Mushroom Hunting

On a beautiful Saturday morning I went out mushroom hunting with the C family.

We were looking for Chanterelles, but had trouble finding very many.

[NC and JW make the first find]

We did find lots of other colorful mushrooms, however!

We found a big Cauliflower mushroom at the end of the day. I really just wanted to kick it, but the others insisted we take it home and try it (the book said it was edible).

When we got home I got to kick half of it, and Nate saved the other half to try later. Unfortunately massive amounts of little worms started crawling out of it the next day, and it didn't look so appetizing anymore...


[Clowning at my request - what good sports!]

On the way home we stopped at a little hot springs.


[The C family - so cute!]

What a fun day!


[Baby MC aka The Little Frenchman]

M&P

Cousin J, Baby MC, and I drove down to Salem this month to visit M&P for the day.

We had a delicious lunch, and a great visit!

FrightTown!

A couple of weeks before Halloween, I volunteered to be an actor in FrightTown's Elshoff Manor. This is a giant haunted house that BL co-owns. TL and JS also joined in on the scaring.

Before we started we had to get into costume and get not-so-glamorous makeovers.

[JW gets deathlike, while I get blackened]

[Check out the characters in this work shop!]

[JS and TL being sprayed black]

TL and I took care of "The Body Bag Room." This was a room filled with hanging body bags, a couple of which were able to glide across the room towards people. It was also filled with fog and strobe lights, so people were really disoriented and therefor easy to scare!

[TL and I in "The Body Bag Room"]

JS lurked in the dark hallways and scared people too. All the meanwhile BL ran the show, and did a little scaring of his own out in front of the haunted house.

[The Scary Bunch: Me, JW, TL, and JS]

Pumpkin Carving

[Top row: BL, HR, Dad, NC

2nd row: KM, PR with baby RR, Brother C, Me

3rd row: JW, TL with Little J, Cousin J with Baby MC]

On a Saturday afternoon, my friend family and some of my family family got together to carve pumpkins.

[L: TL and Little J carving carefully R: Baby MC examines NC's scraping job]

[Everyone's working hard!]

[Brother C does some mutilation art, while PR and NC work hard on the intricate details]

All of the big people carved one, the little guys helped out, and the littlest gal kept us all smiling.

[L: Baby RR was very mellow and cute all day! R: Babies holding babies...]

During the carving extravaganza we played in some Halloween slime, ate burritos, and made a big mess - it was great!

[BL and JW show off their creations]

The end products included various pumpkin faces, a flying bat, a sunshine, a mutilated gourd, and some very intricately carved "Happy Halloween" teeth!

[Playing in Halloween slime!]

The creativity and artistry of this group was quite impressive!

[Can you guess who made which one?
Left side from top: Me, TL and Little J, PR, Cousin J, KM
Right side from top: Brother C, BL, Dad, NC, JW]


Later that night they lit up the neighborhood!

Brother S

[Brother S and I playing frisbee with a beautiful cityscape behind us]

Earlier this month Mom and I flew out to Chicago. We visited Brother S for a couple of days, drove over to Iowa, and then spent several more days in Chicago.

[Brother S and girlfriend JT in front of the L downtown]

While we were there we went to see "Jersey Boys" with JT and her mother, played frisbee on Lake Michigan's shore, saw S's Comedysportz show, played with Simba (S's little cat), and ate at Ann Sathers and a great Italian place!

[L: Brother S directing a Battleprov show. He actually trained the performers too!

R: Little Simba, S's cat]

Of course, we got to play some Rock Band too, as usual!

[Brother S is on the spot during a Comedysportz performance!]

Iowa in Fall

[Pretty Iowa farm land]

From Chicago, Mom and I rented a car and drove about 5 hours over to Iowa to visit the A family out on their farm home.

[Another beautiful landscape!]

It was a beautiful drive across the Mississippi River and through the fall landscapes.

[The Farm Family photo]

[L: Me and Cousin K ride dirt bikes around the farm
R: Cousin E prefers the 4-wheeler, although she
did get the hang of the dirt bike as well!]


During our visit we canned apple pie filling, played some board games, rode dirt bikes and 4-wheelers, and relaxed out in the fall sun.



[Canning in detail...]



Poor Cousin-in-law D crashed the dirt bike and punctured his leg...




[Clowning around Cousin-in-law D and his injured leg]



On our last day there we all went for a tour of Spook Cave by boat.



[Cousins in a cave]


The cave was a water filled one with low ceilings in several parts (we had to duck down in the boat), and sheltered many bats and some big frogs.




[Boat full of laughs]



With all the personalities in our little boat, it was a very humorous ride through the cave!




[Ghost family]