PumpkinFest 2008 at Uncle Bill's!

Wow! So 2 posts in one week! I know, amazing!

Sanders' hair is really starting to cord (or turn into dreadlocks). It is funny to watch his hair move when he runs. I can't really capture it that well in a photo, but you can kind of get the idea below:


The weekend of October 11th, we went to my Uncle Bill's house in Brookville and camped out. He lives on 100+ acres and has a couple of ponds (one bass, one catfish). It is such a beautiful area. We camped on the edge of the bass pond. The weather was absolutely spectacular. 40F at night, and 75F during the day!

On Friday night, my cousin Katie and Tony's friend Josh came over and hung out around the campfire.


I was playing with the light and my camera settings to try to take some cool pictures of the fire. I'd say it worked out pretty well!

And by keeping the shutter open a little longer, the pitch black night sky turned into looking like dusk. By blowing on the fire, we made the sparks jump out of the pit to get the picture below.
In the morning, we woke up to some sounds of deer calls. Yep, deer bow season was in full swing, and my cousin Kenny had come up from Florida and my cousin Adam was out hunting also. It was so awesome to get to see them. When we finally stepped out of the tent, this was our view!
We had a great campfire breakfast, and then Tony helped Uncle Bill get the tables/wagon pulled back to where we were camping. The annual Pumpkin Fest was Saturday evening, and we had to help get it all set up.
There were probably about 30-40 people who came out. The best part about these gatherings is always the food! I love family recipes at gatherings. We seriously need to make a cookbook! Yummy!
Of course, this blog is about Sanders! We took him with us...and he LOVES the great outdoors. We rode Kenny's 4 wheeler around, and Sanders was chasing us...what a great way for him to get some exercise! It was amazing how fast he could run! I missed it, but Tony and my cousin Todd watched their dogs play together....and apparently, Sanders' herding abilities had everyone laughing at the way he was playing.

I've come up with a new nickname for Sanders. Nature's Lint Brush:

And here, Amanda is carrying a big black furry thing...oh wait...that too is Sanders! I thought this picture was so hilarious!
And I played around with the camera, trying to get some pictures of the dog loving the farm/pumpkin life!

Sanders got to meet Matthew, my cousin. I thought this picture was awesome! Looks like they are both smiling at each other!

We do a hayride at the pumpkin fest every year and go around Uncle Bill's property. Then we end up at the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins.
This is a picture of the catfish pond on the hayride.
The pumpkins weren't big, but beautiful as always! The way the light was hitting them made for some great pictures. I think the picture below is one of my all time favorite pictures I've ever taken!
Sanders watching his last sunset on Uncle Bill's farm.
The trees were absolutely stunning at sunset.
My mom, dad and sister posed for a picture as they were all about to leave.
And Amanda came home with ANOTHER kitten! Wow....I think she has like 12 cats around their house now! But she loves them all, and keeps their names straight. I have no clue how she keeps coming up with unique names for all these cats. She's probably had like 50 different cats in her lifetime....and I bet she can still name/describe each one of them. She loves them so much!
Tony had to chop some more wood for our bonfire on Saturday night! I'm glad he was using a chain saw and not an axe, or we'd never have had any wood! Good thing he cut up so much, because Katie stayed and camped with us, and Uncle Bill, Aunt Alene and Kenny hung out with us around the fire for a long time!
In the morning when we were leaving, this was the view from Uncle Bill's driveway!

September...a wedding, Colts and a Hot Air Balloon Ride!

It is way past time for an update on the blog! Everyone keeps reminding me that I haven't put up new pictures to let you know what is going on in our lives!

Our September kept us pretty busy, starting with my brother's wedding in the middle of the month. I made the wedding cake. Below is the top of the cake:

And here is a picture of the entire cake. A lot of time people ask me how long it takes to make these? This was about 18 hours of baking, 2 hours of making frosting, and about 14 hours of assembly. *sigh* It makes me tired just thinking about it!



I always love capturing the groom's face when he catches the first glimpse of his bride on the wedding day. Here is Bruce:
Here is the happy couple during the ceremony.

On Sunday after the wedding, we ended up watching the Colts game with our neighbors, Tim, Brook and Colby. Brooke js a huge Sanders fan....yep....she loves our dog! She loves him so much that she earned herself a job that day. She is coming to our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and letting Sanders out and playing with him. She is really good at working with him on his obedience commands.
Colby decided it would be funny to get in Sanders' crate during the game. I had to laugh when we put Sanders in the crate with Colby. What is it with kids wanting to get in Sanders' crate? Sanders is much happier having them in there than himself!

On September 25th, we finally redeemed the one raffle prize we've ever won! 2 years ago, we were at the Second Helpings' fundraiser and ended up winning a hot air balloon ride with Bill Oliver, the owner of Oliver Winery in Bloomington. We had a gorgeous afternoon for the ride.

I never realized just how BIG these balloons were until we were helping get it out and inflating it. First we unrolled the entire balloon. It was probably 100 feet long!

Then we used a generator powered fan to inflate the balloon from one end, while Bill and his buddy made sure the balloon was stretched out properly at the end. You can see Bill's silhouette at the end of the balloon:
I stepped inside of the balloon to take this picture. I thought it was kind of cool!

Here, Tony is posing with the balloon before we get in it. Bill is inside the basket using the burner to continue to fill the balloon.

Here, I'm getting into the basket...ready for take off! Luckily I didn't fall.
And, here we are shortly after takeoff. You can see our balloon shadow. Off to the right of the shadow is the truck/trailer we came in. If you look closely you can see the people who came over from across the street to watch us take off!
Looking up at the inside of the inflated balloon.
We gained elevation rapidly! We eventually got up over 1 mile in the air! Below is Tony's favorite picture from our trip. Assembly Hall at IU. It is off to the left of the football stadium.
I loved how our shadow looked as we traveled along!
Looking down from the basket to the trees which were just a few inches below:
Another shadow. The leaves were just starting to change in Bloomington! I bet this was an amazing ride for someone 2 weeks later!
This is the house where we rolled up the balloon. We actually landed in the middle of the street (stopping traffic only for a brief minute on this subdivision road). As we were coming down, the guy mowing his lawn at this house stopped immediately, ran inside and got his family, and came back out to watch the show. It was so funny!
After we landed, we had to start deflating the balloon. The top of the balloon had a little vent to allow the hot air to escape.
It didn't take long for the balloon to begin collapsing
Here, Tony helps Bill bring the sides of the balloon to the center.
And afterwards, I had to take pictures of the grapes that were growing in the Oliver Vineyards!