Halloween 2019

Say hello to Rapunzel and ... Indiana Jones? Snake charmer? Boy with a snake problem who doesn't seem to notice? Whatever, be both looked awesome. 

Jonathan and I hit the town with some of the other local superheroes and bagged a ton of candy. Remind me again why we don't do this every weekend? 

Magic nails

It's kinda like nail polish, but I can also use it to play board games or pretend that my fingers turned to stone. Wins all around, really. 

Piano lessons

Well, at least we learned appropriate music for Halloween ...

Central Park dance

Doesn't matter where you are, you just can't keep the dancing in.

New York, day 2

Our hotel in New York was pretty fun too -- we were on the 40th floor, so we got a pretty good view of everything around Times Square. 

But even cooler was the rooftop view the hotel had. It's 54 floors up, higher than that New Years Eve ball. 

If you look close, you can see Freedom Tower in the background. I've never been this far up before outside of an airplane. It was pretty awesome. 

We spent the rest of the day running around Central Park, which had such cool rocks to climb up. 

Seriously, that's a pretty cool view with a pretty cool climb right there. 

We also sampled the New York playgrounds. Not bad. They could use more grass, but A for effort. 

It was a great time, and even better since Grandmom could come with us. We'll have to do it again soon. I hear Lion King is a lot of fun...

New York, New York!

It's not every day you get to travel on one of these high-speed trains, but it's not every day you get to travel to New York City for a weekend trip!

Times Square was bigger than I ever imagined. I couldn't even imagine buildings went up that high. 

Emma and I got to see where the big ball drops every New Years Eve, and must have passed by about 90,000 people in just a few minutes. Seriously, this place was so crowded, I don't know how we walked through. 

Dad said he has a few friends who work in this building, but when I asked if we could go inside, he said something about security and "enemies of the state" and we just decided to keep sightseeing. 

The best part was probably our trip to see Aladdin. This was the only time Emma wasn't smiling, and it was only because Dad said she had to take a picture in the theater before the show started.  

But after the show, we got to go around back and meet the stars! Here's Mom and Emma with Jasmine. 

 

And here they are with Aladdin. I wanted to meet the genie, but apparently they put him back in his bottle at the end of the performance. Seriously, though, they had a flying magic carpet and for the life of me I can't figure out how it worked. 

Cross country team pic

Not a bad looking crew. We took this before Dad made us run a 5K at practice. Our faces were not as happy afterwards. 

We also took a silly picture before our run, because we wouldn't have enough energy for that afterwards either. These practices can be pretty rough. 

Pumpkin picking 2019

Pumpkin time!

Emma and I took Mom and Dad on our annual pumpkin patch visit this weekend, picking out a few of the best ones to help decorate for Halloween. Emma is bigger than most of the pumpkins now, so we have fewer jokes about leaving her decorating her for the holiday or picking her from the patch. But we still had a few. 

We had a pretty good haul this year. I thought we needed about 30 pumpkins to really be in the holiday spirit, but Mom said something about paying for college. 

And this year we got to go on a hayride too! It made up for them not having a corn maze ready this year. The ride was pretty short but extra bumpy, so I think we got our money's worth.  

Outdoor music

Our first duet. I know, it sounds like we've been doing it for years.

And to think I've never even had a lesson. 

Fall hike with the cub scouts

My pack got up really early Saturday morning to take a hike around Greenbelt National Park, which is a really nice wooded area I haven't tried out before. 

The hike was pretty short -- only about a mile and a half, but it was good preparation for some longer hikes and runs to come the rest of the year. Plus, it's always good to hang out with the guys for a little on the weekends.

Dance class

 

I know I switched schools, but you didn't think I was going to stop dancing entirely, did you? 

I've started taking ballet at a new local dance school, brushing up on my form and stretches. My new teacher has a giant mirror in the classroom where we can watch every move. It's pretty cool. 

Plus, I gotta work out these new ballet shoes!

Picture day at school

So cute. 

So. Cute. 

So Super Cute. 

Personal space, Dad. Back up a few steps there.