Happy Birthday Abbey

You've come a long way, baby!  We love you!!!

Safety Check

Can you spot the danger in this picture?

If you think you know what it is, please speak up.  Leave a comment with your observed safety infraction.

After 9 days, we still have not received a correct response.  The answer I was looking for was: Puddle of water at home plate.  Sorry, nobody wins the prize.

Things Big and Scary

Halloween may have been weeks ago, but I am going to attempt to re-create the mood today by showcasing some of our 'scary' encounters in nature this fall.  First off, check out this wasp/hornet's nest we came across recently:

That thing is hanging about 15 feet in the air and is just bigger than a basketball.  Yikes!

 This little guy was hiding out next to my neighbor's garbage can the other day.  That is my foot in the bottom-right of the picture.  Just for some perspective, I wear a size 14 shoe and that is one of those big boxes they put apples and such in.

I actually like spiders, and I think it is cool that we live in the far northern edge of a tarantula's range.  They are most active (and likely to be seen) in September/October when the males go all nomadic in search of a mate.  Hey, you can't fault a guy for that - so, we only kept him in the box long enough to take a picture, then set him loose in the foothills above my house.

This below, my friends, is a photograph taken while Emily and I were attending our second annual Bigfoot Show (yes, you read that correctly).  The sculpture behind Emily is allegedly a life-sized creation of a Sasquatch.  I really enjoyed the show, but I remain unconvinced that a large hominid roams the wilderness undetected.  However, I REALLY wished I would have taken a picture of the Bigfoot feces that was on display at the show.  The finder of said feces claims that it was found about 5 miles from my house.   Ooooooohhhh!

Some Stuff We Did This Fall...

We spent a weekend at my buddy's cabin:

We bought bicycles this summer, and have really used them quite a bit:

These probably aren't the best photos of how the bikes were used, but you get the idea.

This is one of our favorite biking trails.  We went up there one day without the bikes, but with a camera:

We went to Lagoon for Frightmares.  This dumb ride is older than I am.  Somewhere, there is a photo of me in that same spot when I was about 4 years old.

Oh, yeah.  We also saw this Bald Eagle (look close).

Fall seems to have gone by really fast this year.  Snow is already starting to fall here.

What My Kids Wore for Halloween 2011

OK.  You've asked, and I am here to please.  Without further ado, I present to you evidence that I am still alive and well in cyberspace and that yet another year of Trick-or-Treating as happened:

Now, let me see if I've got the costumes right.  Mylie was a fairy, Garrett was Mickey Mouse (he wasn't happy about it in this picture, but he grew to love it), and Abbey was a ... prep-school plaid-pink wearing witch, I guess?