Playing in the Leaves

I'm thankful for working and playing together.

"Canyonball!"

 

After picking kids up from school one day, instead of hurrying inside, we raked and played in the leaves for a while. 

Yes, I was finding leaves in my pockets for a few days after and I had to vacuum and sweep after we came inside, but it was worth it.

P.S. Jet shouts, "Canyonball!" when jumping into the leaves because he heard us say, "Cannonball." When my older kids were younger they used to say "canyon" instead of "cannon." That was many many years before Jet was born. I just think it's fun that he does it now without learning it from his older siblings.

Bison Day 2025

Road Trip! 

I am thankful for the family tradition we have of going to Antelope Island every year for Bison Day. This year National Bison Day was on November 1.

We brought our bison plushie, Otter the Bison, which is also tradition.

Jeremy wore a bison shirt. That is also tradition. We have a lot of Bison Day traditions it seems.

It was a beautiful afternoon and evening while we were there. 

The leaves were falling. At Garr Ranch, a couple of my sons were trying to catch them as they fell. It was Play Outside Day, after all. 

It brought back memories of when I was a child and I used to do that with the leaves from the maple trees in our yard. We only had a few trees around that would drop their leaves. We were mostly surrounded by evergreens. I love living in a place where I can go for drives and see so many different colors of leaves in the Fall. I did love growing up around so many evergreens, though.

I love hearing the rustle of leaves and watching them fall.

We took pictures of some lizards.

Some of us tried our hand at roping.

Some of us checked out the museum and other buildings. Jet got another souvenir penny. 

November 1 was also National Cinnamon Day. We ate brown sugar cinnamon poaster tastries (or toaster pastries as normal people call them) as we were riding in the van.

It was also Vinegar Day. We made the old joke about being bitter when people put up Christmas decorations right after Halloween and completely skip Thanksgiving (not to mention all the other wonderful November holidays like Vinegar Day and Bison Day, right?). We talked about having salt and vinegar chips but we ended up with sour cream and onion.  

 

It was a nice trip. I love family days like this.

There were plenty of "Bye, son" jokes while we were on Antelope Island.

We said, "Bye, bison," when it was time to go.

At the end of the day, we said, "Bye, sun." 

Raking Leaves Fun

See what a difference a week can make?

 

Since the leaves of this tree decided to dump themselves all at once, Jet and I decided to rake leaves. I got everything ready to go. Gardening gloves for Jet and for me, bags to put the leaves in. I was prepared. We got the rake, brought it to the front and got ready to put on our gloves.

Now tell me... what is wrong with this picture?

That's right. They are both left gloves. That wasn't going to work. I couldn't find any more small gardening gloves, so I dug out some Winter gloves and Jet was happy with that. We weren't going to be doing anything too tough and halfway through he took off his gloves anyway, which was fine.

We did have some fun with the leaves for a while until eventually, Jet was ready to go in for some hot chocolate. We did mostly fill a couple bags (they are big bags and I filled a couple more later) and I'd say we earned that hot chocolate.

I appreciate my big helper and that bonding time.

Catch of the Day

 

Captain Kirk in Space

We got the kids off to school the shortened day before Fall Break and Jeremy saw a Facebook live thing about Blue Origin's rocket making its second manned flight into space. He told me William Shatner was going as the oldest person to ever go into space. 90 years old. I was thinking, 90? That's right because he was on Star Trek back in the 60's. 

Jeremy even told me of some memes that were going around about it making references to Star Trek.

So as we were watching the rocket launch and go I was just watching and watching and all of a sudden it dawned on me and I exclaimed, "Ohhhhh, William Shatner going into space!"

Somehow with all that was going on, Jeremy talking about the Captain Kirk memes and how it was William Shatner going, I didn't get the significance, I just didn't get it that it was William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in a show and movies about space, who was going to space.

I put my face in my hands because I couldn't believe myself and how long it took me to get it. Jeremy busted out laughing because of my exclamation and how we'd been watching and having this conversation about it for maybe half an hour before I got it.

They made it safely back to Earth and I still laughed at myself.

That day, October 13, was Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work/School Day. Lucky put Baby Bear in his backpack and kept him there through school. 

Since it was a short school day leading into Fall Break, we went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I love this annual tradition. Some favorites were...

Then we found Waldo in several places around the garden.

We also played in the leaves.

We stopped at the Water Tower Plaza for a moment for Jeremy to run in the Butterfly Biosphere gift shop to see if they had any chocolate covered insects for the holiday on October 14. They didn't and apparently Thanksgiving Point doesn't carry them anymore. Ah, man. But I got this picture through the windshield.

It was good family time.