Nonie = 90

And backing up a couple weeks ago...

Well, there we were, minding our own business, when Nonie came to visit for the weekend so we could celebrate HER 90TH BIRTHDAY!!!

I know, right? Amazing. Not only that, if you hung with Nonie for about 6 seconds you'd realize she's actually about 36 posing as 90.

And it was almost Halloween, so you know what that meant - carving pumpkins.

Here's Mae's go at it:

Meanwhile, Nonie couldn't decide what the heck she was going to do.

In the end, though, it all worked out nicely.

Meanwhile, Aunt Debbie and I were still trying to get that mess of a heap of pumpkin muck cleared out of my pumpkin. By the way, Aunt Debbie also played "Book Fairy" that weekend. Every time we'd go to bed she'd leave a book for us by our bed. And every time we woke up and went downstairs for breakfast, next time we came up? Another book or two on our beds. Being the gigantic bookworm I am, you can pretty much figure out that the Book Fairy and I are pretty tight.

In the end, a wild success, I'd say.

And it wouldn't be a birthday without a big old party, so Uncle Brian, Aunt Tasha, Eli, Zaya and Nana & Papa all came down and we had ourselves a nice little celebration.

Mom decided to order from one of our favorite Italian places - a must with a Nonie with the name Mufalda Anita Bocelli - and we got it on.

And then we served cake...

And Pax served the ice cream. Only he didn't really serve it. He just asked if he could serve it so he could, well, I probably don't even have to tell you, do I...

All in all, the weekend was amazing - other than the fact that Uncle Jim stoke my Blackhawks ticket! - and I'll just leave you with this.

Pure Michigan, Part IV

So I think this is the fourth year we have gone to Michigan with our friends Colin and Steph.  Well, at least it's my fourth year because anything otherwise would be impossible at this point.

Went to an awesome apple orchard, though all the apple trees were dead due to the drought.

Well, wait, then Finley, how could it have been awesome?

Because the donut tree was not dead and there were PLENTY of donuts. Also did a little corn maize, which was going along smoothly until we lost Ana in the corn maize, literally (we did find her).

Also did this really fun bouncy maze thing, though the girl in the background does not appear to have enjoyed it as much as we did.

Grabbed some coffee...

And some pumpkins...

Then we hit up the Douglas Oktoberfest, which for some reason they associated Oktoberfest with milking cows. I don't get it, but whatever; cow milked, mission accomplished.

Now this is more like it. They had a stein contest. Apparently a German tradition (shout out to Grandpa Lammel, he probably knows about this), you have to hold a very heavy stein filled with beer out in front of you with your elbow locked straight. Last one standing with their elbow locked and their arm parallel to the ground wins.

It came down to a guy visiting from Ireland and the 2-time defending champ. He conceded because he couldn't stare at his beer any longer without drinking it so the 2-timer because a 3-peater. Well played on all fronts.

Weather was a bit crummy so we spent some time inside, but that just meant Halloween activities, paid for and put on by the MLHA Club (for those of you not in the know, that's the Moms Love Halloween Activities Club).

We got pumpkins colored, Ana made carmel apples and we made some ghoulish ghost decorations.

I actually made our family - so there is one of me, Mom, Dad and Mabel. (speaking of Mabel, you don't see a lot of her here because she took a monster nap during all of this).

Then Ana and I took a break from our Halloween festivities and read some books while Colin got on the phone to secure some Baltimore Orioles playoff tickets... always good to see some things never change.