pumpkin patch

We had planned to spend this weekend in Michigan, visiting the pumpkin patch one day and Fernwood Botanical Gardens the next, but (and you know it's rare for me to say this!) we were kind of all traveled out. As a compromise, we thought we would go and spend the day today but then come home so we could have tomorrow to catch up on stuff around the house. We stopped by the cottage to see Barb and Kevin, then headed to the pumpkin patch to pick out some interesting gourds. It was sunny but surprisingly cold and windy, though, so our visit was even shorter than we thought, and we decided to skip Fernwood entirely in favor of coming home and warming up a little bit. Oh well. Sometimes we've just got to stop and take a little break. It will be good for us, especially with another trip in our immediate future...

bits and pieces

Aside from shooting guns, we spent most of our weekend around the house, cleaning up the garden and doing random chores that have been put off too long. Sunday afternoon, I borrowed my sister's pressure washer and cleaned all the frog poop and other assorted nasty things from the siding, which is a hard but oddly relaxing job. It wasn't all work and no play, though, as you can see. The boys had fun with Tater, and my dad took everyone on a hayride after the shooting party Saturday. I also found some pretty great deals on Fiestaware, which will be of interest to maybe one reader who isn't named Holli.

Meanwhile, in sunny California, Max is having a great time and doesn't want to come back because it is so awesome there.

the gun show

Well, the gun show, CF style, anyway.

As you probably know or can figure out, Mike and I are not huge fans of guns. We don't own any, and we don't want to own any. We think that assault rifles should be banned, and that people should have to pass at least as many tests (if not more) to own a gun as they have to pass to drive a car. Having said that, we also understand the Bill of Rights, specifically that second item, so it's not like we want to run out and confiscate everyone's guns or anything either.

Most of my family, however (with the exception of my mom), doesn't share our view. They own guns. Lots and lots of guns. They hunt in some cases, and in other cases they simply enjoy collecting them and/or having them on hand should the need arise for them to have to protect themselves. And every fall, they have a shooting party out in my parents' field where clay targets are felled by the dozen and tree stumps are pumped full of lead.

I don't guess I have to tell you that it's a bit of a quandary for us to figure out how we want to talk to the boys about guns. We don't want to take a hard line and say guns are evil, don't ever touch one, they're too dangerous, because we feel like that sets up a situation where the gun becomes the forbidden fruit that they just have to have. The fact is that they live in a state with a high rate of gun ownership. They are part of a family with a high rate of gun ownership. They are going to be around guns probably at multiple points in their lives, so they need to know how they work and how to use (and not use) them.

Enter the shooting party. Once a year, they get to shoot guns with responsible adults all around them. Before that happens, they get a serious talk with their hero Uncle J about gun safety and ground rules. They go over what to do if they ever see a gun at a friend's house or anywhere else. They talk about how the gun works, and they talk about using them with respect and care, and about the damage you can do if you are careless.

And then they get to shoot. There are all manner of guns there, so they get to try out all different kinds. This year, Liam really showed an aptitude for hitting the clay targets using my sister's rifle. He hit more than half of his targets. I tried, but hit zero of mine. Too hard to aim while those things are flying through the air! Mike and I both managed to hit the stump with my brother's Henry AR-7 survival rifle (it breaks down and stores inside of its own stock, which is sort of terrifyingly efficient). Even Henry got in on the action, with my brother guiding him.

So the hope is that we give them just enough access to guns to satisfy their curiosity, and we talk to them about our viewpoints, and someday they will develop reasonable positions of their own. Like everything else in parenting, it's a gamble, and we might not have gotten the balance right, but this is the best we could come up with. We'll let you know how it works out for us.

ribbit

Did I mention that Taltree is full of frogs? At our house, lots of frogs just ends up meaning lots of frog poop all over the siding (so gross!), but at Taltree, they ride around on the train cars and just hang out looking all magical. And apparently they do their frog business out of sight. Ahem.

a quick stop and he's off

Tomorrow morning, Max is headed to San Diego with Barb to see his uncle and cousin. It will be his first flight, first visit to California, first trip taken without us. I am excited and nervous for him in equal measure. I know he will be in excellent hands, and that this time alone with his grandma is something precious that he will remember his whole life. But I'm still worried. What if he hates flying, or gets airsick? What if he is so homesick that it colors his whole trip? I doubt these things will happen, but still.

