Ready for Halloween

OK, maybe I'm not the scariest dinosaur you've ever seen, but I'm the noisiest one.

By the way, if you've ever wondered what it's like to be attacked by a T-Rex carrying a football, here you go.

Wrestling turtles

They may look small and cute, but you'd be surprised how exhausting it is to wrestle these guys.

Answering reader questions

For everyone who keeps asking where the blond hair comes from ...

On the right, that's a picture of Dad from grade school that Grandmom dropped off a few weeks ago. Apparently he once had hair just like mine. Now his hair is ... not the same color.

Maybe there are some blonds in Mom's family that we don't know about?
 

Passing skills

Dad wanted me to make a Mike Vick joke here, but, honestly, that's just too easy. It cheapens us all.

Pumpkin party

I got to hang out at Isabella's birthday party this weekend, and where we decorated pumpkins as part of the fun. Here's Mom and I posing with my creation, and Uncle Tom acting like a nut job in the background.

Then we all posed for a picture with our pumpkins. There's me up in the right corner, birthday girl Isabella in red on the bottom right, cousin Tommy over on the pumpkins and ... well, there were a lot of other kids there too. Somebody should have thought about name tags.

Time for a close up

It just never gets less funny.

Calling plays

They've got four wideouts and their pass-catching back out there and you're gonna call a linebacker blitz with a soft nickel zone? Geez, even Juan Castillo could have told you that's a bad plan. How do these guys get hired? 

A weekend on the rails

Grandmom and Grandpop invited Ollie and I up to Lancaster for a train-tastic vacation this weekend. I agreed to bring Mom and Dad, once they promised not to elbow in on my time with Pop. 

We saw steam locomotives and diesel locomotives and electric locomotives and passenger cars and box cars and coal cars and big cabooses and small cabooses and oh my gawd there were so many trains!!!

It took me a while to explain all the different kinds to Grandpop, but he's a pretty good listener. 

He even took me for a ride on a real steam train! I wore my Thomas the Tank Engine shirt, so everyone would know I was already a train expert. 

You could see so much stuff from the train, but when I asked to drive, they said I had to be at least 16. That's ridiculous. What am I going to so, make a wrong turn off the tracks?

We got to see all sorts of neat toy trains too in a museum nearby. Grandmom and I liked the ones that went around and around and made train noises. How do people think of these things?

Of course, no trip would be complete without at least one ride on my favorite train, Thomas. I wanted to take him home, but Mom and Dad said there wasn't enough room in our garage to keep him. That's a shame, because he's a really useful engine. 

Problems of autumn

Look, somebody has to clean up this porch. That's the best I can do until I'm tall enough to pull the rake down from the shelves.

Handyman

I don't know why Dad's always complaining about getting work done around the house. These screws are pretty easy to drive in and pull back out.

The agony of defeat

I don't understand ... The baseball playoffs started today, and I can't find the Phillies playing anywhere. What gives?

Down in the wine cellar

Hold on, when did we get a wine cellar?

Just kidding. Here's a picture of my visit this weekend to the big house around the corner. Dad says it's the old governor's mansion, but that's not a very descriptive name. I like mine better.

Dad also kept complaining that I moved around too much to get a good picture in the cellar, but I don't know what he was talking about.