An Elephant and a Chicky

Okay, first of all, it is no longer November 16th, no matter what the date above says. It's more like November 23 or something. I took the pictures almost a month ago, uploaded them last week, and it's taken me this long to post them! Pretty sad.

Anyway, here are the long-awaited photos from Halloween. We went to a ward party that night for dinner, then went group trick-or-treating in the neighborhood around the Bishop's house (which was an awesome neighborhood, by the way). This was the first year that Connor really understood what was going on - particularly since he had all the older kids to watch and follow. He started out running from house to house as fast as he could go, screaming "Trick or Treat!" as loud as he could at the unfortunate residents. We had to keep reminding him to say thank you, and kept having to explain that you can't tell people what kind of candy you wanted, you just had to be happy with what they were offering. (He kept telling people he wanted green lollipops, because they were his favorite.) By the time we got back to where we'd parked the car, he was so tired he was dragging his candy bag behind him. Elise was still too little to really participate, but we carried her and let her sample her brother's loot, so she enjoyed it.

About a week later, we went on our first beach bike ride. The weather was beautiful, which kind of surprised me. The kids did a lot better this time in the trailer, mostly thanks to generous amounts of snacks. We rode north from Dockweiler Beach for about an hour, then turned around and came back. They have a great bike trail here that, as far as I know, connects every beach in the LA area. When we were done, we all played in the ocean and the kids got totally filthy in the sand.

This is Connor after his first night working in the morgue. He actually stole paint out of his (usually locked) bedroom cabinet and painted his arms and leg to make them look like "muscles". I guess he wanted to be like the skinless guys in his anatomy books.

Cowboys, Bees, and Cars

No, this is not a post about Halloween costumes, although that one is coming soon. This is about our exciting Saturday-before-last. Saturday morning we made our first trip to the Autry, a museum dedicated to "western heritage". It sits right next to the LA Zoo, and we've passed it dozens of times, but never went in until now. It was pretty cool, actually. We were able to pan for gold in the courtyard outside (Connor just splashed in the water), and saw a ton of pioneer and cowboy artifacts. I spent alot of time thinking about my grandpa.

After the Autry, I had to go do some church stuff for a couple hours, so Ryan put Elise to sleep and told Connor he could play outside (while Ryan sat in the lawn chair studying his CFA books). Connor, I guess, asked if he could run through the sprinkler, and Ryan told him to just take off all his clothes and go ahead (something we often allow, since our yard is so secluded). Anyway, the poor kid had a yellowjacket land on him, and despite his efforts to "be really still", it stung him. This was his first bee sting, and although he didn't have a life-threatening reaction to it, I came home to a very unhappy, naked little boy wrapped in a towel on my bed. I have to say that Ryan took really good care of him, but the location of the sting was not ideal by any means. For some reason, Ryan saved the offending yellowjacket, whom he executed without trial.

Anyway, as Connor's ibuprofein and benadryl started to take effect, we decided to go ahead with plans to meet some friends out at the Irwindale Speedway for our first NASCAR-style auto races. Connor still wanted to go, despite his injury. I had my doubts about this activity. I'd never been to anything like this, but the idea of watching loud cars drive around a racetrack with two little kids in tow just doesn't sound fun to me. I expected Elise, especially, to last about three minutes. Things didn't look any better when we got there, mainly because Connor's Benadryl had sent him into a state of altered consciousness. He was acting totally weird - alternately crying and laughing and jabbering nonsense words. We got a little worried, but food seemed to snap him out of it.

(Connor on Benadryl)

The first couple of races were okay, (thank you to Rich for loaning us earmuffs for Elise!), but we had just decided to head home when they pulled out their main attraction: Figure Eights. I have found my inner redneck with this sport. It's the coolest, most bloodthirsty car event I've ever heard of. Go ahead and google it if you want, but basically it's a bunch of psychos racing around in a figure eight that intersects in the middle. How do they avoid crashing, you may ask? Well, that's kind of why people watch it. It was getting too late for us to stay very long, but I'd definitely go back. Even Elise loved it - she sat on the bleacher bench and clapped her hands and squealed.