football

Two of the donors that I was supposed to host at the football game had to cancel at the last minute due to one of them getting really sick, so I had 2 extra tickets to the game. Josh and Ron decided to come. It was FREEZING but luckily it didn't rain on us.

We won't talk about the turnout...or the Boiler's performance...or their record for the year. But it was fun and chilly and my favorite time to go to football games is when it's cold and you have to bundle up and drink hot chocolate.

i stand corrected

In the picture below, Josh is on a SUSPENSION bridge. Not a covered bridge. Josh is an expert on bridges, apparently. He's lucky I didn't knock him OFF the bridge! :) Just kidding...I think I might have been half asleep when I posted last night.

pregnant pepper

For dinner on Friday night, we had brats in beer, onions and peppers. Since I'm pretty much good for cutting the veggies up (and that's about it), I was in charge of cutting the pepper. You can imagine my surprise when I cut it opened to find that this pepper was pregnant!!! J says he's seen this before but I never had. You can see the little baby pepper that was tucked away in the belly of the pepper. I thought it was so cute! Here's the baby pepper. We took it as a sign and Josh said I had to eat the little pepper. I was surprised that it was actually really really hot when I ate it. (Natasha, you might be able to tell me why, but I have no clue why it would be so spicy!)
So cute. Have you ever seen a pregnant pepper??

roughin' it

We decided to take a camping trip this weekend and had such a fun time. I was, as you might expect, a little reluctant to go mousse-less, showerless and bed-less for two nights, but it turned out much better than expected! And I didn't have to pee outside, so that was a plus.

Here is J cooking some dinner on Friday night. Our campsite was right by the water with a covered bridge just a bit up the way. On Saturday, we went to Turkey Run. This was Josh's first time to Turkey Run and I think we'll definitely be back. Here he is on the covered bridge:

And here he is waaaay up high. I climbed up there, too, but was scared. And it took me like 10 minutes to get down. In the meantime, some little kid jumped up the wall and basicall ran down it. I kept telling him to be careful but it didn't phase him much.

Then I was following Josh and he did this over these two rocks, only I didn't quite have the hang of walking like this because my legs kept getting higher and higher and further apart. Before long, a small crowd formed while Josh thought it would be fun to take pictures of me.



After the "very rugged" trail, we decided to have our picnic. What a gentleman...
Then we did one more trail up to the Lusk home. We got to tour the house which was built in 1841 and has been restored. Much of the house is from the original family (beds, pie stands, floors, fireplaces, even a panic room with an original gun), so I found it utterly fascinating. There was also a grave from their 2 year old daughter who died the year after they built the house.We wanted to canoe really bad but they weren't renting canoes out because of the cold weather where we were staying. They did allow it at Turkey Run but we didn't have time to canoe when we were there. We're looking forward to next year when we can!

Saturday night was pretty cold! But we warmed up with a fireand some hot chocolate!! YUUUUM!! We cooked the milk and I taught J the secret to awesome hot chocolate--2 packets!We had our delicious hot chocolate while we cooked some s'mores.I was one HAPPY girl!!

We had a great time and can't wait to go again next year.

creepy crawlers

When we got home from camping this afternoon, we were putting the tent back up so that it could dry out when we noticed a creepy little critter on the garage light. After a little google searching, we found that the strange looking bug is a wheel bug. And they bite! But the good news is that he's eating all of the spiders that seem to love our house. With a cornfield in the back yard, our house seems to be a meeting place for lots of weird bugs. Last week, when we were having the anniversary/birthday dinner, we found a leaf grasshopper on the screen. Anyway, here's a pic of the wheel bug:

Welcome baby Alex!!!

Our newest nephew arrived this week and we are thrilled!! I can't post pictures but I assure you, he is cute!! Congratulations to Jeremy & Lisa.

Welcome to the world, Alex! We love you already!!

Pumpkin Patch

Shell, Bub and I took all the boys to Millenium Farms Pumpkin Patch today, again in the 80 degree weather. Festivals and pumpkin patches should not be done in hot weather. But we still had fun.

We bounced,

I love this one with Linc in mid-air, Parker doing a little something with his foot and Griff in the background

And here's Parker coming down from a big bounce!

We rode horses,

Note our FIRST NIECE (in Bub's belly). All these boys...we're (I'm) ready to buy frilly little girl clothes! Kennedy Ryan will be here in January!

We took a hayride to the pumpkin patch and picked out our own pumpkins,

We saw lots of animals and played in a corn pit. Hot, tiring, fun fall (?) day!

Covered Bridge Festival

We went to the Covered Bridge Festival yesterday and ate...and ate...and ate. It was hard to get into the fall festival mode when it was 80 degrees out, but we still managed.

(Does anyone see Josh doing my famous head tilt?? Hmm, no more making fun of ME!!)

And here is everyone enjoying the best ice cream ever. I think J spilled a little!

Happy Birthaversary!

Friday was Ron & Patty's anniversary as well as Patty's birthday, so Josh cooked us all a delicious dinner. Happy Birthaversary!

do we have dogs?

...or do we have cats? We're pretty sure that Lukey might be part of both! Here is a picture of Luke-the-cat on the back of the couch and Kitty-Kowe curled up on daddy's legs.