Leaves, leaves, leaves...HAVE WE EVER GOT LEAVES!

But, first, a few photos from Sunday. We had promised Doug that we would let him buy a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a Robot that he had found our first day in Branson. Because he tends to want everything he sees, we delayed the actual purchase until the end of our vacation ('least he find something he wanted more in the meantime). Saturday evening, as soon as the band was through playing at SDC, we ran to the outlet mall where he had found the toy. To his utter devastation, the store was CLOSED. It wouldn't reopen again until noon the following day. Grant had planned to spend the next day in Springfield, but, as it was, we spent the morning in Branson and didn't leave town until AFTER procurring the much yearned for Turtle toy. Forgetting about the time change, we checked out of our hotel way earlier than we need to have. So, after breakfast, we played a round of miniture golf at Pirate's Cove. The weather was gorgeous and it was a lot of fun (though the course is much harder than the dinosaur one that we had played earlier in the week!). Grant, show-off, made about five holes in one. Darcy and I did deplorably. Doug showed significant improvement in his handling of the golf club and Rayna...well, Rayna had as much fun as she always has in every activity she finds herself in! And, soon enough, the store was open and we were free to leave Branson!


Well the Fall in Autumn has definitely arrived at our home! We have no deficit of trees...so, we have a healthy harvest of falling leaves, too! The kids love playing in the leaves almost as much as the dogs do! Darcy busied herself today by burying Gloria (much to Gloria's delight). Rivendell took advantage of Gloria's plight to attack unseen. I thought the resulting images of Gloria's toothy jaws emerging from the leaves was appropriate for this Halloween Day!


(Note just the top of Gloria's head is visible through the leaf pile on the left side of this photo of Darcy standing with the rake!)