This Fall, covid restrictions were somewhat less draconian. So we tried on a few new potential "traditions" for size...and some of them were so fun we might keep them! First, we got together with a bunch of friends and headed out to Miller Farms to get dirty and dusty, and to pick a bunch of vegetables to bring home and throw away.
The Golden crew got our own tractor!
And we're off.
Yay for vegetables!
At each stop, there was a different crop.
They have never been this excited about vegetables before...or since.
Farmer girls.
Children of the corn.
(All jokes aside, the corn really was creepy. Not in a scary way - more in a riddled-with-worms way. Eww.)
Looking for that perfect pumpkin.
Double-pumpkins!
You can never have too many pumpkins.
Best buds.
Beauty...
...and the beet.
(He rubbed red beet juice all over his face. Good times.)
Such a fun day!
Washing and cataloging our veggie haul.
We not only learned how to cook some new vegetables, we learned about the existence of some new vegetables. For example, I had never heard of a kohlrabi before -- but we picked a bunch and Chris turned them into a tasty side dish!
Next, we tried out Anderson Farms, which had more kid-friendly activities, less manual labor, and some of the best kettle corn we've ever tasted. We still miss the apple orchards of the Midwest, but this was a pretty decent substitute.
Hard to look tough when you're surrounded by pumpkins.
Even harder to look tough in a pumpkin carriage.
Mining for gems.
Ducky races.
Milk jug train.
Yeehaw!
Dirt buggies.
Certainly not gourds; not really that bad; and the opposite of ugly.
Making new friends.
Burning off some energy.
Ezra didn't get the memo about the dress code.
Paintball.
We all stuffed our faces with kettle corn.
Off to the pumpkin patch.
With our kettle corn, of course.
Picking out our pumpkins.
With our kettle corn, of course.
Everything about these kids looks Golden (except maybe Danny's face).
After we got the pumpkins, we had to carve them! Now that the kids are older, we gave them full control over the carving knives. Thankfully, no one lost any fingers this year.
Ready to dig in.
Jill's pumpkin looked like Harry Potter.
Aaron's pumpkin looked scary.
Danny's pumpkin looked...unique.
Pepper's pumpkin looked like she stepped on it.
Jill insisted on buying Halloween decorations this year, and the pumpkins completed our festive facade!
The witch was just to make the kids laugh on their way out the back door to school.
We had a lot of fans stop by to admire our decorations.
As Halloween approached, we had to start thinking about costumes to wear to all the Halloween events. Aaron and Danny both chose Zelda-themed costumes. Aaron wanted to be Link (whoever that is), and Danny wanted to be a guardian (whatever that is). Jill, who was Hermione Granger last year, decided to mix things up this year. So she opted for Ginny Weasley.
Pepper, for her part, decided to go as a Bronco. Get it?
The first event was the school costume parade. Danny's guardian costume was massive and unwieldy, so he decided to make things easy that day and go as Draco Malfoy instead. After all, we already had everything he needed, including the robes, wand, and hair gel.
Jill's classmates, all of whom coincidentally dressed up as post-apocalyptic pandemic survivors. Go figure.
Marching in the school parade.
Downtown Golden also held a trick-or-treating event on the main thoroughfare. And since it's a small town, we found friends along the way.
The ranch where Jill takes horseback-riding lessons had a Halloween party where the kids got to dress up the horses! Those are some tolerant horses.
Here is the one-and-only shot I got of Danny in his guardian costume. You can see what I mean by "unwieldy." Chris helped him build it from scratch out of several cardboard boxes, plastic tubing, and lots of orange and black masking tape. This picture was taken right before we went to a neighbor's Halloween party. But sadly, when we arrived, Danny found he couldn't really run around and play with the other kids. He even got stuck in a few tight corners and ended up collapsing in tears inside his costume. And I mean that literally. When I found him, it looked like his costume had been abandoned on the lawn -- but upon closer examination I found him inside weeping. Thankfully, all it took was a short trip home and quick costume change (back to Draco) to lift his spirits.
And here we are on the actual night of Halloween, right before trick or treating began. Aaron was the tallest (naturally), Danny had a harem of first-graders following him around (naturally), and Jill hustled to collect the most candy (naturally). Happy Halloween!
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