Sunny Days and Field Trips...

Our family has been enjoying the sunshine during these first couple weeks of fall. I'm looking forward to the leaves changing colors and enjoying some campfires, but in the meantime, I took advantage of the fact that my kids were all dressed up and took a few pictures on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

The arrival of fall means that we are looking forward to celebrating Madeline's birthday in couple weeks. She'll be eight on October 12th. I can hardly believe it! She's grown so much and is enjoying the second grade with many of her old friends and with a teacher that she loves. She is doing great in her classes and is becoming quite the little reader too! Today she brought home a sign that hung on her locker for the first couple months of school, and in addition to her favorite subject (science) and color (yellow) it listed what she wants to be when she grows up (a doctor and an ice skater).

My friend Mindy has been coming to our church for awhile, along with her little girl, Cora. Last Sunday after church we went up town to a Victorian bed and breakfast and enjoyed a Fall Tea with some friends from church. We had a nice time, and the kids enjoyed playing with Cora while the mommies were away. Here are some pictures that Madeline took.


In addition to tea parties, I've been enjoying many activities, usually just everyday stuff like physical chemistry and medical school applications (ha!), but today was a special day because I got to go to Kercher's Orchard with Timothy's kindergarten class. As you can see from the first picture, taken on the bus, Timothy was very excited about this adventure, and it looked like it was going to be quite a treat.
However, upon arriving, Timothy began to relaize that this was NOT Nappanee Elementary, and he was NOT sure that he wanted to stay! It started out as hesitating to join the group when we arrived, and quickly progressed to not wanting to walk because he didn't like grass and dirt getting on his shoes. Picking an apple? No way was he going to touch one of those wet, dirty apples hanging off a tree.
On the hayride, he wasn't so keen on the idea of me taking pictures, so these are my grand attempts.

Fortunately, there was a turning point...the gourd patch! Timothy LOVED the gourd patch! There were all shapes, colors and sizes, and he found a small orange gourd that reminded him of Jimmy Gourd from Veggietales, and it seemed to turn the whole experience around.
Here he is with the little group of boys I walked with for the morning, all of them proudly showing off their selections for the camera.
After the gourd patch there was a small corn maze, and that went over well too. Perhaps it was because there were scarecrows with riddles on them throughout the maze, and Timothy could stop and read the riddles to the other boys making them giggle to Timothy's delight.
When all was said and done, it turned out to be a nice trip, and Timothy wrapped it up by having some fresh apple cider back at school with his classmates.
Well, there's a bit of an update. We're looking forward to getting to see many of you next Saturday. Hopefully by then we'll have school pictures to hand out!

-shannon