the last of the birthday celebrations...

A couple of weekends ago, my parents came in to celebrate Clara's birthday.  Clara didn't have school that Friday, so we went shopping and to lunch at the American Girl store (6th year in a row... yikes!).  
My parents were staying out in the 'burbs, so we decided to explore out there on Saturday.  It was a warm, fall day, so we thought we would check out the Morton Arboretum. 

First off, we decided to check out the maze...

The view from the observation platform...

Oh look!  There's Alex!  Strange being on this side of the lens!  :-)

The previous weekend we had unearthed my first digital SLR camera and Alex had become intrigued.  We charged up the battery, found a compact flash card and a lens and sent him on his way.  He's really enjoying playing with the camera.  They're studying photography in his Sports for the Mind class and this was just a way to take it a step (or five) further.

Clara was my guide through the maze...

A few fall leaves were still hanging on...

We ended up back up on the observation platform to try to find Jeff.

My parents and the kids...

Then, as you can tell from this photo... the sky got dark and threatening as a storm rolled in....

We ended up trapped inside here....

... for a while.  We had a nice lunch and shopped the gift shop.

When the rain lessened, we went out to the car to go on the scenic drives through the arboretum...

It never really completely stopped raining while we were there, but we had a great time together anyway.  Things got a little silly at times as we drove through.

After the arboretum, we decided to check out the local shopping center.  They were getting set up for their tree lighting that night...

Mom, Clara and I shopped the clothing stores and the boys hit Bass Pro (and came out with a bag of bacon jerky!).

Finally, our last stop of the day, was mom and dad's hotel so the kids could swim.  They (Alex and Clara) made it a couple of hours before they had had too much together time and needed to go. 

It was a really nice visit!  We got to do a lot of cool stuff together and we're all anxious to check out the arboretum again on a better weather day!

fall fun weekend...

I've had these up to be edited for a while now!  I finally finished them today.

A couple of weekends ago we went to Michigan for a couple of days.  Clara's school was out, so she brought a friend (Alex had school, but we picked him up at lunch).  It was owners' weekend so there were lots of fun activities planned!

Friday night, we just went to the big "happy hour" gathering once we got in.  It was good to catch up with some people we had met over the summer... but the kids were itching to get back to the house.  They had a big dance off with the Just Dance for Kinect.

Saturday morning I fully figured that they would be off right away to do some of the activities at the resort.  But no... they had more low key fun planned instead.

They made a huge leaf pile (this was taken at about the halfway point)...

and then rode their scooters off into it... 

After that, we went to the ski swap to get their skis for this winter.  The girls then were off to the Crystal Coaster and Alex was off to play paintball.  Alex LOVED this round of paintball... 16 players!!  He came home happy, exhausted and slightly bruised :-)

The girls hung out at the fall festival... feeding animals at the petting zoo, playing bingo and carving pumpkins...

That evening they were all going to go trick or treating at the resort, but since Alex was worn out, just the girls went...

They decided that scooters were the best way to make their rounds....

They had a blast!

After dinner, we got on the shuttle over to the haunted forest!  It was so much fun!  Walking through the woods at night is creepy enough... but then add in zombies, a clown and a headless horseman riding through the trees... YIKES!!  So much fun!!

That night they were all pretty tired and went to be early.  It was too bad that we had to head back the next day... we were all having so much fun!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had a great one!  We had a really good one all things considered!  Clara came home from school sick on Monday (we think a touch of food poisoning) and is having a hard time getting back to normal.  Although she's no longer "sick", she's having a hard time eating :-(

Anyway, because of this, our plans were a little up in the air on Wednesday.  Clara ended up going to school and hanging in there.  She came home from school and rested so she could go out that night for a little while.  She was so excited about her costume that she just had to wear it!

So, here we have Miss Holly Golightly and Cat, ready for a night out trick or treating...

I just had to try one in black and white...

But here's the color version as well...

She was having so much fun posing in character...

And look!  Holly found Waldo!

Alex and BMO...

Waldo...

I had more things to do to complete his costume, but with Clara sick, I ran out of time :-(  Oh well... everyone still knew who he was!

The girls and BMO...

Looking for trick or treaters to give candy to...

Waldo... deep in thought....

I was just testing camera settings here, but the resulting photo amused me...

The gang...

The older boys made it up and down one block before they were done.  They went back to hang out by the fire pit (our neighbors had moved theirs to their front yard), roast hotdogs and pass out candy.  The younger three made it up and down one more block.

This is Clara's haul from just going up and down two blocks!!!

Clara's friend from dance picked her up for a quick trip to a "haunted backyard".  After that she was D.O.N.E..  She tried to eat some dinner, but that didn't go well at all, so she went straight to bed.  She's home again today, but she did manage to successfully have some lunch (all bland stuff though)... so maybe we're headed in the right direction!