Halloween (and Fall Festival)

The boys and I had to do Halloween on our own this year, since the most important annual radiation oncology conference took place over Halloween (again). Last year, he skipped the first day or so of the conference so he could do Halloween with us, but this year is job-hunting year and he really needed to be there the whole time. So Marcus departed for sunny California before sunrise on Saturday morning. That morning, the kids and I went to Caleb's soccer game and that afternoon we attended a Halloween party hosted by some church friends. The kids had fun playing with their friends and painting pumpkins in the thoroughly-bedecked and very spooky basement of our host's home.

On Sunday afternoon, the kids got their costumes on again and we went trick-or-treating at the Hoover Library and then to a Trunk-or-Treat at the Riverchase United Methodist Church. The Trunk-or-Treat was great: the boys loved looking at the other kids costumes, and especially enjoyed the adults dressed up as Snow White, Bert & Ernie, and a few others. The highlight for Caleb was a HUGE blow-up slide that made me nervous just to look at. At first, I didn't think I was going to let Caleb do it, but I watched lots of kids younger than him shimmy up that huge ladder and fly down, so I let him go a few times. (In the picture, he is the little red speck in the bottom left corner.) Ethan was very disappointed that he couldn't go on the huge slide, too, but he was easily consoled with a little bag of Skittles from his candy bucket. For Ethan, the highlight of the evening was petting and talking to a big Labradoodle: Ethan can never get enough of the animal kingdom.

(We did go to our church's Fall Festival last weekend, but we were so busy following the kids around that we forgot to take any pictures.)

Fall Camping

This past weekend, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to take the kids camping. On Friday, I had taken the kids to a park in town for a picnic lunch. Around 1:00 pm, I sent a text message to my friend (who was camping at the time) to ask if there were any free campsites near them. She texted me back that there was an empty site next to them, and even offered to go reserve it for us. Marcus and I had gone back and forth about spending the weekend at Oak Mountain, and it was pretty much left up to whether I had the energy to get the camping stuff together, load up the car, and get the kids and me out to the site before dusk. (Marcus wouldn't be off work until after dark.) I decided when I got my friend's text that I was up for it, so I called Marcus and took the kids home to get ready.

A very busy four hours later, the kids and I were bathed, packed, and headed for Oak Mountain State Park. Our friends helped me get the tent up and the car unloaded, since my energy was spent just getting everything there. When Marcus arrived, we were all sitting around the fire enjoying hot dogs and getting ready to roast marshmallows. The weather was perfect all weekend: 40's/50's at night and 70's during the day. It got warm enough on Saturday that the boys stripped down to their undies and played in the lake for a couple of hours. We did a little hiking and exploring as well, and even got to watch a hawk fly from tree to tree on the hunt for a while. There was a fallen log near our campsite, and the boys loved testing out their balance by seeing how fast they could walk the length of it.

On Sunday morning, we reluctantly broke camp and headed back to "civilized" life. All the while we were packing up the car, I kept thinking that there isn't anything we do as a family that allows us to enjoy life and each other more than spending the whole weekend in the great outdoors (when the weather is nice, of course :). I really hope there is another weekend of good weather before winter hits so we can camp one more time this year.

Old Baker Farm

Two Saturday's ago, after Caleb's soccer game, we spent the day at Old Baker Farm. We started out by making our way through the cornfield maze. The kids enjoyed it, but it wore me out. It just went on and on and on. I can see why farming mothers feared losing their young children in the cornfield: the corn stalks are taller than a man and it would be virtually impossible to find a lost toddler in acres of corn. We finally found our way out (thanks to a couple of "shortcuts" by Daddy), and then got in line for the boys' first horseback ride. Caleb had been on ponies before, but this was his first time on a horse. The boys rode together and they loved the way the saddle bounced up and down as the horse walked. (I loved the beautiful pictures of them on horseback with corn fields and cotton fields in the background.) Next we headed to the cotton bounce. The cotton-picking festival at Old Baker Farm had taken place the week before, and a lot of the cotton collected had been piled into an enclosed wagon. It was like a cotton bounce house, and the kids loved it.

