An Evening in Sleepy Hollow

Last weekend we drove up to Oak Glen to Riley's Farm to attend the Sleepy Hollow dinner show. We love going up to Riley's Farm to pick apples or berries of pumpkins, and have always wanted to try one of their dinner shows , so this year we went for it and bought tickets a while ago for their Halloween dinner show, "Sleepy Hollow."

We got there early, so we had time to wander around the farm. It was pretty chilly and overcast up there. How fun it was to put on sweaters and get a little taste of autumn!

Nathan may have started with one of those typical teenager attitudes, but Dennis squeezed it out of him. I love this picture. What a dad! What a kid!

Hey, hay!

My boys.

Funny pumpkin! (I mean Caleb, not the gourd.)

Fall is in the air!

Later we made our way to the big barn where the dinner was held, but before we could be seated the kids had a great time discovering everything in the general store.

Hand-made wooden guns and slingshots, costumes, and of course CANDY! What's not to love when you're a kid?

Sweet!

Inside the barn was set up with long rows of tables and a terrific bluegrass band was fiddling the night away. Hot creamy potato soup started us off and hit the spot on a chilly evening!

Caleb having a conversation with a man in a three-cornered hat. The actors in the play were also the servers and stayed in character the whole evening.

They also sang to Caleb since he was a birthday boy!

Together time!

While we were waiting for dinner, we took a hayride around Sleepy Hollow. Derek got to sit right next to Ichabod Crane as he tried to court his lady. The ride was dark and spooky as we rode through the misty cold night. Thank goodness I had a cup of hot chocolate to sip!

VanBuskirk, party of 10.

Then the play started. It was quite clever! They performed it in sections, intermittently throughout the evening, and in between we would eat and play games, have activities, and dance.

While our table waited to get called for dinner, we decided to see who could and could not do a "taco tongue." It is a genetic thing. You either can or can't.

Nathan working it.

Derek tried a little manual manipulation with no luck, and Alex, well, he is a teenager and refused to even participate in something so uncool as taco tongue.

In the end, only Mom and I are blessed with the gift of taco tongue. Such a shame I was not able to pass that gene on to my posterity.

Dinner was terrific! Down home country barbecue!

After dinner the games began. First, a pumpkin seed spitting contest. In the end, Nathan was the big winner - spitting a seed clear across the barn floor! He may not have a taco tongue, but that boy has his own set of skills!

Then they had a pumpkin carving contest - one pumpkin per family. Our pumpkin was shaped like a skull, so we went with that. Alex helped me carve, and we bot a bag of red candies from the store and used them for the eyes.

I really thought we would win, because ours was by far the best, but alas, the judges went for a far inferior Dracula pumpkin. Maybe we were disqualified for the use of the candy. Still, I was quite proud of our creation, and happy that we got to take him home with us!

There was also a hanging apple eating game. Hilarious!

Poor Lukie had been sick, and still wasn't feeling to hot. He got worn out early on and spent some of the evening sleeping in the corner.

Then the dancing began. Doe-see-doe and around we go. So fun to dance with my boys! Dylan got up the nerve to ask the leading lady to dance and she went a whole song with him. Ladies' man!

Then came the pumpkin pie eating contest. Dylan dug right in.

And so did Nate and Caleb. But in the end, the winner was a girl.

Then the big guns had a turn. The adults had to eat a quarter pie. Dennis made a great showing and was neck and neck with another guy, but barely lost. I am such a proud wife.

The play concluded by having the whole audience go outside to watch Ichabod Crane get scared out of his mind by the headless horseman. It was so cool because a rider on horseback came thundering past with a flaming pumpkin for a head, and poor Icabod ran off screaming into the night. The fog was just so thick by then that it made everything just extra spooky and surreal! Perfect! Couldn't have asked for better special effects!

