Seventh Annual Pilot Mountain Hike

I love family traditions. And I love that my kids love family traditions. I have a tendency to look back with rose colored glasses and the establishment of traditions. But it's not easy! I opened the blog post from our very first trip to Pilot Mountain back in 2008. The kids hated it. They were grumpy about hiking and complained the whole time. I'm so glad I didn't give up after that first year, because now our trip is something we look forward to every year. We can't wait for the end of the first quarter at school, because there's always a teacher workday and we take the chance to continue the tradition.

This was another BEAUTIFUL year. The weather was PERFECT. Everyone was healthy and happy. We enjoyed a leisurely hike and the gorgeous views.

Here we come! 

Mid 60's? We'll take it!

A little family photo shoot before the hike.

Caroline makes this face/pose all the time.

She calls it her rabbit face and makes a little squeaky/groaning sound

to go with it. Cracks us up.

We all decided to make our best rabbit pose. 

Out on the rocks that are too freaky for Andrew. 

And where the wind always whips my hair.

But not in a good way. 

LOVE the views from up there!

And the fall colors, too.

Our jumping pictures

And pictures from the hike.

Still doing his ninja warrior training 

And now we've officially hit the time of the year that goes by in fast-forward.

This is Halloween

The girls have been planning their costumes for months now and were SO excited for Halloween to get here! Our first celebration was the Fall Festival/Chili Cook-Off/Trunk or Treat at church.

Caroline was a "Witch Kitty."

She designed her costume herself.

All I did was purchase the little cat nose-thingy

at the dollar spot in Target.

Such an independent little thing. 

Whitney was a peacock.

One of my favorite Halloween costumes ever!

She came up with the idea herself and we

googled different costumes until we found one we thought

we could replicate. We ordered the feathers and this

is what we came up with.

I love it!

Do you remember this panda mask from the road trip?

B had originally said he wanted to be a panda for Halloween,

using this awesome mask.

But, you're not usually supposed to wear mask to church parties.

(Or at least that's what I always heard growing up.

Not sure that I actually heard an announcement like

that this year, so maybe I should have just let him wear it.)

So, instead of wearing the creepy-cute panda mask,

he decided to face paint a super creepy Joker costume.

Yikes!

When we thought B was going to be a panda,

Destiny gave me the fabulous idea that Drew and I

could dress up as zookeepers!

Even though B changed his mind,

we decided we'd be the zookeepers for the girls:

Fun!

(Good thing B is getting big enough that I could 

borrow his scout shirt for my zookeeper uniform!)

(And I wish someone would have told me the bottom

of my shirt was all skeewumpus!)

C had fun with the photo booth props

Drew was in charge of passing out our candy.

Creepy Joker was in charge of scaring young children.

Love the creativity with some of the trunks.

Connie's 

Mendy and Nick's 

My favorite:

 Kelly and Tom's giant mouth.

We had a great turnout

and wonderful weather. 

Fun, fun night.

For the real Halloween, we trick-or-treated here at home. Our neighbors didn't get a permit to block off the street like they usually do. I was worried that we'd be slammed with traffic, but most cars still park out on the main parkway and walk through the neighborhoods. So it wasn't bad.

Jayne and S are in town.

We were so excited to spend the holiday with them.

They came over for dinner beforehand...

and the power went out. Crazy.

Thank goodness for Papa John's!

 S was a dementor.

B put his creepy joker makeup back on.

Not-as-creepy shot.

This was the first year that B went trick-or-treating on his own. He and S met up with some friends for a while. They had fun and got plenty of candy.

C got to trick-or-treat with B,

her kindergarten bestie.

Whit didn't get to trick-or-treat with L,

but we made it all the way down to her house.

And the moms got to have a mini-reunion,

with Amy and Jayne both in from out of town

Yes!

And now we're on to constantly picking up candy wrappers from all over the house. :) 

Parent's Day Out

Andrew gets Columbus Day off for work. But the kids have school. That leaves us with a fun day to ourselves! (But we have to be home by 2:45 when the girls get off the bus.)

We wanted to play tennis, but it was really rainy the weekend before, so the courts were soggy and that didn't sound fun. Instead, we went out for a yummy breakfast. I got pumpkin pancakes that were scrumptious. Then we drove up to Lake Brandt to do some hiking and geocaching.

The leaves have started changing and I had this vision of gorgeous fall foliage pictures. Instead we got this:

Creepy, foggy day

But the temperature felt awesome and we had fun hiking. I think I'm the only one in my family that likes geocaching. We found three caches. The area around Lake Brandt is gorgeous and has fun walking trails, but the caches were off the beaten path. And Andrew kept getting spider webs in his face. And once we walked into barbed wire. I just saw it as part of the adventure. I think Andrew would have preferred to just take a leisurely walk on the well-marked paths.

..

But look at the cool caches that we found:

SO worth it.

And look at Andrew's cool blue eyes

Siberian husky.

And here is my attempt at a nature photo shoot
on a foggy, overcast day.

 One of several giant spiders we saw,
apparently trying to catch Andrew in his web.

 Look at that giant root structure!

 Little peek of fall up there

Just picture a beautiful blue sky in place of that hazy gray.

Love random days off and time to spend with my favorite guy.

Skate Night

So the girls' school does different fundraising nights throughout the year, usually at fast food places. When it's McDonalds night, it's kinda nice to see friends there, but conversations are limited and time is short. Skate night on the other hand is so fun! You actually get to hang out with your friends doing something fun...as long as you don't get hurt.

We had our first skate night last month and the girls had a blast.

I told the PTA that I'd be in charge of taking pics.

Which left Caroline to skate by herself...

which was tricky.

Luckily, Michael was there to help her out. 

So kind!

The class with the highest attendance won slurpees.

Yay for Whitney and her friends in Mrs. H's class.