Happy Halloween!

When you hear the familiar sound of people dragging out their winter jackets, hats, mittens, and long underwear - everyone knows what that means - it's Halloween night in Park Rapids! This year was no exception, 50 degrees Oct 30th, 22 degrees Oct 31st. Still, we braved the cold and blowing snow to take the kids trick-or-treating down Main Street. They (well, Brendan at least) had a great time and loved getting candy from the merchants. Though they were wearing layers upon layers under their costumes, they still froze solid and our trick-or-treating was more of a mad dash from store to store. Here are a few pictures from the night...

Halle was a hilarious monkey, complete with a bouncing tail (these pictures are taken at the bank where I work)...


Here she is eating her first sucker; though it looks as though she doesn't like it, she's actually making that face because I told her to "smile" - she LOVED the sucker...Ah man, is it really snowing again? We're gonna freeze out there!
And here is the little Train Engineer/Conductor (his one and only request when I asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween, no thinking, no pausing, just "Momma, I want to be a train conductor")...
A few pictures from home...

Can you tell he's very excited about his candy??? Every morning he looks in the pumpkin and says, "Yep, it's still in there!"

Carving pumpkins

In the true spirit of Halloween, we spent this past Thursday evening carving pumpkins. Daddy did the lion's share of the work, and with the help of the kids (and some carving patterns), created some pretty darn cool jack o'lanterns!

Here Brendan watches Cary clean out one of the pumpkins...



Here are the finished creations...

First, Halle's pumpkin - a kitty!

Brendan decided on a ghost in the graveyard...
While Cary's pumpkin became a spooky gargoyle...Here are all three of the finished jack-o-lanterns...

And, one more picture of the three pumpkins taken with a little bit of light shining on them...

If anybody is wondering where my pumpkin is; I cut into the top of mine and found the inside to be completely moldy. The outside was hard, and there were no visible holes anywhere on the pumpkin, but the inside was completely rotted out, so I was unable to use it. I do have another one, though, and will try and carve it this week!

Halle's Many Grins

Halle's newest thing, when you ask her to smile - she makes this face that looks something between cute and terrifying.

Here she is doing her patented grin...

Here are a couple cute ones - she was feeling pretty goofy wearing her hat inside the house, so she was hamming it up! Isn't she looking so much more like a little girl, rather then a baby, these days?! It's crazy how quickly they grow and change!

And finally, can you see what I mean between cute and terrifying? I'm not sure what she's trying to convey when we ask her to smile and she does this face - I guess it's just one more example of her goofy personality!

Brendan's Big Adventure!

Today, the local Park Rapids Municipal Airport, in conjunction with the FAA, hosted an open house complete with an inflatable "Learning Jet" (in which kids and parents got a brief overview of the instrumentation and varies flying terminology used) and a multitude of airplanes on display. Here Brendan poses in front of one of the float planes we saw...

Here are a couple pictures of Halle taken at the airport - she didn't really understand why we were there, but had fun nonetheless...By far, though, the highlight of the day was when Brendan and Daddy went on an actual airplane ride!! Yep, that's right - Brendan's first flight! He was absolutely beside himself with excitement! Here they are waiting to get into the plane that was to take them up....

He's in and buckled and it's almost time for takeoff!
Daddy's getting situated in the front seat next to the pilot. Check out Brendan's little head in the back window...
There they go! They taxied down the run way for quite a distance..until finally... Brendan was officially airborne for the first time!!

The flight and landing were successful & Brendan had a wonderful time. This picture was taken right after they landed - he was running over to share his excitement!

WHAT A DAY!

Down on the farm...

It's harvest time on the Finley Farm and Brendan was lucky enough to spend last week Tuesday-Sunday with Grandpa David and Grandma Connie on the farm - fully experiencing everything farm life has to offer! Thank you, Grandma Connie and Kahri, for meeting us in Fargo to get the eager little farmer (Brendan, of course!) - he had an awesome time!

Halle & I went down - over the past weekend - to pick Brendan up, as well as share in the harvest experience (once a farm-girl, always a farm-girl; I LOVE harvest time!), Cary wasn't able to come with us as he had to study hard for his CPA exam (he took the first part of the 4-part-test on 10-4 - we are still waiting on the results!).

First, a picture of the awesome new 30th Anniversary gift we gave our parents (their anniversary was August 28th, and Colin and Kahri ordered the "Finley" log, then worked very hard to create a unique and attractive "display area" for the log - thanks for all the hard work and designing guys, it looks awesome!), mom is planning on planting flowers and shrubs next year which will look great!

Next, a picture of the combine, with the ENORMOUS all-crop head on; currently they are harvesting soybeans, and Colin was driving into the yard to prepare to move to another field...

Part of the 'move' prep, in this case - because the field was quite far away, and access to it was reached by going down a highway - included putting the head on a 'header trailer' to be pulled behind a pickup (which I drove), while Colin drove the combine, Erica drove the fuel pickup, Doug drove the tractor and grain cart, and Dad & Brendan brought one of the semis (while Mom stayed home with the sleeping Halle).

Here Colin sets the head on the header trailer...
It's set - and the combine is ready to drive down the highway...
Look how big it is! The pickup is a full-sized 4-door, and it's dwarfed by the 35 foot head...

One of Brendan's favorite parts of harvest is riding in one of Grandpa David's semis...


Here we are at the elevator, waiting for our turn to dump our beans...

A few candids..

First, Brendan's first day of Sunday school - parents were invited to attend the first day to observe and allow the kids to get comfortable...Brendan was comfortable immediately and has loved going since that first day (he's in the white shirt watching the director of Sunday School sing a song)!


The goofy girl being silly...(check out those baby blues!)
Fall is in the air - these pics were taken on a rather chilly day, hats and mittens required...