In the end we came home with the pie Nate won for his seed spitting feat, the caramel apple Caleb scored for being a birthday boy, our fabulous skeleton jack-o-lantern, a ton of fun pictures, and a whole lot of memories for a fantastic fall evening!

We will definitely be doing this again! Happy Fall, y'all!

Spooky Pics!

Nothing says spooky like gargoyles and ancient cemeteries.

Come check out my photo blog, Attic Window Photography, where I just posted some spooky pics to get you in a creepy Halloween mood.

My Biggest Boy Keeps Getting Bigger!

My biggest boy Caleb turned 7 yesterday! He is not the oldest or the tallest, of course. But since the moment he was born his is by far the largest if you compare age for age. Some day he'll tower over all his big brothers, no doubt.

And he also holds a huge chunk of my heart!

From the moment he was born there was something about that kid. I took one look at him and was smitten, absolutely madly in love with him. It was way beyond anything I had felt when I first laid eyes on my first four. Not that I didn't love them - I sure did, the moment they laid them in my arms, that gush of love and sense of recognition that all moms feel when they meet their babies face to face for the first time. But with Caleb it was different. The rush of love was so intense, so much greater than I had felt with any other of my babies! I knew why. After 4 boys I had wanted a girl SO bad. I ached for one. I knew this, and since I choose not to know the sex of my babies until they are born (twins excepted), I had prayed and prayed my whole pregnancy that if it were another boy I would not be disappointed and that I would love him just as much. The Lord is good, and he answered my prayer! When I first laid eyes on that sweet, humongous nearly 11 lb. baby Caleb I was filled with love that was so marvelous, and so pure, that I can imagine it is perhaps something like the love our Heavenly Father feels for each of us. It is not that I love Caleb any more than any of my other boys, but the Lord just allowed me to have that experience with this baby so that I would not be disappointed with another boy - so that I would know just what a special spirit he had sent me, specifically for me, to bless my life. And that testimony of his greatness of spirit carried over to all my other boys. They Lord wanted me to know just what special, beloved individuals they all are to Him, and how lucky I am to have been selected out of all the world to be their mother.

I love to remember that feeling every time Caleb has a birthday.

And now he is seven, and I can hardly believe it! What a joy he is to me, my biggest boy. I love his broad, broad shoulders, even though he is skinny as a rail, and his huge noggin with his mop of blond hair (so glad the blond stayed! Alex and Nate were towheads until they were about 4 or 5) and his huge brown eyes that are so dark they are alarming with his blond hair. And of course I love the spattering of freckles across his nose! Love, love, love them.

Happy 7th birthday, Caby Baby! Thanks for the joys that you bring into my life every single day!

Accessorizing!

On friday afternoon I got a pretty new accessory for my wardrobe: a belt, black fabric with fancy gold embroidery. What is the embroidery? My name - in Korean!

On Friday, Dylan, Nathan, and I each got our black belts!!! They looked so cool all lined up ready to be awarded, but I think they looked even better ON us.

The ceremony was simple. We removed our old belts. I was SO happy to do that! I have been wearing that senior red belt for over a year now! That belt and I were friends and we have been through a lot together, but it was time to move on.

Then, one by one, our teacher tied our old belt in a knot to signify that it was completed, and then respectfully tied our new belt on for us.

Nate first.

Then Dylan.

And finally me.

While I have had my frustrations with Master Gu, my instructor, it still was quite an honor to have my black belt tied on respectfully by a 7th degree Korean Master. (Though, in my heart of hearts, I would have rather had it tied on by my old instructor, Kylee. Oh well. Some things just can't always happen just as we would wish.)

What is important is that I got it, right?

I got it!

Cool, huh?

I walked into my very first taekwando class in October of 2006. Luke was only 6 months old, and I was still nursing. My kids had already been going for a few months, and I had no intention of ever doing anything like that. I am a lady, after all. But I realized that we were paying a family rate, and that if I wanted to join, it wouldn't cost us anything. I was needing to loose some baby weight and it certainly looked like good exercise. Kylee, the female instructor, told me that she taught a women's only class in the evenings, and promised me a non-threatening, supportive, and child-free, male-free environment. She had me at the child-free, male-free part! A few hours a week with only adult females. Sounded like heaven!

