Easing Into Fall

We have a 3 Year Old in the house now.  Lydia's Birthday started with her receiving her Birthday Balloon, looking at it with a surprised look for about 4 seconds, then looking at me skeptically and saying, "When can I have my cake?"

Jenn told her that the big cake is coming for the combined Birthday/Halloween Party and that we were going to have Dirt Pudding.  The kids were not impressed, and they complained all day saying the weren't going to eat dirt.  When Jenn pointed out that there would be worms and rocks in it, that didn't seem to help.  Henry remained skeptical until he saw everyone else eat the worms first.
Lydia popped her Birthday Balloon about 90 minutes after receiving it, and then when Grandma Paulette brought over another Birthday Balloon before dinner, Lydia popped that one in about 15 minutes. 
Last Saturday we went to Dussell Farm to get some pumpkins and other fall things.  That's become somewhat of a family tradition, but at this stage of life, spending much time there is a challenge.
As we like to do every now and then, we took a walk at the Beaver Pond last evening while Jenn ran 6.1 miles.
Big plans are in the works for the Birthday/Halloween Party.  Our house is in the process of transforming into a kid-friendly Halloween fun zone, and you should see the menu that Jenn is planning!  It's gonna be a fun one.

Jenn's 1/2 Marathon, the Towpath 1/2 Marathon, was officially postponed.  She ran a 1/2 that Sunday anyway, and then got sick on Monday.  So after several days of not feeling well and not running, she's back at the training and doing pretty well.  It's been rescheduled for early November, and there only ought to be a difference of about 30 degrees in temperature.

Me, I've been running about 10 miles a week lately.  I've never been a runner, and Jenn and I make a decent pair, at least as far as starting out is concerned.  She's the big-time distance runner now, easily pounding out 6 to 10 miles at a time.  I've been going 3 to 4 a pop, and sometimes with Gretel.  So who knows?  Maybe we'll run a 1/2 or Full together sometime in the future...

Apple Orchard 2013

Yesterday was our annual trip to the apple orchard, and this year Lincoln brought a new friend from school, Samuel.  It's funny to watch two Kindergartener boys be silly in the car and run around crazy.  This was also the first year in a while that I didn't need a pack for one of the kids.To say that we ate well with some good, apple-themed courses yesterday would be an understatement.  It started at the orchard where each kid ate two apples off the tree and chased them with a donut.

I've never gotten in the habit of mentioning each Ohio State win (that would get redundant, especially in the Urban Meyer era), but last night's win over Northwestern, where the Buckeyes spun their wheels most of the evening, will be most memorable for me in the way they covered the spread by scoring a crazy touchdown when the clock had run out.  I'll take 'em any way the Buckeyes can get 'em.

The government shutdown, you know, the situation in which we find ourselves because, among many reasons, the Senate wouldn't agree to live under the same Obamacare law that we all are going to have to live under... well, the government shutdown is threatening to affect Jenn and Grandpa Dave's upcoming half-marathon, as it is to be run on the Towpath through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  Grrrrrrrrr.  I'm not enamored with much of Washington these days on either side, but the excuse we have for a leader in the White House can't be gone soon enough.

Clam Bake 2013

It's officially autumn.
One of our busy fall weekends has come to a close.  Last night we went to Chris & Val's annual Clam Bake.  The anticipation began months ago when we got a "save the date" magnet in the mail.  It had a photo of a big bon fire on it, and ever since, our kids have asked when we're going to "go to the big fire."  The anticipation drew to a close yesterday morning when we fed the kids small breakfasts and lunches knowing that there was going to be a bunch of good food and a late night ahead of us.  Between the hay ride, the food, the fireworks, the catching up with friends that we now see once a year, the new photo booth and the staying up past dark, it was a full, fun evening that the kids and we won't soon forget.

Many thanks to Grace ($$$ glasses) for keeping up with our kids and giving Jenn and me some catch-up time with the grown-ups!

We followed up our late evening with catching Aunt Haley over at Kent State.  The score wasn't what we were hoping for, but we love seeing extra of Aunt Haley, Grandma Laura & Grandpa Dave.
On Friday evening, Jenn had some time with the ladies producing more art (I know!  Whooda thought!!!) at Wine and Canvas while I took the kids to the clinic to throw monkey-balls into the woods (I think they're some kind of walnut seed thingies, but the kids call them monkey-balls) and to collect what remained of the buckeyes.
Jenn's been having some more food fun with the kids' meals.

Grilling @ The Ledges

Well that was one of the longer gaps between posts.  Wow.  Sorry about that.  And it's not because there's been nothing going on at the Gates Home.  No way.  Lincoln has been off to a great start at Kindergarten, Lydia and Henry are getting into a routine of being the only ones at home during the day, Jenn is running like crazy keeping up with things, volunteering at Lincoln's school and prepping for her 1/2 marathon in early October, work has been steady for me, an abridged version of one of the essays I wrote with Eden Myers appeared in print in Veterinary Economics (original here), Jenn and I have been keeping up with our friends and Bible study groups... whew.  So you can get an idea for where the time has gone.
In fact, the time has so gotten away that I forgot to share some really cool photos from a couple of weeks ago when Lincoln, Henry and I went to Szalay's Farm early in the morning to watch a corn harvest.  The boys were quite into seeing the harvester and tractors work.
It's getting cooler around here, and it really feels like fall.  We finished dinner early the other evening and went to Rita's for some frozen custard.  It'll probably be our last frozen custard of the season.
This evening we packed some stuff for dinner for the kids and went to the Ledges.  Jenn ran around on the trails and I grilled some hot dogs for the kids and we had a picnic.

Gates Art

Breakfast @ The Casey's

At the outset of our vacation, the Art Institute of Chicago was third or fourth on our list of priorities with the City Pass (and we *highly* recommend the City Pass if you're visiting Chicago). As it turned out, we'd go to the Art Institute first if we were returning. This is not a put-down of the Field and Shedd, just an assertion that the Art Institute is that good.
If you've known either of us for 15 minutes, you know that we're not artsy in the least, but Sunday turned out to be our Art Day. From the Thorn Rooms to the Modern Art to the current Impressionism & Fashion exhibit and the Abelardo Morell photography, we were absolutely into it, and if we lived near the downtown Chicago area, membership would be on our agenda.
We swung by the Willis Tower (former the Sear's Tower) to visit the Sky Deck. They told us our wait with the City Pass would be 1 hour, without the City Pass would be 4 hours… and we were up and down in 35 minutes. The views were pretty neat.
The parks in the photo above are Millennium Park and Grant Park, the peninsula is the museum campus where the Field, Shedd and Planetarium are located, Navy Pier is hidden behind the buildings on the left. We walked (and Jenn ran) all over the area in this photo many times during the weekend.

We finished off Sunday evening with a trip to Bottle & Bottega for our own art.
Big thanks go out to...

• Grandma Paulette & Grandpa Doug for taking the kids on Friday so we could get out of town early.
  
• Grandma Laura & Grandpa Dave for taking the kids so we could stay the whole, long weekend.
  
• Pete & Moe for their generosity and hospitality during a fantastic anniversary weekend.

Finally, it has come to my attention that I misspelled Kindergarten in Lincoln's photo in the last post. In my mind, I've known it was spelled with a "t," but I've seen others spell it with a "d," so I thought I must have been mistaken. When my Blogger spell-check didn't catch it, I really thought I was mistaken. Please spare me and refrain from asking, "If a bunch of others jumped off a bridge..." Chalk this up to a parenting "Oops!"