The barn and the farm animals were our next stop. We saw turkeys, ducks, chickens, goats, pigs and even petted a fluffy rabbit. Next was climbing and sliding down the huge haystack. We stayed there until Caleb's 5-year-old friend took a tumble from the top and all four parents agreed it was time to move on. We took a bathroom & snack break before boarding a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch to choose our pumpkins. Just like last year, Marcus went to the furthest corner of the huge pumpkin patch, believing that the "pickin's" would be best in that untraveled area. He found a nice big pumpkin that he liked, while the boys and I chose smaller ones closer to the center of the field. We hopped on the hay wagon for a ride back to the main farm. Ethan and I were wiped out by now, but Daddy and Caleb had enough steam to close out the day with some fun in the hay maze.

It had been a full day when we finally headed home around 5:00 pm. The boys hadn't napped, of course, so they fell asleep immediately in the car. It was a 40-minute drive home, and when we got home, we gambled and lost: we tried transferring the boys into the house when we got home, hoping that all the sun and activity would render them tired enough to sleep the night through. Alas, neither of them transferred, so we had two very tired and grumpy boys for the next few hours. We made it through baths and dinner and finally all collapsed into bed.

Noccalula Falls Park

This weekend, we took a last-minute day trip to Gadsden, Alabama to visit Noccalula Falls Park. We were invited by another family, and we all had a great time. Noccolula Park is a city park a little over an hour from home that is kind of a hodge podge of a things that kids love: a big park, a climbing rock maze, a large and varied petting zoo (including a bunch of white-tailed deer), a lioness (not part of the petting zoo :), hiking trails, and, best of all, a train that you can ride as much as you want through the three train stations in the park. We rode that loop at least four times during the five hours we were there. I think the kids' favorite thing to do, other than riding the train, was picking the tall grass outside the animals' cages and feeding them through the fence. Noccalula Falls Park will definitely be a favorite spot for us from now on, and especially in the spring and the fall when it is not so hot outside.

Seth, Thomas, Ethan & Caleb

Thomas, Tripp, Seth & Amy

Dog Park

One of our good friends was a major player in the process of building a dog park here in Hoover. The dog park opened several months ago, but we finally got around to checking it out this past Saturday. We wanted to go early because it has been so hot lately. We got there, with the kids and the dogs, around 8:00 am, but it still ended up being really hot. After we arrived, we got the dogs out of the car and let them go in the dog park. The dog park has two sections, one for big dogs and one for small dogs, and both sections include agility courses, water fountains, sand pits and lots of grass for running and playing in. It's the nicest free dog park we've ever been to.

Riley and Shannon immediately sprinted across the beautiful, tree-shaded field. Once. Then they were pooped. They spent the rest of the hour we were there tottering behind us with their tongues lolling out, gasping for breath. They are really out of shape :) It made us feel really bad that they haven't been outside of our backyard in the past two years. I don't think we've done them any damage that won't be cured by regular trips to the dog park over the next few months, but they sure did look much older than their 5-6 years on Saturday!

Ruffner Mountain Nature Park

So my BFF has discovered another great hiking spot, this time right outside of downtown Birmingham. She and her family explored Ruffner Mountain Nature Park last week, and really enjoyed it. And I lucked out in googling the nature park on the one day of the month that they offer a craft, story time and animal encounter to preschoolers! To make it even better, Caleb and Ethan's favorite triplets were at story time, too :) I didn't get to explore the nature park as much as I would have liked, since it was pretty muddy and mosquito-ridden from the weekend's rains (and I also prefer a better adult-to-child ratio when hiking); but from what I saw, Ruffner Mountain Nature Park is a great find.

The only problem I am having with all this time in the great outdoors is that the boys are FULL of questions about the trees, plants, bugs and sounds in the woods. I wish that I had taken more classes and learned more about that kind of stuff, so that I could teach them more. That is one reason why I so love going camping and hiking with my BFF. She was a wildlife biology major in college, and she is constantly pointing out sounds and critters and plants and teaching the kids about them. I remember doing extensive insect collections, leaf collections and even animal print casting with my mom when she was getting her degree and I was in grade school, but I didn't pay as much attention to the names of things, and I certainly don't remember them now. I bought a few field guides this spring, and I'm skimming through them when I have time, but it is all a bit overwhelming to me.