So I went. I knew I would hate it, and I did.

Hate it.

More specifically, I hated how I looked in that gi (like white highwater PJs) and how there were ginourmous mirrors everywhere that continually exposed how goofy and uncoordinated I was.

But I did feel good about the exercise, at least, and the company was wonderful. I just loved all those ladies. They were always encouraging and supportive and patient... endlessly patient with me, and I needed all the patience they had to offer.

And that is why I kept going, even though I hated it.

Kind of hated it. OK, not so much.

Until one day I was surprised to find myself actually looking forward to my next TKD class!

Really?

It got to the point where I was excited all day for my class and I would do whatever it took to get to my class - even leaving enrichment meeting early (and I am always the lingerer at enrichment) and changing into my gi in the car as I was driving to class!

I loved, loved, loved it!

Loved it.

I loved the feeling of accomplishment and of doing things I never thought I could do... like throwing grown men to the ground wincing in pain,... and memorizing a complicated form,... and using nunchucks! Nunchuks! What kind of thirty-something mother of 6 plays with nunchucks?

Truthfully, belt tests scarred the crap out of me. I was SO nervous, especially at the beginning. I do believe that that first test is the very hardest of all. They got a bit easier after that because I knew what to expect, but there were all still very nerve-racking experiences! All 12 of them, each one increasingly more difficult.

And slowly but surely, one by one, I was getting higher belts, and with each one I was amazed at how far I had come! I never expected to get a black belt, though. Not in a million years. But as I got higher and higher, step by step, getting my black belt started become a possibility. Did I even dare to believe I could do THAT?

The funny thing is that I used to be SO mega impressed with someone who had a black belt. I mean, weren't their hands supposed to be registered lethal weapons? Weren't they just so super tough nobody would mess with them? Couldn't black belts just swagger down a dark alley without a care in the world?

But now that I am here I am thinking that maybe not.

I mean, look at me. Not super tough, and nobody has yet to register my anything as a lethal weapon. I still wouldn't be caught dead in a dark alley, and if attacked I am 100% certain I would just pee my pants and cry like a baby. (Unless, of course, you were messing with my kid. You never can tell what a protective mama bear might do if necessary, with without a belt!)

(I might, however, swagger on occasion.)

As I got closer and closer I kept thinking I would feel like a black belt. That is why I waited so long after getting my senior red belt (the last one before black) hoping I would start to feel like a lean mean, fighting machine: like a black belt. But the more I tried, the more I realized I didn't know, and the less I felt like anything like a black belt. And the less I felt I deserved it.

I could look at Nathan and Dylan and see how they deserved it, because I am a mom, and I have watched them just get better and better. I could easily take them for black belts. They are awesome! I just couldn't see it in myself.

But then I'd try to remember where I was when I started with my fresh, starchy white belt, and I realize that I have come a long, long, long way, and then that is when I start to think that maybe I do deserve to wear black after all.

I certainly have worked hard and put in the time.

And I do have a mean step side kick, if I do say so myself, and pretty much the highest kick in the whole school. (Thank you, my long, long legs!)

And I did, as you know, break a brick. That has to count for something.

I have learned that (PLEASE pardon the cliche') if I could do this, ANYBODY could do anything, if they just put in the work and stick with it long enough. Anybody. Anything. Seriously.

If I don't give you hope, I don't know what could.

So if there is anything you have always wanted to do, or in my case, never wanted to do, do it anyway. You might just surprise yourself!

So now, exactly four years after walking onto that mat for the first time I am still a goofy thirty-something mom of 6 in an ill-fitting gi...

but I have to admit it looks much cooler with accessorized with a black belt!