Aldor Acres Pumpkin Patch

This year was the 30th anniversary of Aldor Acres Pumpkin Patch and I think we've been going for about 15 of those years. It's a great family farm that gets better every year. This year they opened up an area that used to be their dairy farm and had several pieces of old farm equipment on display. A highlight of the trip is the petting zoo area. No biting turkeys this year but there were lots of goats. Apparently goats really enjoy pumpkins. We saw two of them fighting each other over the chance to stick their head inside. They were very competitive.

We like to get a family photo in front of the pumpkins each year and as we were wandering around suggesting locations, Kerry vetoed a particular spot because it would have sheep bums in it. This of course was an excellent suggestion from the kids point of view so I immediately found a spot where I could get a family photo with the sheep bums. We took another elsewhere with pumpkins but I think the most honest smiles were the ones in this picture.

We took the hayride to the pumpkin patch and we got to go to the field up on the hill which is much more scenic then some of the other fields. Unfortunately it seems it's also been a bit cooler as many of the pumpkins were rotting and we chose not to get one from that area. We went to an area closer to the parking lot to find Carter's and Callie decided she would get hers from Superstore. This is okay with me as they are much cheaper and the farms sell the good ones to them first. Carter still very much enjoys the trip and hopefully we can keep going for years to come.

Drones

Carter had a goal for his birthday this year. He wanted to save enough money to purchase a drone. We spent quite a bit of time researching different brands and capabilities and with an initial birthday money push from us he saved up enough to get the one he wanted. It had a camera and automatic stabelization abilities and it can even do a flip in the air.

We were a bit quick to try it and avoided reading the instructions. Big mistake. Let's just say I had to bring the ladder over to the elementary school to get it after one of our first test flights. After carefully reading the instructions and starting off in the middle of the soccer field, we have now mastered the basics. Still a bit more practice required for close quarters flying but it's been fun so far with some neat aerial pictures.

Carter's Birthday Party

Carter's birthday planning started immediately after Callie's birthday in August and you would think this would have been plenty of time to plan for a party in mid-September. The theme originally started out as Guardians of the Galaxy however we struggled to find decorations and one week before the party Carter shifted directions towards a Medieval theme. This meant knights and castles and catapults. It also gave Kerry an opportunity to redeem her last castle cake. She made one for Callie when she was 2 and let's just say it's good that Callie didn't remember it. This year was a big improvement.

Carter had arranged for a four hour birthday gala at our house. Most parties are two hours at a location like bowling or trampolining so there was a lot of pressure to make the four hours exciting. Things started off at home with some knight fights, a trebuchet launch and then continued over to the school for some street hockey. Kerry had brought home some sticks from the school and the recently paved parking lot at Frost Road made for an excellent playing surface. It seems hockey is a dying sport though because none of the kids had any hockey experience. Everyone still had a great time.

Dinner for the party was pizza and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Pizza for those that didn't like the chicken and the chicken because that was what Carter felt the knights of the round table would have eaten. We finished off with the very chocolatey cake, gift opening and a dragon piñata which turned out to be really quite difficult to break. Every kid got several hits and we finally had to encourage one of the bigger kids to just wack at it until it was broken. There's nothing like a piñata to bring a big group of kids together in mayhem.

First Day of School

This year was a new first day of school milestone. Callie has moved on to high school. This meant for the first time she would not be just down the hall from Kerry and would truly be venturing out on her own. Just because she was going to a new school however, it did not mean that we could not still do our first day of school tradition of breakfast at Ricky's. The day started with some pictures and then a drive to drop Callie off at school. I didn't quite know what to expect because we had been warned traffic could get pretty bad. I think we went early enough that it wasn't too busy. Once I had dropped Carter off at school I went home for an hour. First day of school continues to be nothing more than a single hour to count attendance and then the kids are sent back home. I picked Carter up first and then we drove to pick Callie up. I was still worried about traffic so we had pre-arranged a pick up spot across the street from the school in the Mohawk parking lot. It worked out well. I was surprised we were the only family that had this idea.

After picking up Callie we went to have breakfast at Ricky's. Another first day of school first was that we did not get the treasure chest sent to our table so Carter could pick a toy. I guess both kids are growing up.

