A Little TINY One

It's a cool, windy night in the Hawkeye state. I picked the last of the tomatoes tonight, since the temperature is supposed to get into the twenties tomorrow, with 40-60 mph winds. It isn't supposed to snow, but Asher tried on his snowpants and snowboots tonight. No matter what, it won't long before the snow is flying. Asher says he is looking forward to helping me shovel the walks.

Sarah is still recuperating from her ear surgery. Her hearing is great, but she is still dealing with dizziness and pain. The other day, she received a beautiful edible bouquet from her parents. It was delicious, too!

This morning, we headed downtown for the very last farmer's market of the year. Many of the vendors weren't there this week, but downtown was bustling with crowds from the Race For the Cure and a Sarah Palin rally. We went for a walk around downtown, and up to Hy-Vee Hall to see how many protesters were outside the Palin rally. We didn't catch a glimpse of the Governor herself, but had a nice walk, partially in the skywalk system. Des Moines has an amazing skywalk system, winding for over three miles through the city, about three floors up. You can walk almost wherever you want without going outside. On a beautiful late fall day, this isn't an advantage, but I think we will be taking some walks there this winter.

At the farmer's market, Asher got the chance to decorate his own little pumpkin. This was very exciting, since Asher has been talking about little pumpkins all week. When he sees pumpkins at the store, he holds his fingers very close together and says "I want a little, tiny one!" He says this in a very high-pitched, cute little voice he uses for talking about little things, and his voice rises to a squeak when he says "tiny". He did a good job with the pumpkin, putting googly eyes on it (Sarah helped with the glue), and drawing a mouth and curly hair.

He is very proud.

We still need to decorate the pumpkins we got from the patch last weekend. Asher is going to be a fireman for Halloween. Halloween is a little different in Iowa than what I'm used to. Here, kids don't go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Instead, they go out on what's called "Beggar's Night", which is determined separately by each town. Our Beggar's night is on Thursday. When the kids come to the door, they have to tell you a joke to get candy. It is a chance for kids to polish their joke-telling skills, and for adults to practice their somewhat-forced laughs. If you want to hear a collection of elementary school riddles about goblins and vampires, talk to me on Friday. It really is an unusual and distinct thing about Iowa.