Thanksgiving

Lets give some thanks! With all three of us having a few days off for Thanksgiving, we headed down to South Bend to spend some time with family. As an added bonus, Lissa joined us for the weekend.

Diana was pretty pleased, all she wanted for Thanksgiving was a good ol' fashioned traditional meal with turkey and all the fixin's. David and Mom accommodated and we had a delicious meal with the whole family! The whole visit was nice and lazy, which is exactly what we needed!

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Skyzoned Out

Diana had Saturday plans to do something with Lissa and Miranda, that meant Ledger and I had an evening to ourselves. What should we do? Ledge has been wanting to go back to Skyzone for a very long time (we haven't been there since the pandemic), so this was the perfect opportunity! When I suggested it he was pretty pumped, so off we went for our first visit in over three years.

When we walked in the place was a lot different than the last time we were there! They had taken out a third of the activities and put in some cool slides. Ledge was pumped! He went down each of them a few times and had fun zooming around. Then we made our way over to the trampolines and other stuff. He bounced around for a while and had fun, but he kept bonking his legs and body on some of the different stuff. He was a bit discouraged because of all the bumps and bruises he was accumulating. He played for a bit longer, going down the slides again, but was soon ready to go home.

On the way home we stopped at Burger King to nurse his wounds and fill our bellies. Overall, it was a fun time, but he wasn't a big fan of all the battle damage he took!

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Halloween Bean

The day is finally upon us! Ledge has had his costume for a couple weeks now, trying it on and wandering around the house a few times since then. But now it finally time to wear it outside and show it off!

He's never been obsessed with getting candy, he is more interested in wearing his costume and showing it off. Well, we thought of a great way for him to do just that! Diana and I had stocked up on candy to give out, so we set up a couple chairs at the end of the driveway (so kids wouldn't have to walk all the way up to the door and have our dog bark at them). Ledger then spend the first hour of the night dancing in the street to welcome the trick-r-treaters over! He was having a blast and so many people were loving it- joining in and laughing at the dancing orange character!

Finally, all of our candy was gone, so we went in for a couple minutes to warm up and change out the batteries in his costume. We bundled back up and headed out around the block to do some good ol fashion door to door trick-r-treating! As expected, it was a bit hard for Ledge to get around because the legs on his costume were so short, he had to slowly shuffle down the street...

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Carve 'Em Up

Well, we've got the pumpkins, now it's time to carve them up! When we got back from Gene's we unloaded the car and soon got to work making our jack-o-lanterns. Usually, the cutting and cleaning out of the pumpkin falls on me. Ledge doesn't like getting all icky from the pumpkin guts, but this time he was a little more willing to give it a go. He's getting big enough to carve them himself, so he took the knife and dug right in! Granted, after the first one he had enough, so I was in charge of cleaning out the second one.  After they were emptied, Ledger grabbed a marker and got to work making a couple of great faces. He's always been quite skilled in making expressive faces, so that part is right up his alley!

He drew them on and carved the faces out. I did a little clean up on some of the lines so the light would shine through just right, and then we put the light in them and brought them out to the front porch to admire our work. They look great!

Now we are all set for Halloween!
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Pumpkin Time!

With our Halloween decor up and the season changing, it's time for one of our favorite annual traditions: going to Gene the Pumpkin Man to get our pumpkins! Each year we make the trek over to Gene to get a couple pumpkins to carve and put out on the front porch. Many years ago, a friend I worked with suggested that place when we first moved to Allegan. He said that he and his family have been going there for decades. The first year we went we thought it was so cool, and now we've been going for years as well!

This year it was unseasonably warm for the middle of October, but at least it wasn't raining! We arrived and went to the fence to say hi to the cows, which seemed to take a special interest in Ledger this year, even getting close enough to let him pet them! Next, we grabbed a wagon and began the search for two perfect pumpkins. We wandered around and it didn't take long for Ledge to find a couple good looking gourds that he wanted to carve. Gene the Pumpkin Man is still kickin, so Ledger went over and chatted with him for a few minutes. His hearing isn't what it used to be, so it ended up being Ledger repeating himself over and over again, louder each time! Having made the full circuit around the place, we bought our pumpkins, thanked Gene, and headed home, pleased to have visited once again.

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Tigers Homecoming

We are, by no means, sports people. On a whim though, Diana decided she wanted to go to the high school football game! It was homecoming night at Allegan High School, and I think Diana was nostalgic for her high school time, so we all quickly got ready and headed to the game. She had been a little disappointed that she missed the Code Orange game, so we tried again.

We stocked up on concessions candy and hot dogs and found a seat on the bleachers. After gobbling up his food, Ledge ran off to play with a friend (there were people he knew this time, so he was having a great time!). Diana and I snuggled up and watched the game for a bit. There was a fun musical half time show from the marching band, but once the game started up again we were kind of over it. Ledger's friends eventually disbanded, so we gathered him back up and called it a night. It was pretty fun to participate in the stereotypical 'small town' event, but maybe next time we will do something non-sports related...

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Code: Orange

Our lovely little town has a special event every year called Code Orange. Every year they print out thousands of shirts for sale and the profit goes to the local school education program. They have a special Code Orange day with different events, including the high school football game. All three of us got shirts this year, so we obviously had to go to the football game! We haven't been to a game in several years, due mostly to the fact that we don't care at all about sports of any kind... 

When it was time for the game, Diana wasn't feeling so well, but Ledger really wanted to go because he thought there might be some friends from school there. When we got there we first stopped at the concession stand (of course). After chowing down on a hot dog, Ledger went off looking for friends. About 10 minutes later he came back disappointed because he couldn't find anyone from school. It was a bit cold and neither of us really wanted to watch the game, so we hung out for about 15 minutes more and then headed home.