October 2022: Part I

 

On October 1st our local community center put on its annual harvest festival. The kids started off playing on the bounce houses. Here they are doing the human version of "Hungry Hungry Hippos." It was fun, though it's really hard for small kids to reach in and grab the balls. A staff member always had to jump in and start handing out the balls to whichever kid came up. 

Next they went over to the petting zoo, mini golf, and pumpkin painting.

We got in line for the rock wall just before they closed it off. Allison made it about 2/3rds of the way up, which was better than I'd ever seen her do. Tyler made it all the way up.

Oscar and I mixed up and poured leveling compound into our basement. It was a TON of work I hope never to repeat again. 

Allison started using piano marvel a little bit, which really helps with her sight reading.

I found this gem in Allison's school work. She was asked to expand on the sentence "the dad hops," so she wrote "The happy dad hops to Home Depot."

Here are some cute cats and Allison building with her dinosaur Legos.

On October the 8th we met up for lunch with the Garner family so they could interview me about winning the last two challenges of piano marvel. Oscar took the kids to a nearby park while we did the interview.

The following Monday was the start of the kids 2 week fall break. We decided to stay in Colorado and have a bit of a staycation since we still had plenty of fun new places to see. Here they are at Legends Minigolf. Allison is holding her club and figuring out how to play properly much better these days.

The next day Oscar took us all out to the Painted Mines. To quote from coloradoencyclopedia.org, - "the Calhan Paint Mines are an area of clay deposits in El Paso County that have seen extensive prehistoric habitation and historic quarrying of the clay for pottery and bricks. The clay deposits at the paint mines contain iron oxides that color the clay red, yellow, and purple. The soft clay erodes easily, leaving behind many monoliths known as hoodoos, where Dawson Arkose sandstone caps protect portions of clay from erosion."

The red makes it look like the rocks are bleeding.

When we got down into this cavern we joked around with the kids that we live here now and that I'll just home school them while Oscar telecommutes from the corner.

The top right image of the collage on the left totally looks like a wall of uncooked bacon, so we told them they'd just eat rock bacon for breakfast each day.

We worked our way out of the canyon but didn't want to walk the whole loop back around. The kids were getting tired and the clouds were making it feel a little chilly, so we left out the east entrance and walked back to the car via the road.

There were windmills and other pretty views on our walk back. The kids were worn out and walking pretty slow, so Oscar ran ahead and came back with the car to pick us up.

The next day I took the kiddos to our local Great Wolf Lodge. The one in Washington was an hour and 45 minutes away from our Everett home, so we stayed overnight at the lodge the one time we visited. The one here is only 25 minutes from our house, so we just bought day passes. Thankfully the first week of the kids spring break was still considered off season for them, which meant the tickets were about as inexpensive as they come.

We did the big slides a few times then the kids wanted to play in the Cub Paw pool. It says maximum 52 inches, meaning Tyler was still small enough for it then but won't be for much longer. 

Tyler liked spraying me from his boat then went over to the Chinook cove area to play some basketball.

The kids liked crossing the Big Foot Pass obstacle course.

Tyler tried the rock wall (I even went to the kids area and repositioned the water pumps so they weren't shooting directly on him), but without shoes, he couldn't get very high. We hadn't thought to bring water shoes since I would generally only bring them for swimming if we have to walk on hot pavement or rocks, but maybe we'll bring them next time so he can climb a bit more easily. 

Great Wolf Lodge has restaurants, but everything closes at lunch time except the one inside the water park and the snack places like dunkin' donuts. The one in the water park had a giant line and would have been just greasy, overpriced food. We wanted to actually sit down and enjoy our meal without a long line, so we put on our robes and had a very tasty lunch at a nearby pizza and pasta place before coming back for more fun.

There were some wolf characters in the lobby as we were walking back in.

Once the kids were done swimming they changed into their Halloween costumes for some trick or treating. We also watched the woodland park show. It was a fun but exhausting day. We then picked up some tasty Indian food from a restaurant nearby and drove home. There are no Indian restaurants close to our house, so I try to pick up takeout whenever I'm near one.

On Thursday we stayed home and relaxed, then on Friday I took the kids out to Wishing Star Farm. Here they are doing the pony rides. Tyler is just short enough to still be allowed on them. There was a long line, so I let the kids jump on the bouncing pillow while I waited in the line for them. 

After the pony rides we tried the maze, petting zoo, ducky races, bucket train, and hay ride. We grabbed some lunch from their food areas, but we had to eat in the car since we couldn't keep the flies and bees away. 

They had some fun play on the truck then picked up a couple pumpkins before heading home. 

Oscar brought our two smokers to the Elder's Quorum barbeque activity the next day.

Oscar enjoys the nice views he gets from the upstairs office. Here he caught someone paragliding over our nearby Antler Creek reservoir. 

On Tuesday of our 2nd week of fall break, we took another Zoo trip. The kids wanted to play on the turfed hills they have near the carousels, so I wandered up to see if I could see the Asian bear while they played. There's a sign saying their Asian bear is very old (human equivalent of 90), not very active, and good at hiding, so your chance of seeing her is very slim. Luckily she was out pacing around that day. She was pretty distant and I didn't get great pictures, but I definitely saw her. 

There were Halloween decorations for the Boo at the Zoo they do on weekends. We didn't make it this year since everyday conflicted with something else we had planned, but hopefully we can check it out next year.

We went inside to feed the birds, but it was a bit of a bust. They weren't very hungry and didn't seem all that interested. At least when we came back out we got some good pets in with the wallabies. They allow you to pet the wallabies, but you can't leave the path, so you can only pet them if they're on or near the path.

We saw the tiger and the Emu

And we got great views of the bears again. I love that the viewing area is right in front of the water. 

We saw the eagle and the moose before finding the outdoor playground. 

The kids had a lot of fun playing, and even I went down the slide. Tyler got just the last one second of my slide on this video. There were a whole bunch of peacocks there when we first arrived, but they dispersed as we came in.

They really liked playing in and on the big snake.

As we walked over to the carousel we saw a mama peacock and her babies. Boy peacocks don't get their colorful feathers until they're about 5 months, so these babies both looked just like smaller versions of mom. 

And we finished up on the carousel. We still didn't get around to seeing the primates since the kiddos were getting tired, but we did on our next zoo trip in November.