autumn fun

While we were in Minnesota for Thanksgiving, black Friday and my 10 year class reunion, Dennis enjoyed helping Grandma and Grandpa clean up their yard full of leaves. Just in time for the snow that came today.


He was a great help at packing the leaves in. He showed me how to do it... putting all of your weight on your knees into the bag... but when it got too full that he couldn't reach with his knees, he just climbed up and jumped. Such a great helper. He is really good with a rake.

my tough mudder

At the beginning of November, Ryan, my tough mudder, and a couple of his friends had the crazy idea of doing a tough mudder. So, we went to Indiana and stayed at a friends house and had a great time. Good thing I am pregnant so I got to do babysitting duty since some of the wives joined in on the team. I probably would have been peer pressured into doing it as well so I found it especially wonderful spending the day in a warm house with happy kids.
It was about 42 degrees when the tough mudders began the race at 9:00 am and tickets to watch were $20... there wasn't anyone to take pictures of the actual race and the racers could hardly think because they were too cold to stand in a picture. So, the only documentation I have of them is this shot of them in the hot tub afterwards with their numbers still on their foreheads.

Watch this video if you are unsure what a tough mudder is.... and yes, you will see how crazy it is.... then imagine it being 40 degrees outside as you jump into ice water.

You are crazy enough to want more information, here is the link:

http://toughmudder.com/

I am sure proud of my tough mudder and hope he never makes me do it. At least not in November. :)

the actual halloween and pumpkin carving

beautiful numbers

My good friend, Allison, came to visit. We had a blast going to a math teacher's conference where we learned about beautiful numbers.... and some good tips for teaching better.
Of course, we had Ted Drewes
And we went to the zoo.
Funny thing is... Dennis's absolute favorite thing at the zoo is the train.

It was super nice to see Allison again. Even though we only see each other once a year and for only about 2 hours, it seems as though we see each other often. I love that girl.

carving pumpkins pictures

trunk or treat

When I asked Dennis what he wanted to be for Halloween a couple of months ago, he told me that he wanted to be a Jesus robot. After asking him many times what a Jesus robot was, we found that it was green, had hands and feet, and wheels. Then one day we went to Walgreens and passed some scary Halloween decorations and costumes. Dennis asked what it was and I said that some people liked to dress up scary on Halloween and get scared. From that moment on, whenever asked what he wanted to be for Halloween he would say that he just wanted to be a boy. Boy scout? no. farmer? no. Train driver? no. Pilot? no. Just a boy. Then I asked him what his boy was doing and he said that he was digging holes. So, I asked him if he wanted to be a digger. And he said yes! After a couple of weeks that turned into a front loader... All he had to do was tell Grandma and she was on it!

Didn't it turn out awesome?!






He was a happy little digger boy. Most trunks gave him extra candy because he had such an awesome costume.

visiting daddy

Ryan went to Rochester, Minnesota for an away rotation 3 weeks ago and will be coming home in a week. It sure has been weird not having him around. We sure miss him. One time when Dennis hit his head and was crying pretty hard for a while, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "I need to call daddy." After the first week, Dennis was having a really rough morning and crying about everything that he possibly could. Finally when he calmed down he said, "What makes me really sad is that daddy left me and you and Bruno and Buster." The next morning he said, "Hey, Where is that suitcase? The one that was right here?" Me: "Daddy took it with him to Minnesota." Dennis:"I want to call daddy." On the phone with Ryan Dennis said: "Bring that suitcase back."

We decided that a trip would be good for all of us. So we met in Waterloo, Iowa and had a blast! Dennis was so excited to see his daddy that he didn't even fall asleep in the 6 hour car ride. When we got to the hotel room, Dennis turned the heat on, changed the time on the clock, turned on the lights and called someone on the phone before I even sat down. Then he jumped on his bed until we heard a knock on the door! ...and it was daddy!

We played games, swam in the pool, went to a science observatory and really enjoyed being together.




Dennis didn't like his hair standing on end.

Dennis LOVED the circuit board. He had it all figured out.
It was sure good to see Ryan again, and it was sure hard to leave him again. Luckily, we only have one week left.

This past week Dennis has continued to talk about daddy. We went to the zoo and had a brief encounter with another family and as we were walking away Dennis said, "MY daddy is out of town." And, when Grandma and Grandpa rang the doorbell Dennis ran to the door yelling, "daddy, daddy!" Luckily he was excited to see his grandparents too and it wasn't just the mailman.