Pumpkins and the Fall Festival

This post is mostly about the Fall Festival that Prae put on this Halloween at church...

But I also had to throw in our pumpkin carving since that usually goes with my trick or treating post. Evie cracks me up!

Terry's dad gets all his grand kids pumpkins every year. Even when we used to live in Nebraska he brought them! He used to grow them but gave up on that. Also, #eviesface.

Yummy...

Good job Ezzie!

The boys told Terry how they wanted their jackolanterns carved. Evie only wanted to paint hers and Noah said he didn't want to do anything to his. He's old. 

Glowing pumpkins and #eviesface.

The following morning Ezra learned how to write the number eight so I thought it was cute when he constructed an eight with his mini-Thomases. 

Cute little face with the pumpkin faces. 

Well, I thought it was funny. 😆

Like I said above, in lieu of Halloween this year Prae (with assistance from Steven and Sarah) planned the church's first Fall Festival since Awana and Youth Group fell on a Wednesday (though Terry did do the very first Box Maze on a Halloween Wednesday back in 2012, but I also took the kids trick or treating that year). So this was the first Wednesday that we didn't trick or treat in maybe forever. Evie, however, said it was better than trick or treating!

All of the adult, but mostly student leaders, ran the games that evening. Here's Wolf Prae giving out her instructions. 

Back out in the Cafe Court with all the kids, Awana Commander Shawn's costume was on point. 

The B. family along with Elle were Where's Waldo characters. Nailed it. 

Zoe was the Mad Ax Man.😜 Okay, a lumberjack.

Cute Kaleah, Lindsay, and Elena. 

Zeah and Sarah were so funny as old ladies. 

Terry, Zoe, Zeah, and Moses had spent much of the previous day setting up the sanctuary but mostly constructing the Box of Mystery. Zoe is an excellent artist and drew that amazing cat. 

Terry sat inside rejecting an offer of a fan to cool him off (it was crazy hot and stuffy in there). He  projected his voice via a piano amp to speak to the kids who'd stick their hands in through the cat's mouth. Terry would hand them they knew not what! Mostly toys, some candy, but also some "worms" and "eyeballs." He did this over and over and over for two full hours. Craziness. Evie said I couldn't never been cheerful enough to do that for two hours. Thanks girl. But she's right. 😏

I took this shot through the cat's mouth. That's Terry being silly with some glow sticks. 

Ezra getting a prize from the Box.

Let in the masses!

The line for the Box of Mystery was always long. 

Abigail's Sacagawea was amazing. Spot on. 

The line from the side.

Cousin Sarah was...? I can't remember.

Cute little brothers.

Katie D. was in charge of this human Tick Tack Toe.

I had been visiting with Katie earlier in the evening, commenting on how cute her Indian costume was. She said she tried to get her husband Jeff to dress up like a Cowboy and come with her but he wouldn't. I offered my little Samuel Cowboy for her. 

So stinking cute. 

Meanwhile, Terry's Mormon mission trip students were presenting the gospel to the Awana kids. 

Moses as Martin Luther giving his presentation (Halloween is Reformation Day so how appropriate. He even had his 95 theses with him!). 

Such cute little costumed kids!

There are my boys! And Kathy on the left with the glasses is who I always work for. 

This game consisted of throwing a hoop over pumpkins.

Asher in his Airforce jacket. 

Samuel was given a "worm" by Terry, which was just a cooked piece of spaghetti. 

A leftover "eyeball," or peeled grape. Ha!

Even Noah got to help out for the evening. He helped with corn hole. 

My 7th grade girls were doing crafts.

Prae eating a hanging donut like we did in Nebraska and co-op last year. The following week Henry and Norah caught the stomach flu and Hannah was convinced that this game caused it. Who knows. But next Damon got sick, and then Russ, and finally Ezra! Then Terry caught it the night before the Fall Retreat, Evie the next night, and me the following week. My goodness. 

Always a line.

He was such a cute Cowboy.

Ezra in line.

Samuel in the front and Ezra in the back trying to spy on daddy.

Grace the Mermaid was fishing.

There was also this game.

And a popcorn craft thing.

