Obligatory Pumpkin Patch Post

First off, hats off to our friends Lisa and PC and Geoff and Colette for dragging us out of the house (on separate occasions) several years ago to visit our first pumpkin patches. Growing up, this wasn't a tradition in my family, and I can't speak for Vivian. Since then, it has been something that we really look forward to. We don't really do corn mazes, save the one year we went with colette and Geoff and almost fell victim to randomly thrown corn cob mortars. Yes, teens ruin everything, and I can safely say that since:

a) When I was a teen we never acted like that, and

b) When our kids become teens, they will certainly not act like that.

At least I'm pretty sure that's what we'd all say as former teens and current parents.

Marielle's preschool class went to a local pumpkin patch near my work and I tagged along with Harper and my Mom. They should have called it preschool teacher's day off. It was kind of funny. We arrived and met up with the teachers. We said our hellos and they pointed out the various activities that the pumpkin patch had to offer. Sort of puzzled, I asked, "Oh, are we pretty much on our own?" To which they replied, "yes." No big deal I guess. I was looking forward to hanging out with the girls anyway.

We spent most of our time hunting for pumpkins and then spent the last few minutes in the hay maze (no corn cob mortars here). My Mom was the funniest as she had the hardest time choosing her pumpkins since there were so many good ones. Every few seconds she found another one that was better than the last. By the time we left the patch, we had quite the full wagon, and narrowing down our selections was quite the chore. We ended up with lots of good ones.

A Robot and Her Mechanic

Today we met up with the Pierz Family for our annual Boo at the Zoo outing. As always we met up beforehand for the Petticoat Brunch at Denver's Bump and Grind Cafe where the food and, er... waitresses? never disappoint. This year we took robots to the zoo. We had originally planned to have four robots, but as time went on, we came to two realizations: 1) that neither Lila or Harper were going to tolerate such rigid costumes for long, and 2) all great robots actually need an equally great support crew. Harper and Lila were up for that challenge, and together they sported matching mechanic's coveralls and a full complement of tools. You'll have to head over to the Pierz blog for more photos. Between guiding our wandering robot and tracking down our curious, and fast, 14-month-old, I failed to capture a good photo of Lila, so be sure to check out their post and sorry Lila.

The robot costumes have turned out great. The kids love them and we got tons of complements. Viv and I have been worried that Marielle would be apprehensive about wearing the suit, so we've spent the last week getting her pumped up about the costume. By yesterday, she was really excited to wear it. Between us pumping it up and the complements from passers-by, we had to stop her on more than one occasion from saying out loud, "Everyone thinks my costume is sooooo cool." Alex and Marielle loved the attention, Harper loved chasing after her two robot buddies, and little Lila was more than happy to offer her mechanic support from the comfort of her own support team (Geoff and Colette).

And in case you were wondering. Yes, that is a real light bulb, and no, I wasn't concerned about it breaking, and yes, I should have been. Yes, the light bulb did shatter as my wife had predicted. Ellie's fall and the subsequent destruction of the light bulb led to one of the most impressive co-meltdown of two toddler-robots ever documented. Bye the end, they were each crying because the other was crying. However, after a quick reset, both robots were back online and all systems had returned to normal.

Harper Eating Rice

OK, I haven't figured out the best way to import a comic strip into blogger yet, but, for now, click on the strip below to read it.