Fall Party

We hosted a fall birthday party at our house for my sister in law Bree.

My wife came up with a great them for the party.
"Eating in the field"
Elaine's family ate in the field a lot since Elaine's Dad is a farmer.

Eating in the field meant the family loaded up and took the meal out to the farm fields in the truck.
They would lower the tailgate and had "meals on wheels".
I have eaten a few meals with her family this way when we were dating and my kids had experienced it a few times growing up as well.

Elaine's Dad has since retired from farming and Danny's wife Bree had never "Ate in the field" before.
So we did this night.



Elaine's Mom had a set of Melmac dishes set aside for field meals.
Elaine has inherited those dishes and started a collection of her own dishes as well.

Megan made some owl treats!


The laundry basket hauled all the plates to the fields as well as the table service.

We weren't in a field so we also had a fire for the night's fun.

Hot chocolate heating by the fire.

We were also going to be cooking on the fire tonight.
So the tailgate became the kitchen counter too.

Elaine and Bree making the meal.

We cooked in dutch ovens by the fire.

The rest of the family arrived for the night.

Part of field eating was field hygiene.
Soapy water was brought to the field in a milk jug and poured over your hands while you scrubbed them together.

Nieces.

Waiting for the food to cook with good conversations.
Adam, Megan, Bree and Danny.

Levi, Beth and Elaine.


Supper is ready!
Cornbread, beef stew and baked beans all made on the fire.

Chowing down.

Megan roasting a hot dog.





The ladies solved the worlds problems.

Joel entertained.

The girls threw leaves on the trampoline and had a blast jumping in the leaves.


KG started on desert.

Roasting marshmallows.

Some weren't satisfied with roasting marshmallows so they had to make torches.


The night was going well.
Beautiful weather. Fun visiting with family.

Enjoying the fire.


Then the kids wanted scary stories...

The only scary stories I could think of were to scary for for my nieces and nephew.
They kept on insisting that I tell one and try to scare them.

So Joel came up with the plan of hiding in the woods with his turkey call.
It is very load and screechy. It would be perfect.
The plan was he would send me a text when he was in place behind them and I would tell my story and then text him when he to start wailing.

So I began with Bigfoot sightings in the forest behind our home.
I then moved to the coyotes we had recently seen in our driveway.
The bobcat Levi had spotted in our yard.
I then told them about peacocks, on a farm nearby, that sounded like they were a woman screaming "Help!" when they called out.
I think I few in a few other odds and ends in the conversation.

Then I moved to the thing we had been hearing recently but had no idea what it was.
I told them how it would get close to the house and made an awful noise.

I sent my text to Joel.
He began screeching and shaking a nearby bush violently.

They all jumped out of their skin!

The noise continued intermittently.
A screech. A pause and a bush shaking.
They tried to see who was missing form the group.
So I moved closer to the shaking bush and dared them to investigate with me.
They, wanting to prove they were brave, came with me.

Screech and shaking! Jumps and giggles.

I decided to act like I had been grabbed by the awful creature and dive into the bush.
At the same moment Joel decided to rush out and give one final scare to the kids.

BAM! Head to head collision!

My nose gushed pints of blood and I my teeth wiggled in my head.
The kids were loving it.

Joel panicked and ran for paper towels.
The top of his head had slammed right into the bridge of my nose.
For all the bleeding it didn't hurt that bad.

The kids thought it was great.

I looked up at the crowd.

Whoa! He hit me harder than I thought!

Everyone took turns looking at my face and then quickly turned away.



We went to the emergency room.
I was placed in a room and waited for 5 hours.
Never saw a Doctor and the nurse just wanted my billing information.
At 2 in the morning I watched the doctor Google a diagnosis.
I also watched a guy who came in after me with a broken leg. He complain about not beeing seen after a 4 hour wait.

So I left and Elaine gave them an earful.

My nose was already a little crooked from a break in 8th grade.
After the swelling went down it didn't look near as bad as it did at first but it is more crooked.

Rhinoplasty may be in my future.

(Unaltered picture)

That's what I get for scaring little kids.

Spike and Tyke 3

An easy jump and Tyke opened the cage door.

Lone Ranger

My brother Chad dressed up as the Lone Ranger. 1971

Trick or Treat

The above picture is from 1976.
I am almost certain that this was one of our neighbors, the Bradley's.

Seeing the slide helps me recall the night.
We never got very many trick or treater's at our house.
We weren't mean but we lived in the country and your parents had to drive you from house to house.

When I got my drivers license I got the job of driving my younger siblings for neighbor to neighbor.
My little sister would always worry that she would get a rock in her bag like Charlie Brown did.
She fretted about it so much that I always made sure she did get a rock.
I am bad that way.


This slide is dated 1973.

I assume that is the Bradley's again even though I can't really tell by the faces.
Same number of kids though and the same creepy mask. this time it had crazy hair.

Spike and Tyke 2

"This nail will stop that mean old dogcatcher" Tyke said.

Soccer

Joel is on the right

The above picture was in the paper before the start of my son, Joel, soccer season.

Joel is number 21

The regular season ended last Friday.


The Coach gave Joel the honor of the final prayer to start the game.

The three soccer Seniors.
Collen, Joel and Shane.

This is at the end of the State tournament.
We lost but Joel did score the last goal for his team.

During the game it rained, thundered, lighting, was delayed for lightening for 30 minutes, hailed and rained some more.

We led most of the game but 2 quick goals in the last few minutes were to much for us to come back from.

We lost 3 - 5.

Two weeks off and then basketball starts.


I hope our youngest sons Senior year slows down.

Soccer went way to fast.

Halloween

We had our monthly family meeting and since it was October we decided to make it a costume party.

My brother, Brett, came as a pirate. Not exactly true.
He came as a younger version of himself as a pirate.
As seen Here and Here



Joel as creepy False Face guy.

Dad as Kentucky chain saw massacre guy. Zoom in on his saw.

Megan as a Lawrence Welk singer.
Adam as a newly transformed Dr. Who.

Levi and Beth were an Amish couple.

Mom was a hand walker guy.

Cousin Sherri was a polar bear and Kevin was ....Kevin.

Delaney was a punk pixie.

Paige was the Sun Drop girl. Reference Here. She also did the dance.

Mom as creepy false face.

Tracey went as our family tree.

Elaine was a kitten.
She is playing a game here.
The game was where you had to reach in a bag and identify it's contents.
She is in the bag which contained squirrel guts.

We played other games too.

One game we had to pass a lifesaver type candy from one toothpick to another without using our hands.
It was a relay game.

Brett had trouble finding a partner.

There were other costumes there too but I didn't get any pictures of them.
Kye was Wesley from Princess Bride.
Blake was a Ghost Buster
Lauren was a cat.

I spray painted my hair black and went as 18 year old Brian.
I got so much black on my face that my wife made me change it too 11 year old Brian jumping a burning pile of trash on my bike.

Another fun night with the Butlers.