Last week, Jason's best friend, Heather came up to meet and visit with Brianna. Bree's aunt Heather loves fall activities so we made sure to pack as many in during her visit. We started things off by taking Bree and Heather to the Renaissance Faire. This is the same faire that Jason and I took Bree and Daniel to a few weekends earlier. This time the faire was hosting Halloween events, so we decided to bring along Bree's Halloween outfit for the evening events. Some how Jason convinced Heather to try the chocolate covered bacon (I guess he was trying to share the experience). This time, however, Heather amazed us by telling us that she enjoyed it. I still think it sounds gross! Jason took a try at firing a bow and arrow, and with some pleading from Jason, Jason and I decided to learn how to throw battle axes. It is more difficult that one would think to get the axe to get stuck in the board. Jason won the competition by one point. Can't say I've throw a battle axe anywhere else.
"Look at me! I'm a big girl!!"
My lil' tiger cub!
Scary face!!
The following evening, we took Heather and Bree to the Jack-o-lantern trail that is held in Providence, RI. Jason and I have made a habit of making this trip an annual event and were unsure if we would be able to make it this year, since we didn't know how Bree would handle evening events. Since she has done so well with all the other trips and since this trip is so important to Jason, we decided to try it. I thought for sure that she would not make the 1 1/2 hour commute it takes, but I decided to listen to Jason and try it. Can't say that I was happy about trying it, but Jason and Brianna proved me wrong. She did excellent in the car and I had to give Jason props for knowing his daughter. The Roger Williams' Zoo hosts the trail every year and this year's theme was Journey around the world. Before moving to New England, I never knew there was such as thing as a professional pumpkin carver, but apparently there is and they are amazing at their work!! Here are just a few images of the pumpkins we saw. The trail highlighted scenes from various parts of the world. One of the my favorites (not in the pumpkin carving, but for the experience) was traveling to the North Pole. Here the trail was decorated in Christmas trees, holiday music, nutcrackers carved into pumpkins, and falling snow (the falling snowflakes were actually soapy bubbles). I doubt Brianna knew what was going on, but it was truly mesmerizing to see Brianna with the bubbles falling down (very holiday-like). The whole trail took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete. Now the ride back home was not as easy as the car ride to the trail. We knew that she was not going to make it for the whole commute, but Jason had to go to work the following day and we didn't want to be driving back super late, so we decided to chance it. I sat in the backseat with Brianna and with about 50 minutes left of the commute she started wailing. I was able to minimize the screams by having her suck on my knuckle, but after awhile this technique failed. We had a bottle that we could have given her, but we would not have been able to burp her as she needed to stay in the car seat, so we were holding the bottle as a last resort. With about 15-20 minutes left of the commute, I decided to have fun with her cries and wiggled my finger/knuckle back and forth over her mouth when she cried. The effect was a hilarious gobbling sound. Hey, if you have to hear a child cry, this cry is far more appealing than the wailing sound! Needless to say, Brianna made it and we fed her as soon as we got home and then put her to bed.
The following day Jason had to work, so Heather and I decided to take Brianna to a local pumpkin patch, corn maze, and hay ride. It was a beautiful day (warmer than normal for October weather). We had a picnic lunch, fed Brianna, took some pictures of Brianna and the pumpkins, picked out a few pumpkins to carve, and then prepared her for the hay ride. Of course, she fell asleep through her first hay ride, but it was adorable seeing her sleep as we toured the farm via tractor and hay bales. After the hay ride, I put Brianna in the MobyMoby wrap.
Having Heather visit us was a lot of fun. We had a blast doing the local autumn activities with her, having story time with Bree, and playing various board games. We had a very intense game of boggle going, in which Heather validated my need to continue playing round after round of this game even though Jason beat me every time! We also had S'mores and had a wonderful time catching up! We're waiting for next October when we can do it all again! Thanks for a wonderful visit, Heather!!!
Looks like some fun adventures. Those pumpkin carvings were amazing!! I remember playing Boggle with you guys. Jason is impossible to beat!
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