cat, at home...
All in all, a lovely trip to the zoo, and not too crowded. We made it home just in time to conference in with H's teacher for a good report. I also had time last week to visit Granna and Grandad and see the new ranch house. The building phase is now complete, and it's time to start getting furniture and home goods in place to make it livable. They should be moving in the week of Thanksgiving!
They celebrated the final walk-through with Uncle Michael and Aunt NJ. We are definitely ready to get them out of the tiny rental house they've been in for the last 8 months, but we still have quite a ways to go. Feels good to be making progress though!
Tis the season! For skeletons and ghouls, that is. October always brings excitement at this age, and people really seemed to go all out this year in their yard decor. Our neighbor across the street loves this holiday, and the neighborhood kids love to help her put everything up and move it around every few days. This setup was all about COVID-sanitation. On nice afternoons, the kids and I have biked around to check out the nearby displays. We saw a skeleton COVID-race, badminton game, lawn maintenance crew, and rock band, just to name a few.
We even drove around one night, as some folks put up lights like it's Christmas! We came across this one, timed to music that we could tune into on the radio (a few song's worth at least), just in someone's yard. What dedication! (And an impressive electric bill, I imagine!)
It finally dropped to some pleasant temperatures and felt morelike fall! We headed to a local pumpkin patch one evening for some photo ops and enjoyed the ambiance. Oh, and we also purchased a couple of pumpkins...
The kids wanted pictures with the goose gourds and octo-squash, too. Leave no gourd behind!
Kids love decorating their pumpkins! This year they each painted one and carved one. Owen was faithful to his theme. His costume was the Mandalorian, so he wanted to make a Baby Yoda pumpkin. With some cardboard ears and a paper bag body, I think it turned out pretty cute!
Hadley couldn't decide, so we scanned online for inspiration, and she saw arainbow, melted-crayon pumpkin that called to her artistic side. Our crayons didn't melt down as far as the example, so we had a lot of white pumpkin space left. I suggested a clown, because of the rainbow wig, and H took that and ran with it. The scary face was all her own creation. P.S. Melting crayons is very messy and splatters everywhere!
I'm not really a fan of scooping out pumpkin guts, so I always make the kids do their own. It's messier this way, but it's only fair to spread the love. Tip: the ice cream scoop is perfect for this task. My hands were clean at the end! I also tried roasting some seeds this year. Verdict: they tasted like popcorn.
Here's the full family of pumpkins. Kids drew their designs, but I still do the actual carving part. Hadley finally decided on a BOO!, Owen went traditional, and I paid homage to the face mask, THE must-have accessory for 2020. We actually carved on Halloween. I wish we had done it a few days earlier, so that we could have enjoyed our creations a little longer before trash day. The carved pumpkins were cute, but Creepy Clown and Baby Yoda will hang around a few more days.
This Halloween was definitely different than usual. I wasn't going to do any candy handling or trick-or-treating, but changed my mind the day of. After all, we've had a sad, strange year, and why not try to have a little normalcy and fun where we can, especially for the kids. I didn't have a table, but we put down a little blanket with candy at the end of the driveway, and the kids supervised the passersby. We had less t-o-t-ers than usual, but more than expected.
We went very low-key on costumes this year. It was originally Mandalorian and Baby Yoda, but our neighbor was getting rid of this pizza costume, and Owen liked the combo. I asked them if they wanted to go trick-or-treat around the block, but Hadley told me, "We're getting to be too old for trick-or-treating, Mom." What? You're 8! But it was fine. Plan A was that I'd get them each a bag of candy, and we'd have a movie night. So, we did that. But we did give out some candy too. All in all, not too shabby!
