Harvest Train & Pumpkin Carving

The Harvest Train left Alamosa at 11:00am and took a slow, leisurely ride to the Pumpkin Patch. We met up with friends and enjoyed a wonderful autumn day!












































Once at the pumpkin patch, the kids had a great time running around and looking for the perfect pumpkin.


























































After the train returned to Alamosa, we met at our church for lunch and an afternoon of pumpkin carving fun.






The kids had a great time picking out the patterns they wanted, cutting the top hole and digging the seeds and innards out.




By the time they got to the tedious task of the actual carving, well, it was way beyond the average 6-year-old attention span limits.





The adults were left with the fine tuning of each carved pumpkin while the kids enjoyed a game of tag.





More photos HERE.

Shades of Silly

Maybe it was a side effect of the high fat food at McDonald's, but Jamie was in rare form tonight. He was dancing and hamming it up, all the while begging me to "take a picture of this".

I couldn't resist!

McTeacher Night at McD's

Tonight was McTeacher night at McDonald's. The teacher's mingle with kids and sell cookies and 15% of all sales is donated to Polston. A sweet deal, considering that McD's is the preferred "restaurant" for this age group. Try to imagine the sounds of children laughing and playing on the playground at school during recess... now, try to imagine that intensity compressed into the Indoor Playland at McD's. Crazy!

Here's Jamie with his first grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson.
He thinks she's awesome, and so do we!

A New Blanket of Snow

A fresh blanket of snow on the Sangre's.
I drove up the road a bit to avoid getting yet another photo of the neighbors' house.

It's supposed to cool down to 9 degrees (above zero) tonight.
Brrrrrrr!

What Was I Thinking?

Today, I decided that I would be burly and go to the mountains to get a load of firewood. So, I loaded up the truck with the chain saw, chain oil, gasoline, etc. and headed out. I even tried, unsuccessfully, to build side panels for the truck bed so that I could stack even more wood. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Let's just say that I grossly overestimated my abilities! I did OK for about half an hour, before my legs and arms started tremoring from the chain saw. I'm such a wuss!


I was disappointed, but not overly so, when the chain saw stopped workng. I had worked too hard, though, to find decent sized logs that I wasn't about to leave them there. I loaded them into the back of the truck too, uncut, and still only had about half of the bed filled with wood. So much for my attempt to be burly!

It was, at least, a beautiful day to be in the mountains.


I also took my camera and got some nice photos. Next year, I am going back to this spot before the trees lose their fall colors.

Moonrise over the Sangre's

Pretty much the same shot I took earlier of the snow...this time watching the moonrise over the Sangre de Cristo range. I love living here!

Snow covered mountains

While I'm opposed to winter weather at the moment, the mountains sure do look beautiful with their first blanket of white.





The view to the west...










The view to the east...

NOOOOOoooooooo....

This is what we woke up to this morning. That's right...big, fluffy, white snowflakes. I am so NOT ready for snow or winter weather, seems like we just thawed out from last winter!

Jack-O-Lantern Smile

Jamie lost a tooth at school last week and another one tonight...he has only his bottom two front permanent teeth and has the perfect Jack-O-Lantern smile...just in time for Halloween.

Last Day of Soccer

The last day of soccer...
Jamie scored five goals even though the weather was horrible. He had a fun season but we're glad it's over.




















There was no official sports photo ploy this time, for which I was grateful because I refused to pay for another bad photo. After today's game, I had Jamie pose for this photo. Not too bad for an impromptu shot in the wind & rain when he'd rather be with everyone else eating pizza...

Technology is great!

Gotta love the advancements in technology...
Gosh, if I lost a tooth at school when I was a kid, my mom would have had to wait until I got home to hear about it. Not in 2008! I got this picture message from Jamie's teacher at 10:29 this morning with the photo and info that Jamie had lost another tooth.