Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Saturday smiles

Saturday Smiles: Lotsa Fun edition

There’s a storm headed our way. A monster storm that totally freaks me out. But we’re not going to talk about that today.

Today it was all about fun. We have family in town. It’s fall. So we took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. And threw in a side trip to get the best apple cider in Pennsylvania (and some apple cider donuts).

Here are some highlights.

The fall colors around here are breathtaking right now. I love the contrast of the trees and the sky and the mountains.

Isabelle has a thing for gourds. We came home with 10 and she picked out at least half of them.

Here she is sizing up her pumpkin.

Not to be outdone, her brother picked his up.

Corban ended up with a 12-pounder. Isabelle’s weighed in at about 17.

Besides taking field trips, another fun thing about having family (and extra hands) around is all the projects you get to do.

We made eyeballs. (This is not quite how we did it, but it’s close if you want to duplicate.)

They’re surprisingly delicious, for eyeballs.

And since great-grandma sent along some new glue sticks, construction paper and markers, we had fun with craft time.

I give you Isabelle the Native American princess.

We ate at Chick-Fil-A. I like the food. My husband will soon be working there. But I don’t want this to be a habit we get into. Or maybe I do. Because today we tried the Chick-Fil-A sauce, and that stuff would be good on anything. Any. Thing.

Phil and I got a breakfast date on Friday, and I’ve had some writing inspiration. The kids got to take their “special guests” to story time.

And tomorrow, we’re sending the kids back with their grandparents while we brace ourselves for the storm. Under different circumstances, I’d welcome the reprieve. It will be less stressful preparing for and recovering from whatever Sandy might bring without the children here, but I don’t expect it to be a relaxing week.

So today we savor the fun. And batten down the hatches. (Anyone know what hatches are?) And thank God for family.

Saturday smiles: Fun with words edition

It should come as no surprise to me, a lover of words, that my children also seem to love them.

Here are two examples from this week:

Sometimes we just play with rhyming words and sounds, even if they aren’t really words. Corban started rhyming with Sodor (the island where Thomas the Tank Engine lives) and came up with Mordor (check my spelling on that). Which made me giggle thinking about Thomas as the next Hobbit or Lord of the Trains.

Izzy is in that stage where she hears everything and sometimes you don’t know what she’s heard until later when it comes out of her mouth. On her way to watch a high school soccer game with Daddy, she opened the conversation with “Daddy, how did you and Mommy meet? Where did you get to know each other? We don’t have a chance to talk about these things.” Too cute.

This doesn’t exactly have to do with words, but it makes me smile after the fact. At the time, I was hopping mad. I went to the grocery store. By myself, which is rare and usually makes for a less stressful trip. On this particular day, I came out of the store, loaded my groceries, which included milk and frozen veggies, only to find that I was blocked in. I had parked across from a cart corral and behind me was a car with two ladies in it. They were talking to another lady (a friend, I presumed) who was leaning in one of the windows. On the side of the car were the words: “If you died today would you go to heaven or hell?” In one of my least Christian moments, I was tempted to help one or all of them find out. I wondered what would happen if I just reversed slowly. I didn’t want to be rude, so I didn’t even politely ask if they could please move. Honestly, I didn’t want to talk to them because I thought I’d have to “prove” my answer to the question. What irked me most, though, was that other cars were driving around them, glaring. After all THEY WERE PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE. And I chuckle because so often we Christians are so busy with each other we don’t even see what’s going on in the world around us. Maybe I’m still not over it, but the veggies made it home still frozen.

The vice presidential debate still makes me laugh. I actually had fun watching it and following on Twitter. (Does that make me sound lame? Oh, who cares. I am lame.)

And with that, I’ve reached the end of my available words that still make sense. It’s been an exhausting week, and my brain is suffering.

May your week be full of whatever makes you smile.