Corn Maze

I was out of town last weekend, Marie was at a debate tournament, Caitlyn was resting up between shows, and so Russell took Alison, Kristen, and some of his students to the local corn maze. From what I heard, it was a gorgeous day and they all had a good time. Bonus: they picked up our pumpkins, so we didn't have to do that later!

 The farm made a whole bunch of designs out of their pumpkins. This was Alison and Kristen's favorite.

Daddy-Daughter Campout 2015

One of the things Russell did when he was called into the bishopric was re-instate the Daddy Daughter Campout. The girls had enjoyed it when we first moved here, and it had fallen off. This year, however, they complained mightily about it (even though he'd gone through the effort to organize it), mostly because their good friends were out of town and wouldn't be there. As it turned out, Russell, Alison, and Kristen were the only ones to show up from our ward. But, it looks like they had a good time, after all. 

Friday night...

And Saturday morning.

Weird Al

Okay, so we're not huge fans. But we like him well enough. And so when we saw that he was going to be in Wichita, we kind of jumped at the chance to see him. (Well, the extended discussion was that we weren't going on vacation this year at all and maybe we ought to do something special for the kids. Kristen went to the Kratt brothers. We'll take Caitlyn -- and maybe Megan, if she's home  -- to see a musical.) Alison's treat was Weird Al.

Our camera battery died, so all the pictures are courtesy of other people. One of my bosses texted me this, asking if I was there since she saw Russell.

They said he put on a fantastic show, and that they both had a great time. Even though Alison looks a bit nonplussed in this picture.

(Russell stumbled on to a friend, who took this one for us.)

And, of course, they picked up swag.

Camp!

I don't often get camp pictures, but they started a super sekrit Facebook group and they had a fantastic photographer this year, so yay! Camp pictures!

Dinner the first night:

Her group after successfully getting everyone through the spider web (they could only use each hole once):

The men with their skit at camp. President Chandler wrote a song.

The 4th years' camp got flooded out, so they got to stay up at the (air-conditioned) lodge.

Crossing the lake on the way to the naming ceremony. The idea came from Harry Potter. :-)

They were knighted as part of the naming ceremony.

 No idea. You'll have to ask Caitlyn.

The entire camp!

After a skit, maybe?

Being the victims for the first aid part.

Russell Planted a Garden

The way things shook out this year was that we just didn't have a weekend free to put in a garden. Russell was determined, though, and so we did manage to pick up plants and then, on a sunny Monday morning, Russell -- since he was the only one without any obligations -- did the planting.

We've been meaning to raise up and level out the herb garden for a while.

The actual garden got shrunk this year; we just weren't using as much of it and it was just to hard to keep up with the weeding.

So the back third will (eventually) (hopefully) become grass, with maybe an apple tree.

It's nice to have growing things again.

Snow!

Which means we have to document it.

We did get out to go to the pink Palace to see Night at the Museum 3, and afterwards decided to go sledding at the Kansas hill

Everyone got into it:

Except for me. I stood at the bottom and tried not to get hit.

We can now say we've had our fun with winter, and it can go away.

46 is a Good Age

Sunday, Russell announced that his life was half over. The girls were kind of taken aback by this ("What? You're planning on dying at 92?") but Russell's been saying that for years. At some point, it may even be true.

At any rate, he celebrated his birthday yesterday. He got to open his requisite morning present:

I don't know if you can tell, but Kristen was the present. Actually, Alison wrapped Kristen up because Kristen was sad she didn't remember (or have any money left) to get Dad a present. So, she gave herself. It was very cute.

Then he made bi bim bop for dinner (with kim chee!)

We were just glad it wasn't Salsa Surprise.

And opened presents

A Monty Python theme this year.

And then it was time for cake.

I don't know what we'd do if we couldn't do birthday candle math.

I didn't record us singing, but it was gloriously awful.

And we're done for another year! Happy birthday, Russell!