Regardless, we spent a beautiful morning outside, and the boys had more fun jumping off rocks with the triplets (while Mr. Al spent thirty minutes taking them one at a time on back-to-back bathroom runs) than they would have had listening to me pontificate about wildlife :)

Thomas the Train

This weekend, we spent Saturday at a local Thomas the Train festival. Every year, in a little Alabama town about 30 minutes south of us, Thomas the Train makes an appearance, along with about a dozen fun activity tents. Thomas himself is about $20 a person to ride, but all of the activities are free. So, in true Wagner style, we skipped the train and enjoyed all the freebies :). There was putt putt golf, a bouncy house, a tent with train tables set up, a huge sandbox, a bubble tent, tattoos, a petting farm, and a vintage train with a Thomas storyteller inside. We did it all, and Caleb had a lot of fun. Ethan would normally have enjoyed himself tremendously, but he had spiked a fever the night before and was not feeling up to par. (Thankfully, it proved to be a less-than-24-hour thing, since he was fever-free and playing like usual by Saturday night.) Maybe in a year or two, when both boys are old enough to remember it, we'll pay so that they can ride the train :)

Homewood Park

A couple of nights ago, Marcus got of work early (i.e. around 5:00 pm), so we met at one of our favorite parks. I threw the bikes and a soccer ball in the car, since it is so much easier to take those extras when Daddy comes along. Caleb is riding his bike so fast these days! Ethan can pedal his bike, but he prefers his Radio Flyer scooter. And both of them love to kick the ball around. And to add to the fun of the evening, we ran into some good friends who we haven't seen much this spring and had a great time catching up with them. Enjoy the pictures!

More About Camping Out

Saturday morning dawned early and cold. Extra early and extra cold for the Pollard's, since the air mattress that was supposed to separate their sleeping bags from the cold, hard ground malfunctioned (sprung a leak). The four of us slept pretty well, and we were especially happy that Ethan slept peacefully through the whole night, which he rarely did during our 2009 camping weekends. When we emerged from the tent, we found Al cooking breakfast and Quenta and the kids warming up in their minivan. To add to the unfortunate beginning, we had burned all of our first round of firewood the previous evening, and the campground store didn't open for three more (very cold) hours. Fortunately, Quenta found a huge pile of bark, so we burned bark and kindling until the store opened.

After everyone was warmed up and stuffed with bacon and eggs, we headed all headed out on a little hike called the Treetop Trail. It is a boardwalk hike at tree level (just like the title), and there are rescued birds in cages all along the trail. We all enjoyed the walk, and then we loaded back up in the cars to go to the petting farm, a little further down the state park road. It was such nice weather by now, and we spent more than an hour walking around in the petting farm, enjoying all of the animals, but especially the baby goats and the pony. Then we shared a picnic lunch, which we had to guard carefully from the opportunistic peacocks that strutted around the picnic tables.

After lunch, we made a quick trip out of the state park to get a few things at Walmart, also hoping the kids would take a short nap in the car. Caleb obliged us, but Ethan chattered all the way there. So Ethan and I went inside while Marcus stayed with sleeping Caleb in the car. When we got back to camp, Caleb and I went to the beach while Marcus, Ethan, and the Pollard's took a nap. I had bought the boys little hand-held fishing nets at Walmart, so Caleb and I took them and caught two minnows and a water bug. After about an hour, Ethan and the Pollard's were up, and we all went back to the beach together, armed with five little nets, and (this time) a bug jar to collect our booty in. Quenta caught a minnow and a tadpole right away, but there weren't too many other bugs out because the temperature was cooling down.

For dinner Saturday night, we grilled burgers and hot dogs again, and I broke out the broccoli salad I'd made at home. After dinner, the Pollard's handed out glow sticks to all the kids, which they loved of course. We even got brave and let the older four kids roast a few marshmallows on their own. That made me a little nervous to have four preschoolers so close to the campfire, but it made it easier that Caleb was a very cautious roaster. He was more warming the marshmallow slightly and then eating it :)

The kids went down a little earlier Saturday night, and we adults enjoyed another night talking and eating around the campfire. Sunday morning felt about 10 degrees warmer than Saturday had. I was the first up, so I started the morning fire and then started the bacon. Breakfast was bacon, fried eggs and toast again. I think the morning is my favorite thing about camping out (though I really love the campfire at night, as well). The kids are happy and rested (generally), the smell of bacon and eggs in the open air is something else, and the whole day outside is ahead of us. We all enjoyed a leisurely morning of eating, playing around the campsite, and then breaking camp. We headed home for much-needed baths and naps around noon, and spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and cleaning pollen off everything (including ourselves).