Gearing up for Halloween

Last weekend Debra, Clare and I headed down to Littleton to a pumpkin patch. Pumpkin patches are different in Colorado. In California a pumpkin patch is an emty lot that a company sells pumpkins on. They'll have a few goats, maybe a pony and a few other things to make it look fun but they're pretty small and basic. In Colorado the pumpkin patches are actually pumpkin farms. They're very big and you go out and pick your own pumpkins. This particular place also had hayrides from the parking area and back as well as food vendors, rides, activities and a HUGE maze cut out of their corn field. We didn't do the maze but a man I was talking to said it was seperated into two sections so you could do the whole thing or you could leave half way through. He and his daughter walked through half of it and it took them an hour. We saw an arial photo and it was amazing. This thing was so massive and the center was cut out to be a HUGE black widow spider. Debra said she didn't have any desire to do something like that but as soon as Clare is 4 or 5 years old I'm taking her in! Call me a glutton for punishment but it sounds fun to me. You might have also noted I'm wearing a Broncos hat AND shirt. It was Sunday. GAME DAY BABY! This town eats, breaths and poops football. It's HUGE here. Everyone wears their shirts on game day and the streets are practically deserted when the Broncos are playing. We're 4 and 1 by the way. WOOHOO!!! Debra and I are going to go to Invesco Field in Denver to watch the Broncos play the Colts at the end of the month on the 29th and we can't wait.


As you can tell I have a beard. This is my annual "October tradition" I'm carrying on after my dad. When he was young growing up in Anaheim when it was still a small town, all of the men had to grow a beard in October. The police had an antique paddywagon they drove around town looking for men without beards. If they caught you on the street without one, they would throw you into the back of the paddywagon and drive you to the outskirts of town and drop you off. My guess is anyone who had to walk home like that never forgot to grow a beard again. By the time I was a kid they hadn't been doing this for many years but my dad still grew a beard every year. It seems silly but I always thought it was pretty neat. When Clare was born and I became a dad, I decided I needed to keep the tradition alive by growing my own beard every October. All in all I've been pretty happy at how it looks. It's nice and full with no bare patches. Have you ever seen a guy with a beard that won't fill in? Man...they look like Three Mile Island residents who chose to ignore the suggestion to only drink bottled water.



Tuesday we got our first snow here in Broomfield. It started snowing around 9:30 in the morning and didn't stop until 8:00 that night. When I got home with Clare after work I did the responsible thing of course. I dressed her up in her snow bib and jacket and we went for a walk. We had a great time and Clare even made a snow angel. It only snowed about 3 inches but Clare didn't understand why we couldn't make a snowman. I'm hoping we'll get a monster storm this winter so we can build a snowman and a fort and have snowball fights. When we got back from our walk, Clare's cheeks were beet-red. I took care of that by turning on the fire place and making her some hot chocolate. "Turn on the fireplace?" Yeah! Our fireplace turns on like a light. We have a switch on the wall and when we want a fire we just flip the switch. I love the convenience and we use it all winter long. There's nothing like kicking back on the couch with the fire on and snow faliing outside while you drink hot chocolate. That's all for now!