October 2009

October flew by quickly again this year – it must be due to having two girls who are keeping us very busy…

Anyway, we started October with a trip to the local orchard to pick apples, and lots of them at that. Both girls decided that they needed to help pull the wagon with the apples (and occasionally a sister) in it.



We also made a trip over to my parents, during the Fairfield County Fair, so we needed the heavier weight jackets, per usual. The girls had a great time playing with some of Mommy’s old toys and visiting relatives (or in the case of AJT07, playing highly competitive games of Connect Four).


The last two Saturdays of October were busy with trick or treating. We first went to the Indianapolis Zoo for Zoo Boo, although the main reason for going was the treats in the Plains area, the girls still enjoyed seeing the animals again. Unlike some other towns, Indianapolis had Trick or Treat night on the October 31st. However prior to the actual Trick or Treating, there was the annual Neighborhood Halloween Parade and Costume Contest. AJT04 did not win anything this year, but AJT07 did – Most Creative in the 0-2 year old category.

AJT04 was a Vaudeville Actress this year – unfortunately, the hat did not stay on all of the time, but she still received treats just the same.
AJT07 was the ever-popular Ohio State cheerleader even though Daddy’s father is a Purdue fan (maybe AJT07 should have been wearing the outfit the weekend of the OSU-Purdue game). I guess that her outfit was more than a little influenced by Mommy.


Since the Halloween events, the biggest challenge has been keeping AJT07 from eating all of her treats. Unfortunately, she has figured out how to open Ziploc bags and how to unwrap candy. Needless to say, her stockpile is now smaller than her sister’s. Oh well, I hope that you had a wonderful Halloween and received many more treats than tricks.

Yooperland

First of all, please forgive me for this post being a bit long – I have to cover a lot of territory here; or I should say that we covered a lot of territory on our trip to Yooperland, a.k.a., the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in mid-September.

We had a great time and had probably the best weather that the Upper Peninsula has seen this year. We had a chance to see Daddy’s aunt and see the farm where Daddy’s father grew up as well as drive around some of the other areas that Daddy was familiar with from his childhood visits. We were surprised to see Daddy’s brother in Houghton as well – it turns out that he decided to see some of the relatives up north and surprise the girls, too. We did luck out with the weather since the temperatures were in the 60’s and 70’s and sunny for the most part.




If you have never been to the UP, it is worth the trip, especially if you like rocks, forests, and water. The girls had a great time seeing the lakes and the rocks, even at Lake of the Clouds, one of the more scenic areas in the Porcupine Mountains, the girls were more fascinated by the rocks we stood on than the view.

Considering that three Great Lakes surround the Upper Peninsula, we saw more than a few lighthouses there and on our way up.



The girls loved seeing the different lighthouses, AJT04 was allowed to climb to the top of two (Seul Choix and Point Iroquois)


while AJT07 started pointing at lighthouses and saying “light houf” (and just pointing at letters in general).



We also stopped at Lego Discovery Center in Chicago and a Jelly Belly facility in Wisconsin on our way up; needless to say both of those places were hits with the girls.


In total, we spent about half the trip in the Keweenaw Peninsula (a.k.a. Copper Country) where we visited various copper towns, like Calumet, and toured the Porcupine Mountains region


and the other half in the Mackinac Straits area -- we stayed in St. Ignace but visited Colonial Michilimackinac State Park (with fort and lighthouse), Whitefish Point Light Station, Tahquamenon Falls, and the Soo Locks (where we saw three different freighters lock through).


The last night in St. Ignace was the big semi-truck parade across the Mackinac Bridge so we saw the big rigs all lit up as they traveled through St. Ignace. The previous day, about 800 tractors had crossed the bridge and then were on display at the local casino, so we stopped to take some pictures of those as well (it was mainly a green gathering, but I did see some AC’s).


During the course of the trip, AJT07 decided that she wanted to say more compound words, so besides lighthouse, she added “water fa” (waterfall – the Upper Peninsula has many), “pay gound” (playground), “water towter” (water tower), “sea gool” (sea gull) to her vocabulary, which still seems to be expanding exponentially. Prior to the trip, AJT04 had asked me to create some fill-in-the-blank questions for her, so she decided to complete those and read (and read some more) during the trip. Fortunately, neither girl was bored, even in the hotel rooms as they would explore the rooms and look forward to seeing what was for breakfast the next morning.

That was our really big trip for this year, we covered many miles, but both girls were troopers and AJT04 has asked us when we will be visiting the U.P. again.