Just before completing our boot camp, Dan started having pain in his shin. His shin would swell up and he had a ton of pain, walking, sitting, or doing anything with his leg. He tried to take it easy for a couple of days. Even after staying off of it for almost a week, he still was having a ton of trouble with his shin. He decided to go into urgent care to see if they could take an x-ray. After hours of waiting in urgent care, he was told that he probably had a stress fracture in his shin and that he should stay off of it. It was depressing news to hear. Getting back in shape would have to wait.
Hockey started! Deagan was on the ice three times a week. He would play and skate and he loved every minute of it. He was so excited to go to every practice. He was even practicing hockey in the basement on the days when he didn't have practice. Then at the end of practice one day, they were playing "Sharks and Minnows". A whole group of boys happened to land on Deagan at one end. He didn't notice anything then, but a couple of minutes later, while coming off the ice, Deagan fell and landed on the same arm again. It hurt a whole lot. He was almost crying when he got to the locker room. Mom helped him get his gear off and then checked out his arm. She felt like she better take him in to urgent care. (Yes, the second time someone in our family was there that day). It ended up being a buckle fracture. They put him in a splint for 2 weeks. No more hockey until further notice. Deagan was upset that he couldn't play. After two weeks, we went in again to have another x-ray. The doctor put Deagan in a full cast--which was disappointing, but it will only be for 2 more weeks. A whole month without hockey is killing Deagan!
The very next day after breaking his arm, Deagan and Dyllan ran in the Liger mile race. We had been planning on and training for this race for weeks. Deagan and Dyllan had been training with Dane after his cross country meets. Deagan was not going to let a broken arm get in the way of his run. He ran before Dyllan. He got a good start, and even with a hurt arm, was able to come in 5th at 6 minutes 42 seconds. He was running with 3rd and 4th graders, so he did really well. We would have liked to have seen what he could have done without a broken arm. As for Dyllan, here is her rendition:
"Mom, please wait here and see how I am doing at the end", I said. I walked over to the start line. A man said, "OK 5th and 6th girls, this is a short, fun, race so can go as slow as you want, but there will be no shoving or pushing. So, ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, GO!" I was off into the race. I could hear the crowd cheering. I knew I was off to a great start. I passed two girls who quit running because talking was more important, apparently. I ran faster than the wind and gave it all my might. I was almost finished. Just a little more. My heart was pounding. I drowned out all noise and ran. Just one more step. YES!! I finished. I was thirsty and ready for a rest as they cut off my timer chip. I got 9 minutes 30 seconds. Yes! 3 minutes faster than the last time! I walked forward and received a dark blue ribbon. "Next time, I might be in first," I said to myself.We were lucky enough to have mom and dad drive over for a visit. It took them 2 days to get here. They said that the drive wasn't too bad--except for Kansas. We were excited to see them as we hadn't seen them for a year. They got here, and that was when the fun started! My birthday was the very next day!
The sun rises. Beep, beep, beep goes Dane's alarm clock. Mom walks into the room. "Wake up, Dyllan". I open one eye and yell, "Happy Birthday!" "Thank you, dear." I got up and got dressed. I got out the door and the whole day all I could think of was mom's birthday. Mom's birthday. Mom's birthday. OH!! I wish my mind could get off the subject, but no. The thought just kept dancing and prancing through my head. But, soon the day ended and it was time for presents. Yes, she had been opening them all day. She had 40 of them all together. Each had a reason that we love her and a gift to correspond with it. We all made mom a great dinner. The Murphys came over and brought cupcakes for mom. Dad bought an ice cream cake that said "Happy Birthday, Allynn". They were all yummy. Then it was time for bed.
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| The headless horseman |
Then, the kids had Fall Break at school. They had both Thursday and Friday off of school. We wish that Dan had it off of work, but we weren't that lucky. Thursday, we started off the day with looking at pictures from mom and dad's trips to Europe. It was fun to see the places we had visited, and fun to see the places we haven't! Then we watched "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". The kids enjoyed it. We ate popcorn from our pumpkin popcorn containers. We also watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". Watching Charlie Brown is a yearly tradition for our family. That evening, we went to Conner Prairie (Conner Scary, during the month of October). They had shows for the kids to watch. They saw a chemistry show and a magic show. There was also a marionette show of the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". We walked around the grounds and onto a scarecrow trail--where some of the scarecrows come alive!! We weren't too frightened by these, as there was a group ahead of us that came across the live ones first. By the time we got there, we knew what to expect. After that, we found the screen where Disney's "Icabod Crane" was playing. We watched most of that--until it was time for us to get in line for our hay ride. The hay ride is the big event of the night. Everyone wants to go on the hayride. We were loaded into wagons that had a soft straw in the bottom. We didn't sit on bales of hay. We sat right down in the wagon. Then we went for the scariest ride of our lives. The trail was decorated with tombstones, lights, sounds, and other scary stuff. We took our ride in the black of night, but luckily it was a full moon. We had the light of the moon to guide our wagon masters way. Then, all of sudden, we saw the headless horseman! He came riding up to our wagon and along side of it, wanted to get all the heads in the wagon! We barely escaped, and were on our way again. Then later, there he was again---the headless horseman, himself!!! He galloped along our wagon again, trying to get the kids heads. Luckily, we lost him on the covered bridge. It was a pretty cool ride. A definite highlight of the season.
