Team Robison

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Campfire at Green Pond

The Friday before Halloween, we went camping without the camping. Since it rained the whole time we were at Yellowstone, we didn't get to do the campfire and s'mores with the kids. Talking to our camping buddies, the Shimaneks, we decided to use our leftover wood from our Yellowstone trip and go somewhere local and just build a campfire for the kids. After talking to Mark's co-worker, we found out that the Green Pond Trail actually has a picnic table and fire ring at the Green Pond. That's when we realized on our last hike, we missed the turnoff to the Green Pond itself. It's probably less than a mile from the parking lot to the pond. The kids were so excited that they ran the whole way, so we got there rather quicker than we expected. The kids had a blast throwing pebbles in the pond, watching Mark build a fire, and of course eating s'mores. We ended the evening with glowsticks and a flashlight-lit hike back to the cars. And to top it off, we almost hit two deer coming down from the mountain, but luckily we didn't. And we were home by 8 and got to sleep in our own beds! Best kind of camping there is.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! This year, Matthew dressed up as Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story (thanks goes out to Aunt Serene for the costume) and Hannah was Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. We took the kids to trunk-or-treat at the church on Tuesday. The kids had fun at some of the party stations inside, but once we got outside, Matthew was intimidated by the dark and by all the people. Hannah was loving trunk-or-treat. She picked up quickly that all she had to do was walk up and people would give her candy for her basket. For Halloween, Aaron and family decided to come to our house since Ayden was dressed up as Woody. We had dinner, and then took the kids trick-or-treating on our street. To cap off the evening, we drove over to Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Pingel's house and visited with them for an hour.

Dorothy

Buzz Lightyear

Ayden and Matthew

Katherine, Matthew, Hannah and Ayden

Hannah and I

Hannah

Joy School Field Trip

For Matthew's little preschool, we took the kids to the Layton Baptist Church for their pumpkin patch fundraiser. The kids got to ride around multiple times in the little riding lawn mower train/tractor ride. Matthew was very unsure about it. He made me hold his hand for the first part of the ride, luckily I convinced him to let go of me. I should have had him share a seat with Hannah. Even though I got a picture of Hannah looking extremely sad, she actually seemed to really enjoy the ride. The kids had lots of fun, and basically no one else was there, so we had the place to ourselves.

Look at that face!

The Joy School kids

Jumping into Fall

I raked the front yard for the first time of the season, and Matthew was super excited. He had been asking for several days, but I wanted to wait until we had enough leaves to make a decent pile. The kids had lots of fun running and jumping in the leaves. What a difference a year makes. Last year, they were much more timid about playing in a pile of leaves. I'm sure they'll have plenty more chances since my neighbor's oak tree had lots of leaves still to fall.

Siblings reunited

After our pumpkin patch adventure, we returned to my house to have a family dinner with Jaclyn! Jaclyn was here with her sister-in-law and her niece. Her niece is thinking of applying to BYU and Jaclyn took them on a tour of campus. It was so fun to have all the siblings together. Jaclyn is definitely my favorite sister.

Youngest to Oldest:

Benjamin, Jaclyn, Me, Jacob and Aaron

The boys

The baby girls

Photobomb by Matthew

Jacob, Violet and Great-Grandma Pingel

Matthew and Hannah with Aunt Jaclyn

The girls

Pumpkin Patch

On the 17th, we decided to take all the kids to a pumpkin patch. We first were going to go to the one we had done the previous weekend. However, since it was free with a canned food donation, the line was extremely long, and hardly moving. Mark had to catch a train to the airport for a quick weekend trip to New Jersey for his grandfather's funeral, so we decided to head down the street to Day Farms and pay some money for our hayride. Our $5 a person got us a much shorter line, a family picture before the tractor started, a pumpkin per person, and at the end they drop you off right near your car. It was lots of fun, and we got some amazing pictures.