TallyHO! It's a Pumpkin Patchin' we GO!

But FIRST--here is the latest update in Laura's night terrors!

A few mornings ago I got up and I was getting out of bed when Laura suddenly snapped out of her slumber and warned--"Uh...you might not be able to get out that way."  Surprised and quite sure that I would be able to, I said "I know it's a tight squeeze, but I'll manage".  

What I didn't realize was that in an effort to protect us from the charging snakes, squirrels, and ticks while we were sleeping, Laura had ingeniously erected some defenses.  The cushion from the chair near the bed was now blocking off all possible entrance to my side of the bed!  

This is the trip we took to the Pumpkin patch on Sunday.  It was a cloudy and rainy fall day and we decided that it was the perfect day to get some pumpkins to carve up.  We got three, one to carve that day and 2 to carve at Burke's house on Friday.  'Twill be fun.

Here is Laura eating (but not thoroughly enjoying) the lentil soup that we made after pumpkin patching.  She is quite the food snob and said of my cooking "it is just too bland" (by the way I made curry for her tonight and I got the same complaint).  I think she's just got a cold.

Frolicking in the Fall

We took a hike in Vail last Saturday.  it was pretty spectac.  I love to see the golden trails of Aspens cascading down the mountainside.  The weather on this particular adventure was perfect--about 60 degrees and sunny enough with some intermittent cloud cover.

Laura and I went with Burke, Tiffany, and Burke's sister, Ana (and of course Guapa, and Burke's two dogs).  

The hike we estimate at around 6 to 12 miles total.

Burke and I decided to go a little farther than the rest of the group and we parted ways after about 3-4 miles.  We headed straight up a mountain in search of Gore Lake.  The gals decided that they had gone far enough when we reached two graves with rocks piled over the bodies.  Alas, these were not wayward hikers, it seemed that they lived in this valley and died just before WWI.  

Burke and I continued to climb and ascended 600 vertical feet in about half a mile (15 minutes).  We were both drenched with sweat when we arrived at the lake after another hour of hiking.  

This is a picture that we took just before parting ways with the girls.  All the kids at school think this is how we spend every weekend!

Well, we made it up to the lake and did some fly fishing.

We saw a lot of huge (I'm talking probably 18 inches) Brown Trout but we coudn't get them to bite.  Maybe we were using the wrong bait!  Or it could have been my spastic casting; whenever a fish was near my fly--I tended to jerk the fly out of the water and launch it as fast as I could back at the fish in a dive bombing fashion.  Those fish probably were wondering if it was the apocalypse with all of the thrashing of the water I was doing.  We'll go with WRONG BAIT.

Nonetheless it was a beautiful day and wonderful hike.  Burke and I had to run the 6 miles to the car through forests and boulder fields in order to make it on time.  We went old school--I'm talking Pre Cell Phones-- and decided on a time to meet up (because we had both left our phones in the car!).  Since we were going to be late we had to jog most of it.  The dogs loved it but our feet hated it.  Burke ended up limping all week long.