Friday, we spent the day grocery shopping. Dad spent all of his free time working on little projects around the house that we haven't been able to get to yet. It is so nice to have pictures hung and shelves hung. It was great to get all the light bulbs changed. Dad did every kind of job. It was awesome to have a handy man around for a little while. That night, some friends invited us to go out to dinner with them to a place called Bonges Tavern. It is a little bar, in a very tiny town (about 12 houses), about 25 minutes away. We were told that this place is awesome. People drive from miles around to go to this place. Since there are only about 12 tables, the wait to get in can be upwards of 3 hours. People will drive here and tailgate in the parking lot, waiting to get in. It is worth the wait!! The bar does not have a set menu. The waitress tells you what the chef is cooking that day. We enjoyed mushrooms, prime rib, lamb chops, and molten vanilla sugar cake for dessert. The food was stunning, and the company with friends--even better!
On Saturday, Dyllan woke up and to her surprise, Dad and Dane had brought Jack's Donuts home. They are her favorite! Even though the Jack's Donuts were there, we still had to go on a walk in Brown County. It is about an hour and a half drive from our house. Grandpa pointed out all the pumpkin patches on the way there. About ten minutes from arriving, Dane and Dyllan heard a small voice from the back of the van saying, "I have to go pee!" Dyllan turned around to see Danyon with tears in his eyes saying again, "I have to go pee!" Dan drove off the road into a rock parking lot. It was Danyon's first time peeing standing up, and he had a hard time with it. Ten minutes later, we found ourselves in the beautiful Brown County State Park. The fall leaves had turned and it was beautiful. We found our way to trail number 7. We walked and walked around a lake with beautiful trees on both sides. We walked and walked until we saw a tree with a hole in it's trunk, big enough to have Danyon's whole body fit inside. It was cool. We kept on walking up and down and soon reached a fallen tree. We sat on it like we did the trains in the salt mines and took pictures. We kept on walking while the clouds darkened. We finally finished the hike and found a picnic table. We got our lunch out. Just after we started, it started to rain. We moved our picnic to the van. The rain wasn't letting up, so after our lunch, we drove around the rest of the park and decided to head home.
The whole rest of the next week, we spent all of our free time working on costumes. Dad did his projects while mom and I sewed. Dad also spent some time smoking a brisket and some pork. It was really good. We also had a scary meal of Jack-o-lantern chicken pot pie and some witches brew in blood streaked glasses. Thanks to dad who bought the vitamin B2 which works best for glowing and the black light to make it all glow.On late Wednesday night, Csaba came to visit. He was checking out Bloomington as a possible place to start and finish graduate school. He got here late Wednesday night, and left Friday morning. On Thursday Csaba spent 2 hours practicing before a lesson. He spent the rest of the day playing and didn't come home until late. The next morning he left Indiana. It was great to get to see him and to spend time visiting with him.
The Halloween party at the church was fun. We dressed up as Harry Potter. Dane was Draco, Dyllan was Hermione, Deagan was Harry Potter and Danyon was an owl. I was Professor McGonnagal, Dan was Hagrid, Grandpa was Dumbledore, and Grandma was Luna Lovegood. For the party Dyllan decorated the back of the car, Dan and Grandpa made corn bread and two pots of chili, and the rest of us got our costumes on. At the party there were fun games and great bowls of chili. Mom's chili won third place in the contest. After we finished at the party we went home and went to bed, as it was very late, and we were very tired.
Halloween day was fun for us. Dad, Mom, Dan, and I went to the temple in the morning. It was awesome. The temple is so beautiful! We went out to lunch with Mom and Dad. Then we got home to carve our Halloween pumpkins. We started cutting the top off and taking out all the seeds and guts of the pumpkin. We each carved different pumpkins. They were all fun. Dyllan made a witch on a broom. Dane carved a skull with a hood on. Deagan carved a skeleton with horns. Danyon's pumpkin was a bat with a tomb stone. We put in a strobe light and light them up for our trick-or-treaters. Dane went to a friends house to watch movies and opted out of trick or treating. Dyllan, Deagan, and Danyon had a great time. Danyon has decided that he loves Halloween and trick or treating. Dan and I were able to take them out while mom and dad stayed at home to hand out candy. Our house looked pretty scary with our strobe light pumpkins and our fog machine. It looked great! It was a good night. It got a little windy towards the end, and started to rain just as we arrived home. We had tons of candy left over and with all the stuff that the kids got and the trunk or treat and from trick or treating, we will be eating candy until June!
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