Prae and Sarah coordinated their costumes. Prae was the big bad wolf, her dog was Little Red Riding Hood, and Sarah was the Grandmother. We had Zoe stand in to chase the Wolf. 😂💙

Cute little Norah and Ezra. What a fantastic night! Great job Prae and helpers!

The failed but mostly beautiful hike...Deerfield Trail and Slate Creek

Two weekends after D2S we went for a hike. Sometimes you just got to get out of town right? Well, that's how I feel. We didn't know where to go but I finally landed on trying a new hike that our friends Katie and Jeff had posted about. Katie had texted me directions but something went wrong in the transmission because we never found the correct place, which was supposed to be Canyon City Trail near Jenny Gulch, Pactola, and Rapid Creek. I still really want to find this trail but we had a fail that day. We totally ended up doing the Deerfield Trail which we've done twice in the past (1 and 2).

Katie's directions took us off 385 at Silver City Road, same as what we did for Deerfield trail before. But she had us turn right on Jenny Gulch Road, which we did, about halfway down, instead of going all the way to Silver City. Then we were supposed to turn left on Kelly Gulch Road...except Kelly Gulch never ever appeared. We didn't see it on the way out either. I couldn't find it on any map when we got home! We went all the way down Jenny Gulch until it turned into a Jeep trail and we rubbed the bottom of our van running boards and muffler on rocks, etc. When we came to the end of the road there was a parking lot and a trail. We decided to get out and explore the trail since we had already considered turning around and decided to press on.

There was a small creek so bonus! Notice Evie's blanket? That's what she gets for ignoring our instructions to grab her jacket and ignoring her common sense. 🙊

After perhaps a half mile on this drab little trail, we came out to a larger, more well used trail that looked mightily familiar. 

Terry said we could come back after Thanksgiving for this Christmas tree. And Noah likes to try to photo bomb every picture I take. 😑

That was definitely Rapid Creek and I was 99% sure that this was Deerfield Trail. I was right of course. Ha ha. This was just further up from Silver City than we had ever gone. So now there's a chunk in the middle that we'll have to do sometime. 

Very pretty indeed though all the leaves had fallen by this time. 

We came to this lovely bridge and I made them all stand there. 

"Stand there now!" 😂

Bridges are fun.

I loved the color of the water. It was deeper here. 

Here's the one video I took.

Continuing on up the creek. The trail switched to the southern side of the hill where the sun couldn't reach at this time of year and there was a lot of mud from the snow melting in the shade. 

We met some folks coming down the trail and they gave us a heads up about another creek, Slate Creek, which joined Rapid Creek and the trail turned there. They're on the first bridge over Slate Creek. We followed it up to the left. 

Heading off into the canyon that the creek runs through. 

There were many, many of these bridges so that was fun. 

What wasn't as fun was the winter dreariness. All the leaves were gone and there wasn't a lot of sunlight because the canyon was kind of close. This hike would definitely be a lot better in summer time. Then you could trudge up through the creek if you wanted to cool off. 

Then if your dingo Ezra fell in the mud and couldn't figure out how to wash off, it wouldn't be a big deal. 😂

Evie on a rock. 

Noah on a rock. 

Terry on a rock.😛

The trail finally started going uphill and we thought maybe we would get somewhere that looked different. But no. It just came back down to the creek and everything looked the same. We turned around here. We'd gone about two or two and a half miles at this point. 

There was the most mud going up and then back down that hill so Luna was a mud ball. 

She got cleaned off in the creek though. She definitely got a bath as soon as we got home. So did the kids! 😆

Another one of the bridges on the way down this time. 

Back to that beautiful blue green water and bridge. 

It wasn't prettiest there.

I had Noah take our picture...hence the weird expressions. Terry looks like he is considering violence and I am not smiling. Oh Noah.

Trudge trudge trudge back. We were tired and hungry and the sun was going down. Stupid time change. I hates it!

WE HATES IT FOREVER! 😂😆😭

And that's it! It was a fun hike and still wonderful to get outside under the sun, but I wish we could've found the correct hike. We ended up doing about four and half or close to five miles. That's petty good for an Ezra.