These are my favorite pumpkin patch pics.
Yesterday afternoon, Leah and I de-gooped our pumpkin. She liked scooping the goo out and playing with it.
Then, we sorted out the seeds to roast. Erin wove herself in and out of the table legs like a cat.
Today Leah and I made Pumpkin Patch cupcakes for her school Halloween party tomorrow. I love the fact that her preschool is not concerned about the whole store-bought treats thing. Anyway, the cupcakes came out so good, I wanted to share them with you. The actual cupcake is pumpkin-flavored. The frosting is maple cream cheese. YUM!
In the best news of the day, barring any complications, Mike should be home tomorrow late afternoon, in time for trick-or-treating. We are super happy that he will be with us. Ronni is doing a little bit better so that is a bit more good news.
Mike is in FL helping look after Ronni who has pneumonia. So I am here with the kids for the duration. The day stretches out long in front of me. I so look forward to Mike coming home from work for the change of pace it gives to our day. I think if I were a single mother, even if I could afford to stay home (life insurance or whatever) I would want to work just to keep the days from all being the same. It’s pretty dull.
In other news, I did 48 minutes on the stationary bike this morning for a total of 13.7 miles. I think I will have to up the resistance on it though because I wasn’t even tired when I was done (my butt sure was sore though). I usually do the random hills program and the tallest hills are pretty tough but most of the ride is not bad at all. Tomorrow it’s swimming and biking. I really love training, I love the sense of progress it gives me. This weekend when I do my bike/run day, I plan to do it outdoors instead of in the gym to see how much more it tires me out. 
I enjoyed touring the Biltmore with my mom SO MUCH! It was an AMAZING place, the house and the grounds. Here is a summary of my trip:
We left home at about 10:30 Saturday morning (after my tri training and shower). We got there at about 1pm, checked in to our hotel, then went on to the Biltmore grounds. We had read that the house is CRAZY busy on Saturdays, so we skipped it and headed to the winery. There was a restaurant next to the winery called the Bistro that serves local foods straight from the Biltmore farms. So we waited for a table there while shopping in the winery gift shop. I ate sage-infused chicken, goat cheese, and bacon pizza and a butternut squash soup. They were both delicious! Then we toured the winery and had our wine tasting. The tour wasn’t as fun or informative as the tour we went on in Michigan. You got to look into rooms that weren’t in use, while a video played about how things were done. Kinda dull. The coolest part was seeing the cellar where they store one bottle of each of their vintages from each year.
Then we walked over to Riverbend farm. There they have a kitchen garden, and the old barn with a bunch of old farm machinery. We took some cute pics there.
At dinner time, we decided to head over to downtown Asheville to see what it was like. It was so much more eclectic than I thought! Within a 3 block radius, there was every kind of food you can imagine. My mom said it reminded her of a tiny NYC. We ate dinner at a place called The Noodle Shop. Before heading home, we stopped at French Broad Chocolate Lounge. We got a box of 15 assorted truffles to bring back to the hotel for dessert. We were able to sample ones like pomegranate (yum), lemon pepper (double yum), and strawberry balsamic (yuck, too spicy, had curry in it). It was fun to sample so many.
The next day we got to the house at 10ish. It look us 2 1/2 hours to complete the tour! The house is ridiculous. If you are ever up here, I totally recommend seeing this place. It was amazing.
You aren’t allowed to take pics inside so we don’t have any. We got the audio guides which were cool because you could listen to a few facts about each room. Afterward, we headed outside to the gardens. Here we are being clowns.
The rose garden was on its way out, but there were still a few pretty blooms.
We got some lunch at Deerpark restaurant on campus that had a delicious Sunday brunch. We were home with sushi by 5pm.
The Halloween party at the gym was held this past Friday night. It was lots of fun, as always. Just before we were about to get ready, I had a brainstorm for Erin’s ears. Her costume is a black cat but she won’t wear the headband I bought with ears on it. So I attached pink craft foam to black felt to make ears, then I sewed them onto hair ties. When I put her hair in pigtails, it looked like she had cat ears! I was so proud!
Leah looked fantastic as Supergirl and LOVED the games. She was adorable trying to eat the doughnut off the string.
Leah fished, jumped, decorated, threw, putted, and hunted.
Erin danced, crawled, ran, and patted. She loved this giant Frankenstein.
We loved having my mom here. She had a great time helping get the girls ready and chasing after Erin all over the gym.
If you are checking out my sidebar, you can see this week’s training. I am doing this training plan, 20 week bike-focused. When I started training last week, I did the swim-focused one because I was very concerned with my ability to swim the 500yd distance. At the time, I could barely swim 50yds without gasping for breath. After swimming just four training sessions, I noticed my ability to breathe properly improve drastically. I have discovered that when I get into the proper rhythm, with either swimming or running, I almost never get out of breath. I get physically tired before I get winded. Unfortunately with swimming, I don’t maintain the rhythm as well. I just need more practice, that is what training is for.
So this week I switched to the bike-focused plan because of my one 40 min bike ride last week. Mike and I rode all around the surrounding neighborhoods, and in 40 min we only completed 7.4 miles. The race is 13 miles. So I have a LOT of practicing to do in that area. The training plan gives you two sessions a week in each area and an extra session in your focus area. So I have 7 “sessions” a week to complete, on two days doubling up and doing a transition too. I have really enjoyed training so far.
Yesterday Laurie and I did a swim session. I try to do a few extra minutes on the swim sessions because I still have to rest occasionally and I want to make sure I am swimming enough. Anyway, last week Laurie sent me this article about proper technique. We were trying it out last night and although it did make me swim slower, it made me concentrate on my strokes and breathing so much more. I was only breathing on one side prior to this, now I am practicing “bilateral breathing.” It’s like learning a new language! But truly, I am loving it!
So the rules are: Go to your folder of pictures on your computer. Open the 4th folder, and upload the 4th picture, then explain it.
This is a picture from our visit to Clearwater in April. We were at International Mall in Tampa at their play area. Leah was getting her shoes put back on by Grammy.
I tag Mandi, Keri, Nikki, and Stacy.
We had such fun at the AwShucks Corn Maze. Although I misjudged how cold it was out with the wind, so we were a little underdressed. But other than that, we had a great day. It was so much better than last year when we had a horrible drought that killed most of the corn. The big kids loved the maze. We let them decide which paths to take (I kept the map so at least I knew WHERE we were). They discovered the corn in the husks early on. 
Leah and Ian carried around their “corn swords” for most of the maze, swiping at the stalks and occasionally each other.
At the end of the maze, we let Erin out to run around.
Then we took pictures on this hay wagon.
At last we headed for the pumpkin patch. We didn’t get any pumpkins, we just played around and took pictures.
After dinner at Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ, we headed home exhausted but happy.
So I am gonna brag for a minute here. Mike and I have this site, NFLForLaughs, that we have been doing for a quite a few years now. Some of you know what it is already. Basically we pick the winner for each NFL game each week. There is no money involved, it is just for fun. So feel free to join in, or if you don’t want to start halfway through the season, remember us next season. Anyway, the point is I am in second place right now. I am only 1 game back (potentially 2 after this evening’s games). I am beating Mike by like 3 or 4 games. And I don’t really follow stuff like who is starting or who is hurt. Seriously, bet on me in Vegas. I have never had a week under .500 (7-6 was my worst record). Apparently I am a football guru.
