Pumpkin Patch

Today we got up and headed off to the pumpkin patch. Since it was forcasted to be a sunny day, I wanted to get there as early as we could to take advantage of the morning light. It was worth getting our butts out of bed. Nobody was out there, and there was even a little lingering fog. It was great. However, it was super cold, and pretty muddy. Some of the pumpkins still had frost on them! Early on I stopped trying to keep the kids out of the mud and just let them enjoy themselves. We even drug along the kids' babysitter, Krista, and her two girls Kylie and Quince.

Brown Eyes + Blue Eyes = Green Eyes

I always just assumed that if one parent had brown eyes and the other had blue, then the offspring would either have brown or blue eyes. Not so in the Ackley family. Both Bella and Rowan have green eyes (although you can't tell in this picture of all of us because we couldn't get Rowan to look at the camera). Kind of interesting, I think.

Will this work?

I have been trying to post pictures on here, and so far have been unsuccessful. It's anything that I have shot in RAW then converted to Jpeg that won't post for some reason.

Here is my coffee cup from this morning. We'll see if this works.

Anonymous Gifts and Rhododendrons

You know what is odd? Someone anonymous leaves gifts on my porch. The first time it happened was while I was at my dad's funeral. I came home to find two beautiful wooden planter boxes, placed neatly on either side of the porch, filled with flowers. I couldn't figure out who could have done it, because everyone I was close to or who cared enough about me to do such a thing was at the service with me.

Then it happened again tonight. Dale and I decided to take advantage of the good weather and after dinner went outside to pull weeds. On the porch were the cutest little knitted pumpkin hats for the kids. I am touched by the thoughtfulness and kindness and want to express my gratitude...Who are you Anonymous Gift Giver?

So while we were out pulling weeds I got a chuckle while thinking about Story #2:
When Dale and I bought our house in 2003 we had our work cut out for us, yard-wise. We have an acre, and the original owners were rhododendron lovers. Fanatics. Freaks. They planted them everywhere. Most of them, I'm sure, were planted when the house was built in 1951. The many years weren't good to them, either. They had been neglected and were way overgrown.

It would not have mattered, though, if they were in pristine condition, because Dale and I hate them. I hear you Rhodie lovers unite in a collective gasp over our distaste over our state flower and we don't care. We decided they must go!

Now, we could have carefully dug them up and given them away where they would have been loved and nurtured and tended to, but we didn't. Instead Dale took a chainsaw, mowed them all down, and then one by one hooked a chain around the roots and yarded out the stumps with our Jeep. While he was digging out one of the stumps with a shovel out front, our neighbor walked over. "You don't like rhodies, huh?" he asked Dale. Dale was like, "No, we hate 'em." Then our neighbor proceeded to tell Dale that back in the day, our yard was featured in Sunset magazine for the award-winning rhododendrons.

Oops.

I would love to see that article, though.

Can't you read a map?!

Dale and I have all sorts of little inside jokes. I even consider it our own secret language. Our most recent one came about a few weeks ago while on a bike ride. We had a map and were trying to find the eastern part of our favorite place to ride, the Chehalis Western Trail.

Let's face it. Some people can't find their way out of a cardboard box and some are navigation-savvy, I am the latter. I just am. I think I would make a great contestant on The Amazing Race for that reason alone. So as we are, well, discussing which direction we need to head, in a sudden emotional outburst I snatched the map from his hands and yelled "Don't you know how to read a map?!"

You can see where this is going. I was the one who was wrong. For the rest of the ride that day, I quietly ate my very large piece of humble pie.

So whenever the situation arises where one needs to apologize to the other, instead of saying "I am sorry honey, I was wrong" (not really our style) we just give the other a "......man, don't you know how to read a map?"