Ethan:
Our Halloween adventure of the day was an
afternoon trip to the Pumpkin Patch. The
farm that hosts the holiday event on the weekends in October is becoming very
popular, and after a rainy Saturday; the nicer weather brought out the crowds
today. That didn’t mean a lot of waiting
in lines or anything – just that there were more people around while doing all
of the activities like the corn maze.
There was bonus entertainment thanks to the
crowds too, but we tried to keep our amusement to ourselves when witnessing ‘city
folk’ deal with normal, everyday farm reality when totally unprepared for
problems like mud and large puddles after a rain day! I’m not going to pick on anyone here too –
even though I could mention specifics and never have to worry about those
people ever reading anything in our Magi archives. Actually, what I do want to comment on is
technology and the total lack of observational skills that are needed to have
so many resources available and yet not be prepared for a visit to anywhere.
In this specific case, the Pumpkin Patch
has a few live cams set up for their website; two of them clearly showed the
condition of the paths and entrance to the corn maze and haunted barn; so I don’t
get why so many visitors weren’t wearing boots – yet had smartphones in hand;
and likely checked out their destination either ahead of time or while
traveling there! The internet and all of
that information is only useful if the person using it actually comprehends
what they’re reading, seeing, or hearing.
That sounds a bit like I’m making fun of people, but that isn’t my
intention. The point here is that most
people generally believe that we’re more-advanced than any previous generations
in all of history and would cite our advanced technology as one of the proofs
for that belief – and still insist that’s true even while standing in mud above
the tops of their two-hundred dollar trainers! ;^)
Okay, that was totally poking fun at city
folk; but it’s really tough to apologize for that comment while still laughing
at the mental pictures from this afternoon!
This update has gotten off-track; so let’s
get back to the news of the day.
We had a small gang and five car loads in
our group for that trip to the Pumpkin Patch.
The maze, haunted barn, and all of the rest of the entertainment was
great, but it was also the ‘what’ we did; and it was the family and friends
time that we loved the most today. That
fun included a buffet dinner at the Inn after we got home; and then it was time
to do some work or studying once we got home for the night. Dad still had a lot to do, so a time phase
was required to make up for taking too-much of the weekend off for the chores
and play time, but Ehlana and I weren’t allowed to stay with Mom and Dad until
he was done his work – only the equivalent of about three hours of ‘real’
time. After that, we were sent upstairs
for bedtime baths. I opted for a shower;
and now I’m ready to get some sleep.
Next up on the calendar for major Halloween
fun will be the school dance on Friday and the Haunted Halloween Walk on
Saturday, but we’ll have a lot more to keep busy with between now and the
weekend – including getting our costumes ready; so stay tuned for all of the
latest news as we head toward one of our favorite holidays of the year.
That sounds funny to admit after what
happened with Gwyneth last year, and Halloween is a night that Dark Magi really
enjoy, but while some people might suggest that it isn’t a holiday that we should
embrace; I think that we should bring joy, love, and hope to every day of the
year – and that it is totally okay to have fun with our families and friends
every day too.
Is that really any stranger than having
bunnies and eggs at Easter – especially considering the first of the two
reasons for that holiday?
Ethan – out!
***
Ehlana:
Maybe you should just dress up as a bunny
for Halloween, Ethan! ;^)
Then again, I don’t want to see bunnies
becoming the new clowns, but while I’m thinking about that, and for the record;
we know for sure that Dark Magi are not behind the decades-long effort to turn
clowns from fun and entertaining characters into the Halloween-scary entities
that they’ve become now for a lot of people!
I’m multi-tasking this report with my
Jacuzzi time, and want to get back to enjoying the bubbles; so I’ll keep my
part of this update short.
Ethan skipped over Tai Chi for four and
breakfast with Mom and Dad; we had a vid-chat with Cassie and Michael that was
short because of the timing before we had to be at church; and we had a good
morning with the service and Sunday school.
We only had a snack for lunch, since we were going to have snacks at the
Pumpkin Patch and then the buffet dinner; and then we met up with everyone else
going on that outing at Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne’s before heading out of
town. Mom and Dad both drove so that we’d
have the truck with us for bringing back pumpkins for everyone, so Dad had
Uncle Mark, Ethan, Aiden, and Caleb with him; while Mom and Liz had Naomi,
Leah, Hailey, and me with them in the minivan.
I’m not going to cover all of the
activities from our afternoon either, but the highlights included the hay ride
and pumpkin picking; the corn maze, the haunted barn, and the hay bale fort
that even Zack thought was awesome – and he was playing it cool for pretty much
everything else this afternoon while around the other guys.
I’ll only give him points for doing that
during and after his visit to the haunted barn, since he did go with the ‘scary’
version instead of the milder options geared toward kids; and still managed to
come out of the barn looking bored instead of scared – even though it was
totally an act!
Moving along, the dinner at the Inn was
great; we had fun with Mom and Dad while working or studying tonight; and now I’m
ready to get back to focusing on my tub time.
The last bit of information I have to add is about Cassie and
Michael. They had fun with their friends
yesterday; didn’t have any troubles even at the party they went to for Madelana’s
birthday; and they spent a lot of their time today catching up on their weekend
assignments after taking most of yesterday off with only a bit of studying in
the afternoon. They’re having fun and
really enjoying school and married life, so while we miss them a lot; we’re
also really happy for them too.
It still seems like we have a long wait
before they’ll be home for Thanksgiving, but we’ll be busy too; and won’t start
looking ahead to that until after Halloween.
I don’t really want to look beyond my Jacuzzi play time to anything
right now, so I’m going to wrap this up; get back to enjoying the moment; and
then eventually go to bed and get some sleep.
We’ve had another awesome day; the
Halloween fun is going to keep rolling along; and I want to be rested and ready
for all of those adventures.
This is Ehlana Proctor; coming to you live
from what is now my past!
