these are the critters in our neighborhood

Two spiders (of many) in our back yard, some kind of orb-weavers, perhaps?

 

 Praying mantis at a cafe downtown:

Lizard in the playhouse:

this is our life

What is it with boys and their sticks, lightsabers, swords, and daggers?  They are constantly swashbuckling, sparring, and "fighting".

At Grandma and Grandpa's house:

 

With Mateo in the orchard (wait for it...):

At the beach in Florida, waiting for the wedding to start:

After the wedding, Micah got all Star Wars Kid on us:

Post-Halloween (in clearance-sale costumes):

And at home with his friend, Callum:

Today at the Schweitzers' house, seeking a segue into the next play activity, Micah asked Lauren, "who can we get?"  This behavior is deeply ingrained in both Micah and Levi's play.  I've been hearing a lot of lonely sighs from Amy lately.

family and fiori fun in NY

In early October, Levi and I visited Grandma and Grandpa in NY.  We had lots of fun carving pumpkins, playing with animals, mucking about in the puddles with our ducky boots, and enjoying some typically rainy autumn days.

Nick and Mateo even drove up from NYC one day.

We played around the yard,

dug potatoes in the garden,

and visited Bowman Orchards to pick apples and play on a wooden farm-equipment playground in the rain:

Thank you to Nick and Mateo for making the trip up to see us.


Also, a HUGE thank you to Kristin for the amazing home-made, silk-screened shirts.  
Levi's monkey shirt garnered him a personal rendition of Monkey Rhythm from George Spike at the Farmer's Market this weekend.

ouch! and oooh!

Is that a T-Rex biting your finger, Micah?!

 Yes, but he's actually going for the triceratops.

The biggest bones of all (a Fin Whale, second largest creature ever to live on this planet):

 

It spoke to us in Whale, so we tried speaking back to it, like Dori in Finding Nemo.

Where?  The LA County Museum of Natural History.  Micah and I had 8.5 hours to spare in LA before Amy and Levi arrived on their separate flight home from FL, so we hit up the new dinosaur hall.  We ended up spending about 4 hours there, enough time to hit all the major halls.  In the CA history hall, Micah was fascinated by dioramas of the Chumash indians, models of explorers' ships, dioramas of Mexican-American War battles, and real GUNS!  He stopped to take my picture:

Plenty of stuffed and mounted animals in the museum-- kind of reminded me of my last trip to Vegas:

 

What-the-who?  That's the showroom of the Bass Pro flagship store at the Silverton Casino in Las Vegas.  I stopped there briefly a few weeks with some friends on the way to Zion NP to stock up before an overnight trip through the Virgin River Narrows in Zion Canyon.  Hooo boy, you have to do this trip at least once in your life.  There's a reason it's consistently listed as one of the top hikes in the country.

As a bonus, here's the urinal in the gas-station bathroom right before the NV state line:

 

Yes, that is a waterfall urinal.

tigers!

Once again we joined up with Elijah and Nathan to trick-or-treat in their kid-friendly neighborhood.  The boyz were once again in Nanny-Gorgeous-issued costumes, this time as a matching pair of tigers.  In the pictures below, Micah shows you his best crouch and Levi shows you he uncomfortable with headwear (much like his big brother was):

 

For a trip down memory lane, here are Halloweens past:  Chili Pepper, Devil, Grapes, T-Rex/Chili Pepper, Batman (first commercial costume)/Napolean Dynamite

Thank you, Nanny Gorgeous for keeping us so impressively costumed!!