Horrifying Harvest Hell

Y'all, if you have a sign a waiver form before you get to visit a Harvest Festival, prepare for the worst. I'm not kidding.

First, the hay ride: 

Wide open wagon being pulled by a tractor driving very fast around pedestrians.  I'm surprised Heidi didn't bounce out the back.  She actually ran away from us and scurried up on one of these wagons and wouldn't get down when I called her.  I thought for sure they were just going to let an unattended three year old go for a ride.

Second, the petting zoo:

If a puffy-eyed chicken will just sit there while little kids pet it and pet it and pet it and pet it, the chicken is probably sick.  There were other animals, like goats, sheep, midget cows, and frantic horses...but my friend's baby got his face BIT almost right off and they weren't even petting the horse, just standing near its stall. They had to fill out an incident report. Poor baby is going to have quite the shiner tomorrow.

Third, the archery range:

Daniel visited this Harvest Festival yesterday with another family, so he felt comfortable in the archery range.  I kept waiting for safety talks from the range master or at least some crowd control, but it was every archer for themselves.

I'm so glad I have enough sane hands on deck to help out.  Daniel did manage to walk right in front of Lula as she was pulling back her bow and got a sharp correction from me.  Jason kept trying to run out and gather arrows before the call.  I joked with the range master about the lack of skill and he replied, "Oh, I can't see a thing. I'm practically blind." Sure enough, he had coke bottle glasses. Why was he even there? How could he be a safe monitor?

Good job, Downens!  All the arrows either on the hill or on the ground in front of the bales!

Fourth, the boating/canoeing:

This activity was completely unmanned.  The storage for life jackets and oars/paddles was wide open and there wasn't an employee in sight anywhere.  People were just helping themselves and taking the boats out.  I learned my lesson a long time ago about taking any number of my kids in a boat and flat out refused to let them go.

I (we) did get some cute pics:

Selfie!

Genna is thoroughly annoyed with Heidi at this point.

Lula and her buddy that she loves so much!

I can't take this kid anywhere.

I was able to bribe the kids with little suckers to get them to leave the line for face painting (a friend looked like he had a flabby pickle painted on his forehead, so.... talent? Lacking.) and we were able to get to the van for my escape.

The best part of today was getting a text from Ian because he got an A on a history test.  I knew if he worked hard, he could bring his grade up from a C to an A.

Shark Bait

Many moons have passed since Mark has had a day off that coincides with a good night's sleep and no home improvement projects.  The little kids and I have been neglected in our travels outside the surrounding property, so we decided that today would be a good day to head to the beach.  For the kids' sake.  We, Mark and I, would have been happy to stay home and disappear in our hobbies.

We decided to go to Penrose since we went to Joemma last time.  Penrose has a great intertidal zone with tons of critters and fun rocks and trees to climb on.  I love taking pictures of the kids there, so I made sure I brought my lazy lens.

I was just getting started with picture taking when Daniel, who was swimming barefoot against my wishes...

 ...stepped on a very sharp shell.  He said, "Hey mom, take a picture of my blood dripping into the water!" like any boy would, right?

When the blood pooled all around his legs, I had to get a better look.  I immediately scooped him up in my arms, said, "Come on, Shark Bait, we gotta go home."

After cleaning his deeply cut toe and reassuring him that we would not take him in to see the doctor, we made sure he was nice and toasty warm and not suffering from shock (he cried hard all the way home and he really did bleed a LOT).  He is now happily playing video games with everyone else crowded on the couch watching.  You know, SpongeBob does have a song about the safety of staying indoors...

Snow Day

Our snow days are just so soggy and sparse compared to where we used to live.  But we'll take what we can get.

The hats I made Ian and Shane

Lula sledding with Genna

Big sisters are awesome!

And so are big brothers....

...or are they?

The snow was so heavy that it broke the turkey shelter

And revenge is a dish best served...

COLD!

Indepedence Day: Fun Family Photos

The Holding Pen

We had a good time waiting for dusk on the 4th. We just played around and took a bunch a family snapshots.

Preparing the Roasting Sticks

Crazy Dance Moves

Jason wouldn't participate

 Then Daniel got in this crazy mood where he was like some wild animal or something.  He crawled out of the holding pen and started screaming...

So intense!

So scared of her brother!

Screaming! (Check out his neck)

Fierce strong hands!

Neck tendons!

Self satisfied Smirk for making Lula cry

 And FINALLY it was marshmallow time.  FINALLY!

What the heck is Mark doing???

Helping herself to two bags of marshmallows

Still working on burning the maple stump

Heidi's first marshmallow

Another one???

And finally it was FIREWORKS time. FINALLY! Waiting is so hard! We debated about buying fireworks this year.  We had none last year because of the drought and Independence Day just wasn't the same without celebrating. The year before we had "kids" fireworks and went to bed early because we were still grieving the loss of Mina.  (And if it weren't for this blog, I wouldn't remember the details)  I'm glad we spent the money this year. The little kids shouldn't have to miss out on their early childhood memories just because I'm old and cynical about burning perfectly good money that I could spend on something else.

It's great to have Ian around for anything that needs lighting

Kai is a fire dog. Mina couldn't leave young chickens, binkies, or stuffed animals alone. Kai's weakness is crows and fire.  He loved the sparklers.

Don't pretend you aren't having fun Mister!

Lula got scared and dropped it

Lula's face-Ha!

 On to the "kids fireworks," also lit by Ian and Shane...

This is the growing snake kind, not the exploding kind in case you were worried

And finally, FINALLY, the loud, exploding, in-the-sky kind.  I switched from photos to movies because hearing the little kids exclaim, "Do it again!" and hearing Heidi sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star was a priceless memory.

 (Ian and Shane lit most of these too, but they shared a few with Mark)

And now we've lived here for seven years. Half our marriage. Half our kids were born in Bellingham/Ferndale and half down here. Part 1 and 2 of our lives are over.  What will Part 3 bring?