Anyway. Since he is heading out and coming back on school nights (this IS educational, so I don't feel the least bit bad about him missing school for it) we had to figure out his transportation to and from Chicagoland. Luckily for me, Erin texted at just the right time to see if we could all meet up at Taltree Arboretum so the kids could play together. It worked out perfectly. Taltree is halfway to Chicago, so we met up there, spent a couple hours exploring and enjoying a picnic supper (courtesy of Erin) on the grounds with Barb, Erin, Lucy, and Richie, and then Max hopped in with them to head west and Liam and Henry hopped in with me to head east and off we all went, tired and happy. Not too bad for a school night, but I know a couple of boys who are going to be VERY unhappy when they have to get up early tomorrow for school and realize that Max, a state away, doesn't have to. Oh well, we'll cross that cranky bridge when we come to it.

The arboretum was beautiful as always. The train garden was decorated with skeletons and other Halloween things. There was pumpkin bowling for the kids, and there were scarecrows everywhere. We got to vote for our favorite one -- I think the consensus was the Minions one. We explored the children's garden and the music area, and the kids had a blast, especially since we got to watch two goats fighting for an extended period of time. What could be more fascinating? We have yet to make it out to the other areas of the arboretum with them though. Someday we'll walk around the pond and look for frogs and turtles and fairy cottages, but not today.

I took approximately a million pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

 

sunday funday?

Here's how Mike spent his Sunday afternoon. He was not AT ALL cranky by the time he was finished. On the bright side, we'll have homemade pesto all winter long!

baby shower!

Only a few weeks left until Avalon and Craig's baby is here! Today we had a shower to help them welcome baby Jack. I am so excited to have a new nephew come Thanksgiving (actually, I might have two of them, if Johnny and Erin have a boy too), and I can't wait to meet him. Pretty sure Lon is more than ready to be done being pregnant too. Bethany did a great job with all the food and decorations, and everyone had a lovely time. The best part was that we did baby charades, and Lon and Craig had to act out all the things on the cards (giving birth, breastfeeding, having a play date, changing a diaper). It reminded me of my own baby shower before Liam was born, when all the men had to race to put diapers on dolls. My grandpa ended up throwing his doll aside and declaring that he only ever changed diapers on an emergency basis and wasn't about to start. (Mark Holiday was eventually named the winner.) Good times!

Lilly expressed some doubt today that I could actually be Avalon's sister (I am assuming because of the age difference) so I'm including a picture that should put her doubts to rest.

pumpkin train

Ever since Liam was a baby, my dad has been talking about taking one of the train rides offered by the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum. However, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with  my dad can tell you, he likes to take his time following through on ideas and projects (she said as delicately as possible). It might be simple procrastination, but then again, he might just be an evil genius, because the result is often that someone else will take the lead and make the plans to get something done. And that's just what happened here because I saw a post on Facebook about the pumpkin trains and decided that THIS would be the year we would make this train thing happen. So I bought tickets, and the five of us went today, along with my mom and dad and Bethany and Joe.

The trains at Hoosier Valley are all retired from service somewhere else. The museum restores them and gets them back in working order if possible, or incorporates them into displays if not. So neat! The car we rode in was a 1950s passenger car from the Long Island Rail Road, and it felt very Mad Men, even down to the pattern on the ceiling. In keeping with the Halloween theme, there were also orange lights and skeletons decorating the cars.

The train ride was a round trip from North Judson to English Lake (which, confusingly, isn't actually a lake but a town named after a body of water that used to exist at the confluence of rivers but disappeared with the advent of modern drainage systems) and passed through the expected fields and forests, and over a trestle bridge spanning the Kankakee River. On the return trip, we stopped at a "pumpkin patch" (really just a bunch of pumpkins laying in a grassy area), and then for the short last leg back to the depot, we sat in the open-air car and enjoyed the brisk October breeze. The whole thing was about 75 minutes, which was maybe 15 minutes too long for the boys' patience level, but I am happy to report that they were not the worst-behaved children BY A MILE. Such a rare and wondrous feeling.