Summer Odyssey - Marvel and Ed Sheeran

We bought tickets to the Ed Sheeran concert in Seattle in October last year. The plan at the time was simply to drive down for the concert, stay the night and then head home. Somewhere along the way I got an e-mail from the Venetian and the Palazzo for a cheap hotel rate. This added Las Vegas to our trip. Then we had to figure out what to do with our dog Oliver so we added Oliver as a destination so we could drop him off with my in-laws. Once we were going to Las Vegas with the kids it made sense to do the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam. We had to get back from Vegas and Reno seemed like a good stop and it's a two day trip so we added Woodburn for back to school shopping. Now our simple trip had turned into a 10 day, 1 province, 6 state, 5,740km odyssey across the western half of North America.

After 9 days we made it to Seattle and where the concert was being held. We met up with Kerry's best friend Melissa and her son Ethan and had some time to kill before the concert so we went to the Marvel exhibit at the Museum of Pop Culture. We've been in the area before but never actually gone to the museum. The Marvel museum was nicely done. It presented the origin of all the characters in the recent movies as well as the history of Marvel. I also got a chance to see the Pearl Jam exhibit. They were based in Seattle and were one of my favorite bands growing up. It was neat to see memorabilia from their entire 30 year career.

At last it was concert time. I've seen Ed Sheeran once before just after he released his second album. Kerry couldn't make it so I had an extra ticket and at the time I literally couldn't give it away. Now he's singing at packed stadiums. He's a unique act to watch as he does all of his songs with nothing but a guitar and a loop pedal. The loop pedal allows him to record short snippets of guitar or vocals and play it back. He layers on his voice to give the sense that it's a full band with multiple vocals. He's also amazing at getting the crowd involved. As someone mentioned to us on our trip, once you've seen him in concert it ruins his songs on radio. Maybe we'll plan another road trip for his next concert series!

Summer Odyssey - Crater Lake

We did it again. We crammed too much into a single day. Our plan was to drive from Reno to Woodburn Oregon and do some back to school shopping. The trip was 8 hours by Google which mean it would usually take us 9 hours with stops. What we didn't plan on doing was stopping at Crater Lake National Park. We were getting a bit bored with driving just as we were about to pass the turn off and it called out to us. On the map it didn't look like it would be too much out of our way but the road was much narrower and curvier.

By the time we got back on the road we were in for an 11 hour day. Having said all that I'm glad we did stop. We always drive by the signs on the I-5 and it sounds like an interesting place. It's an old volcano that blew it's top about 7,000 years ago. It's now the deepest lake in the US and you have to be there to get a sense of scale. We stopped off at the visitors center and the gift shop and drove around the western edge. After that we were back on the road to Woodburn where we finished up the day with some shopping at the outlet malls. Tomorrow we are off to the Ed Sheeran concert in Seattle.

Summer Odyssey - Death Valley and Reno

We had an 8 hour drive ahead of us so we planned on getting out the door by 6:00a. (more on why later.) Were able to make it out by 6:45a. We would have had only a 7 hour drive however we wanted to drive through Death Valley which added about an hour to our trip. Death Valley is home to the hottest temperatures on earth. For our visit it only made it up to 40C. I say only because on our first day in Las Vegas it got up to 43C. The hottest temperature ever in Death Valley is over 56C. As soon as you enter you can tell there is something different. The vegetation mostly disappears and the landscape is very different.

As soon as we got into the park we stopped at a very small visitors center that was nothing more than a billboard and an outhouse. There was no staff but there was a place to pay to enter the park. It's honor system and we were a bit surprised by the $30 cost. I imagine many people don't pay, especially since there was nothing on the highway saying you should. The most interesting feature we saw in the park was a lookout that looked into the valley in several directions. The landscape looks very foreign with many different colored rocks. I was definitely happy we chose to take the detour into the park.

Our destination for the day was Reno. Our plan was to make it to our hotel by 3:45p so we could go to the movie theater in our hotel. $4.00 for a movie and they were showing Avengers-Affinity War. Unfortunately our late departure and detour slowed us down and we didn't quite make it. It was all for the best because it gave us more time to tour our hotel and take in the buffet. It may take a few days for my stomach to recover from the dessert bar. We finished the evening with $20.00 of gambling at the slots before heading to the pool. Kerry was up to $26.00 and Callie and I figured she should stop. She did not. We lost it all.