Fall

We're so happy it's fall!  McKinley & I are five weeks into her first grade year, and so far I'm loving the pace of her My Father's World curriculum (Learning God's Story).  She's memorizing a Proverb each week and has started to make a timeline of the Bible.  And every fifth day we take a break from normal school activities to get outside & explore God's Creation, do science experiments, and play with pattern blocks & other math games.  
Last weekend we went to Champoeg Park for their Apple Harvest Festival.  It was like stepping into a Little House on the Prairie book.  The girls got to make toys and play games that children in the 1800's enjoyed.  We also saw an old apple cider press in action and tasted its fresh cider.
This morning we drove out to St. Paul to pick out some pumpkins.  Bruce's neighbor grows monster pumpkins and sells smaller pumpkins and has always been very generous in letting us take pictures and pumpkins with no charge.

The yellow tanker desk in the background was my birthday present.  We bought it from Portland State University for dirt cheap.

Although these pictures were taken in late September after church, the temperature felt more like a spring day.

At Champoeg Park playing apple grab during the Harvest Festival.

One of the many large pumpkins Bruce's neighbor has grown.

We made a morning out of it, beginning with donuts and coffee for breakfast at Fred Myer's.

Although it was a bit windy, we beat the rain and even saw a beautiful rainbow while driving to St. Paul.  You can kind of see it fading in the background.

We grabbed a bunch of small ones and decided that we would paint faces on them instead of carving them.