Fall Festivals

The weather certainly doesn't feel like it but the calendar tells us it's fall which means it's festival time. The kids just love them and keep begging to go to more. This past Wednesday evening we went to one in Windermere at the Harvest Bible Chapel Orlando (otherwise known as a church...the name of it is sort of odd). It turned out to be a little more of an adventure than I had hoped.

To back up a little, I had the day leading up to that all to myself. Have I mentioned how wonderful my in-laws are? In my last post I talked about having a day at home sans kids and without even reading my blog (they hadn't read it yet), they told me they wanted to take the kids for a day. That hadn't been my intention at all with what I wrote but how could I refuse?! It was most welcome. They came and picked the kids all up a little after 10:00 am and then I was home alone in the eery silence. It was so great. I was able to clean out and rearrange my closet, stuff about five bags of clothes and boxes of toys and books for Goodwill, and get out and start washing Colby's 3T shirts and 2T pants (he's moving up a size). Sounds like an exciting day, huh? It actually was for me. I had my Dr. Laura podcasts playing and it was perfect. The only snafu came at 12:27 when the gatehouse called and said that so and so, the appraiser, was there and should I let him in? He wasn't due to the house until 1:00 but I thought maybe he was there early to look around the neighborhood. Nevertheless, I ran around like a mad woman, getting dressed, brushing my teeth, and combing my hair in three minutes flat. Sure enough, at 12:30 he rings the doorbell. Who does that??!! You don't come to someone's house at 12:30 when you have a 1:00 appointment. His excuse was that "I'm trying to beat the rain." There was only a 30% chance of rain and I don't think it actually ever did. So annoying! But what can you do? We are refinancing our house and he was there to appraise it so of course, I couldn't be rude (not that I would have been anyway).

Ron and Elaine got back with the kids and Duncan got home early from work so off we went to Windermere. My favorite festivals are ones where everything is free and you don't have to buy a $10 wristband or something like that to use the bouncy houses (because 4 x $10 isn't happening). Fortunately I don't think the people of Windermere are hurting for cash so it was indeed all free. They had food trucks (you did have to pay for that), Trunk or Treat, games, a train ride, and about 10 bouncy houses. Since I didn't want to push around a stroller with my stuff, I wore a little backpack to keep a diaper, drinks, and my phone. I had thrown on a dress hurriedly when the aforementioned "gentleman" had stopped by and hadn't changed into something else when I had more time. Costly.

Looking for the one with the "X" on the bottom.

This game was Calleigh's best - - knocking down these characters with a beanbag.

Brady threw a football successfully into the hole so he was quite pleased with himself.

Trying to throw a ring on these bottles. It was VERY hard.

Train ride.

Isn't this pizza food truck really cool with the glass wall?

The festival ended at 8:00 and we all walked through a little maze inflattable right before heading to the car. I put Colby in his carseat, got in the front, and reached into my backpack to get out my phone. Except...it wasn't there. It was a pretty small backpack so it was pretty obvious it wasn't in there. I looked around Colby's carseat, nothing. Major panic!! That's a really crummy feeling. I figured that I must have bent down to maybe put Colby's shoes on or something and it slid out. Duncan haphazardly parked the car a few feet from where we pulled out and set off to go look for it. First, he tried to call it and it went right to voicemail which was very odd because I knew I had charged it before we left the house. Unfortunately you can't use "Find My Phone" when the phone is off so that feature was no help. I at least knew that whoever had it couldn't get into the phone since I do have a passcode on it. While Duncan was gone, both the girls started crying, especially Aubree who was practically hysterical. In a way, I guess it helped me since I had to keep reassuring them that it was just a phone and it wasn't like one of them was lost. I kept telling Aubree it was going to be okay and it wasn't that big of a deal but then she finally says "But you said it was a nightmare!!" Apparently I must have used those words when I realized it was gone. Oops!

