Sonny Acres

You know its getting close to every kids favorite holiday in October when even the grocery stores start carrying pumpkins. To get into the spirit we met Christy's cousin's family and also Courtney and Luke over at Sonny Acres. For those of you back in Richmond - this is pretty much the equivalent of Ashland Berry Farm - with a little more flare (e.g. rides, shops, etc) and a little less land (so no free hayride to go pick out your pumpkin). I had not been there since about 3rd grade, and I must say, I'm impressed how nice they can do it up for Halloween. Elizabeth was excited to get a pumpkin there - but in all my shopping savvy I told her we would buy one somewhere cheaper. Little pie pumpkins were about $2.25 a piece there, I paid $3.00 at Jewel for mine - look at me go.

We had the great idea of taking the kids on a pony ride, so a ticket was purchased for three of the kiddies (JR, Luke and Lizzy - Sammy is a little young yet and likely would have just eaten pony hair) and tried to hoist them up on the pony. Elizabeth's first tactic was to be unsure which pony to ride - then she realized she didn't want to ride any of them. Luke (in the picture to the right with Courtney) was frightened of all of them imimmediately. JR was fine until he realized he was on a pony (maybe two minutes in - before the ride started) and then wanted off. So deflated - we decided to put them on a miniature train ride that Sammy was drooling over only a couple minutes before (see to the left). Needless to say, this was the most exciting thing we did the entire afternoon - the kids loved it. The only down side was the 8 year old boy in snow boots (75 degree weather) staring down JR (1.5 years old) while in the train for no particular reason. I didn't get a picture of it - but I wished that I had - it was funny but creepy. Needless to say, I was getting ready to jump the fence to help him out if he started getting pummelled by this boy.

Yesterday morning I was watching the Senate hearing committee on Blackwater, and I was simply amazed. Mind you, not about the incident they were investigating, but rather how foolish and unproductive the whole thing was. Senators (both Republican and Democrats) were blasting this CEO with figures that were incorrect and comparisons that did not make any sense. My favorite one went something like 'Mr Prince, you bill the United states government roughly $1300 per day for your defense contractors in Iraq. Our US service man only cost $25 dollars an hour at 10 hours a day making it $250 dollars a day - how do you justify the costs?' The CEO of Blackwater and I both sat stupefied...how do you compare the hourly rate of a soldier against the fully loaded costs of a contractor that includes training, travel, insurance for the people, insurance for all their equipment that they are using, overhead, etc etc. It blows my mind that these types of questions even make it out of their mouths. I figure one of two things is happening - they know its a foolish comparison but its political positioning OR they really are that unable to see its a terrible comparison. I think both is terrifying given that these are supposed to be the leaders of the US. Anyway...

Besides that things are going well. I finished reading Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper and am currently reading Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels for the Wheaton Bible missionary preparation program. Both have some good thoughts and I'll give a brief comment on them next time.

We miss everyone and would love to hear how you are all doing. Until next time.