Happy Multi-Generational Halloween

Punkins!

We took our annual trip to the Kroul Family Farm pumpkin patch today to stock up on seasonal gourd action!

It was a beautiful day... almost too warm for me and Eleanor seemed to have a great time. She really enjoyed walking amongst the pumpkins and also checking out the small "petting zoo" that they have there. She seemed to particularly like a small pony (miniature horse) named SAM and the cows. The little pig and Elk babies she wasn't so sure about.

We came home with a 5 pumpkin haul and will hopefully be posting something about carving a couple of them soon.

Much Too Early

Two nights ago... a friend of mine and player on our City Sluggers softball team passed away while actually playing softball. Many of you know him as he was a 1985 (i believe) City High grad who owned the Heyns Ice Cream store on 1st Avenue in Iowa City. It was some really sad news and came as a complete shock. Paul was a really nice person and always seemed to have a good attitude about everything. The laid back way that he seemed to deal with things always made me a bit envious... it's a personality trait that I wish I showed more of. It seems cheesy and lame to express the same old things that everyone else is saying about him. Mainly what I know is that the world isn't as good a place without him in it. I'm sure things will really begin to settle in next year when he isn't around as the season begins.

His obituary can be found HERE

Times like this always make one reflect about things that they are thinking and doing at whatever point they might be at in their lives. I guess, simply, that's because we're all going to get to this point some day. Hopefully not as early and as tragically as Paul... but it's quite obviously inevitable.

The world is such and interesting and dangerous place right now. There is more apprehension and worry than I can ever remember... and probably more than many people far older than me can remember. People, economic markets, religions, governments, etc... are all in a state of flux, if not upheaval. It's hard not to feel like things are on a very dangerous precipice right now. Things like this, however unrelated, really make you think about all of these things.

I hope that Paul is in a better place and I hope that the ills of the world can slowly begin to right themselves and all of us can feel safer and more kinship to our fellow human beings.

My Daughter is Terrified of Herky!

For true effect, you'll need to blow the above picture up; but it pains me to say that my daughter is terrified of Herky! Eleanor attended her first Iowa Homecoming parade last Friday and it was fantastic. While she's not ready to gather bags full of candy yet (many other kids took care of that) she did enjoy herself for the most part. When it came time for the obligatory Herky photo shoot, however, she because quite terrified. It was sort of disturbing to see. As much as I love Herky, Eleanor finds him quite distasteful. Luckily, she finds tigerhawks and Herky images to be really interesting at home and enjoys pointing at them and saying Herky. That gives me hope for the future. The way that the football team is performing lately, I feel about like she does in this picture myself.

For most of the evening, she was looking around, checking everything out.

She even got to share some of Papa's chocolate chip cookies!

Another frightened shot.

We had makeshift dinners from the Co-Op.