A Fond Farewell

We wanted to bid farewell to this PERFECT summer with great fanfare, so we crammed a ton of stuff into the last weekend of September!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

In the morning, we hit up Touch-A Truck at the Oakton Community Center!

Recycling truck! GO GREEN! (And leave the driving to us!)

Don't know what the hell this thing did, but it had like six arms and each one had a bunch of different attachments...looked like some kind of spidery, low-riding, street sweeper!

Ayize had a great time in the cab of this cherry-picker!

Brady atop the big tractor!

Driving the big crane! The line for this thing was long, but it was well worth the wait.

Ayize REALLY wanted to climb into the claw of the crane! Ummm, I think it was kinda off limits, but...shhhhh...!

What can I say?? The kid likes riding in paddy wagons. We spent almost half an hour exploring every corner of this thing. He was especially interested in the pull-down restraint bar, which made the inside of the PW look like a twisted roller coaster ride.

Future park ranger! Tamara and Brianna were his passengers for this wild ride, so much fun!

After leaving Touch A Truck, we headed straight to Lincolnwood School for their annual fall fest. There were pony rides...

...and a fantastic, bouncy caterpillar with clear plastic windows so you could see its insides.

Ayize, Kai, Madison and Sophie eagerly awaited their turn to be eaten up...

...and, after making their way through Maggie's snakelike innards, which included bouncy slides, inflatable obstacles, and all sorts of other fun stuff...

...they had to unceremoniously exit through the "tail" end of her caterpillar GI tract. Nice touch!

Bouncies just never get old for this kid! Especially not ones that look like FIRE TRUCKS!

It was a long, difficult trek up, but the bouncy, bumpy, head-over-heels slides dow made it all worth it.

Unbelievably, Ayize, Kai and Kayla STILL had energy to spare, so we hit the awesome school playground to burn some off. I could barely believe that Little Dude was climbing up the biggest slide and racing around like his pants were on fire after our very busy morning!

Home, and Ayize went down for a nap, but not for long! As soon as he got up, we took some late lunch to go and headed to Wagner Farm for the Harvest Bonfire Festival. Ash and Luke arrived at the same time, and the boys loved the first thing we did -- the tractor-drawn hayride. (No surprise there!)

Ayize was enjoying his visit with Madison the calf, who he's super attached to (we first met her when she was just a few days old!) and always tries to kiss, but a toss of her mom's head sent straw flying, mostly into his mane, and he dashed away, quite disgruntled. I could not stop laughing, though I tried my best to hide it.

We got our s'mores fixins and made some delicious desserts over the bonfires. SOOOOOOO TASTY! My marshmallows only caught on fire once!

I snapped this family portrait of Ash, Luke, Baby Harris (in da belly), and Ashley's mom, and I was very pleased with the results, despite the fact that Lukey's hair was apparently on fire.

Man, that thing was roaring and SO HOT. Even from super far away, you could feel the immense heat! And it was soooo beautiful!

Ayize found himself a good hay bale and kicked back to munch on blueberries and listen to the storyteller's spooky tales.

Ran into Keenan, Rebekah, the girls, Rebekah's sister, and brand-spankin-new baby boy Gavyn! I was asked to hold him for a sec while Mom adjusted her nursing cover-up...you didn't have to ask ME twice! Congrats, sistah, on your beautiful boy!!!

It never fails to amaze me how little kids at the farm can be surrounded by huge draft horses and goats and cock-a-doodling roosters and piglets and whatever else, and yet, the sight of a barn cat sends them running with glee in droves, as if Elvis has just been sighted!

The sun was setting behind the cornfield and it was an absolutely stunning sight.

We headed back to where the animals were for a second attempt at seeing Miss Madison, and I caught this sunset moment just before the tractor revved up to pull another round of hay-ride revelers.

Hooray! Ayize didn't get his kiss, but he didn't get a head full of hay hair either! And he shouted "bah-bye" and waved and blew a kiss at Madison as we walked away, so I guess all was forgiven.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

We woke up to a morning that could not have been more beautiful. It was warm out, almost hot, and the water temps felt the same, or slightly warmer, than the air! Ayize and I had the best beach day ever, cuz we knew it would probably be our last of the season. He made elaborate sand tracks for all his trains and I lay in the sun and watched him and CHILLED.

The weather was so gorgeous and the water was clear as glass!

We collected big rocks and made sand castles with giant rock toppings using our old cake mold! A lady walked over to admire them and we got to chattin. Turns out she was visiting her son from her hometown of SoCal (her heavy coat and occasional shivers were dead giveaways; I told her, "Lady, this weather is just about tropical by local standards!"), and he plays for the NU football team. He had made a touchdown in yesterday's game, and she was so proud and happy! Hooray!!

After a short nap, we headed out to meet Jeff, Nyika, Talya, Kai and Kayla at the St. Peter Oktoberfest carnival in Skokie. The kids kicked things off in this balloon ride, and the way they all three are sitting in the picture with their arms slung casually over the back of the ride seats...yeah, they did this the ENTIRE time. All the other kids were hollering and having a good time as the balloons dipped up and down and flew round and round, but this one was apparently The Cold Chillin Car.

Kai caught Ayize with the BOOM stick! He was pretty upset about it, as you can see.

"Mama, please, PLEEEEASE Mama, I need to get on this ride, like, RIGHT...NOWWW......!"

Ayize and Kayla manned Voltron.

Jeff helped Ayize do some serious super soaking.

Ayize got REALLY into the pluck-a-duck game and started seriously waltzing along the wall with the ducks, serenading them! Not sure what that was about...

CRAZY for giant slides!

The spinning, flying tea cup ride. No puking, thankfully!

Oh goodness, not sure WHAT to say about this live band... Even the kids were kind of stunned into silence.

After the carnival, Jeff and I stopped to fortify ourselves with caffeine. Ayize burned his way through a bunch of food at the cafe, too, and then we headed off to a park we had passed nearby. It was as fun as it looked!

We ended the weekend with Pita Inn for dinner.

Hard to believe that summer is actually coming to a close. I'd love to whine about the coming cold weather but, honestly, we were blessed with THEE most beautiful, fun-filled, perfect, fantasy summer imaginable, so we'll just say...so long, and thanks for all the fish!