Duncan came back - - empty handed - - about 15 minutes later. He had searched the ground everywhere with no luck. There was a cop standing right near the car and Duncan told him what happened and he was confident that it would be found and to just give Duncan his name and number and he'd call him when it was. In the meantime, I remembered that I had looked at the phone to see the time right before we left because I had thought about how they were letting us into the maze even though it was after 8:00. I must have lost it right at the end of the night. I told Duncan to go and check one more time and find someone in charge of the whole event to see if it had been turned in. We also discussed how it was odd that the phone was off. Duncan theorized that the person might be up to something nefarious because they were smart enough to turn it off thus prohibiting us from using "Find My Phone." Once again, he came back empty handed and we had no choice but to just leave. Duncan had me drive because he wanted to see if he could come up with a way to outsmart the potential perpetrator. Meanwhile, the kids had to go to the bathroom so we stopped at a Walgreens nearby and I took them in. When we got back to the car, I told Duncan that the thing that really stunk was that I was out of iCloud space and my phone hadn't been backed up in like 50 days so I was going to lose all of that stuff. Duncan was now in the driver's seat and started driving - - back to the church. Someone had found it! Duncan was able to send a message to my phone so that if it was turned on, a message would show that would say "This phone is lost. Please call (Duncan's number)." That is just what someone did. We went back and I went to the main stage and one of the organizer's handed it to me and said that when it was given to her, it had been turned off so she turned it back on and saw the message. How it was off, I have no idea. But no matter. I had my phone back!! All was right with the world again. And note to self...wear something with a pocket next time.

The kids took their candy into this tent in the girls' room to organize. The next morning, I couldn't find Colby anywhere and it was very quiet. This is where we eventually found him. He had helped himself to a lollipop!

Going to this festival worked out really well because we needed to bring a bag of candy to the our church's fall festival last night. The kids got a ton of candy and I told them they could pick out a few pieces and then I was taking the rest to our church as our bag of candy. But not to worry, they would get more there. So yes, last night we were at our church. We had a nice vespers service, roasted hot dogs, played some games, and went on a hayride (which was pulled by a Grand Marquis of all things!). They handed out paper bags of candy to the each of the kids. Apparently Calleigh didn't open hers until she got in the van as we drove home. A minute later, she starts yelling that all of her candy is chocolate and "I can't BELIEVE that I gave away all the Laffy Taffy and Skittles and all my other good stuff that I had to get all this CHOCOLATE!!" Her whole bag somehow ended up being chocolate candy of which she is clearly not fond. Thus followed all the tears and then when I told her I didn't know if we were going to anymore festivals, she cried even harder. Fortunately we discovered that Brady had a lot of non-chocolate in his bag and since he loves his chocolate, trades could be worked out. Phew. Crisis averted!

Vespers. It may not look like it but there were several hundred people in attendance.

We were some of the early arrivals. Hence the sparse crowd around us.

Look who got to stay up past her bedtime!

The boys waiting to try their hand at putt putt.

Last Sunday I made my bike riding debut - - at least, as far as riding my own bike goes. Ron and Elaine went to watch the girls at soccer in the morning and then they came over here so that we could all go on a ride along the trail. Our intention was to stop somewhere along the way for brunch. I have never ridden the trail from our house so that was a brand new experience. I will say that the way there was much better than the way back. We rode into downtown (about five miles, I think), eventually finding a place to eat. When we got back on the bikes to come home, I quickly discovered that my backside was in a bad way. The seat on my bike was far more uncomfortable than the seat on my rental a few months ago. I had to ride kind of in a side saddle position all the way back. Not good! The girls were also pretty tired from the soccer so they weren't as peppy as they usually were. I think we were all glad we hadn't gone any farther. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to more rides but hopefully with a new and improved seat!

Found a turtle on the trail.

Everyone was really wiped when we got home. Aubree took a nap for, at least, several hours, here on the couch.

I can't think of much else that was exciting over the last week so I'm just going to end with a few more pictures.

Duncan took the boys on a ride last Sabbath afternoon while...

....I took the girls to the church for drama club practice. They will be performing at all three services on Thanksgiving Sabbath (11/21).

Brady showing a book to Colby in Brady's Sabbath School class.

Goofing off in the back yard. Colby has a binky in because I found him flat on his back on the kitchen floor, crying. He had tried to get himself water from the dispenser on the fridge but had spilled it all and then slipped in it.

Finished a whale puzzle.

I babysat London last Saturday night while the rest of the family went to a party.

Out with Daddy on Sabbath afternoon while Mommy may or may not have been napping.

I wish every yard sale had this sign.

Found these awesome old fashioned dresses at a yard sale for $1 each. I need to get Aubree an "Anne of Green Gables" wig to go with her puffed sleeve dress (Anne always dreamed of wearing a dress with puffed sleeves).