This is Halloween, this is halloween, halloween halloween

Me as "The Bride of Frankenstein"

This weekend has been busy with Halloween activities. Friday night our neighbors had a family pumpkin carving party. The kids had fun although I was left to finish the pumpkin myself. Good thing I only brought one instead of three like I originally planned. They always have their house decorated to the max!! Lots of candles and everything Halloween you can imagine. They also had their dining room table set up with all kinds of scary treats for the kids to put in their goodie bags. Cami didn't want any eyeballs or skulls. darn 

Saturday my friend Deb and I went to an adult costume party. I dressed as The Bride of Frankenstein. This picture doesn't do justice to my amazing makeup. I am going to do a repeat next week on Halloween and will try to get a better picture.

Scary treats to tempt the children.

Here I am with my reunion committee. Now that I am one week post reunion I am ready to comment on it. Right after the reunion I was exhausted and feeling defeated. Now that a week has passed and I am "recovered" I am feeling much better about the whole thing. It was a lot of work. A LOT of work. But. . .It really was worth it. So many people had fun. They have been posting messages and have been very appreciative. Many of them even want to meet on a regular basis. I need to remember that it is not all about me; it is their reunion too. They don't know what I had envisioned as the "perfect" event, and if the reunion was flawed or not. I am the only one that know what went as planned and what didn't. Friday night's happy hour at Depot Cantina was perfect! The atmosphere was happy and upbeat. Our fellow alumni, Mike Rasmussen played for us and he was GREAT! It really couldn't have gone any better. They had to kick us out!! Saturday, we were really hindered by the gale force winds that forced us from our beautiful outdoor venue to the indoor one that was nice, but not the same. I know that no one would have wanted to be outside eating in the dust and cold, but my visions of mingling during a beautiful sunset were dashed as Deb and I drove out into a wall of swirling dust. We didn't get the band that we were promised. We were promised a band that would play a variety of music. We got a band that played a variety of country music and one Billy Idol song. (It was scarry) Don't get me wrong, the were good, just not what we had expected. The food was great and watching my fellow Buffaloes on the mechanical bull was even better. Sunday couldn't have been more perfect. The weather, being there at the school, the caterer and bounce companies showed up on time, Wallace was there as our surprise guest, touring the school, the kids playing and the adults catching up. I don't have one complaint. So overall, the weekend was a success.

Deb "on" the mechanical bull. :)

Flower Time

It's finally cool enough to plant some flowers. So we went to Home Depot today and picked some out. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot to choose from. They look pretty good now that they are home and in the pots. I planted Garden Mums, Petunias and Alyssums. They are cute.

Rocky Point

Our family loves to go down to Mexico. We go down at least once a year but this year I have been lucky enough to make three trips. Our neighbor owns a condo down there so we decided that we should go down and check out his place at the Sonoran Sea. It was BEAUTIFUL!! They have a pool, which is actually three pools, with a swim up bar. Just steps away is the beach. We went with our awesome friends, the Nipar's. The kids had a blast going on the banana boat and on the jet skis. Debbie and I enjoyed snorkeling and looking for fish. It was a little nerve racking to see all the rays but they were just as afraid of us as we were of them. This was one of the most relaxing vacations I have been on in a while.

View of pool from our balcony.

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Getting ready for the banana boat.

Salsa

Since we picked all those vegetables at the farm this weekend I need to do something with them so that they won't spoil. With mostly tomatoes and peppers, I thought salsa would be the perfect thing to make. The problem is I have never made salsa before. I contacted my pepper expert sister, Angie, and she gave me a basic run down on what to do. After a long three hour day at work I came home all set to make the salsa. Who knew it could be so simple? I'm not sure if I got the taste down exactly the way I want it yet, but it smells pretty good. I will know more once everything has a chance to mingle and cool. This batch made an entire blender full. I will freeze two of these containers and we can scarf one down tonight. Thanks Ang.

Frogs

Amazing things happen every day if you can just find them. Last night my husband found one. A tiny little frog or toad, no bigger than a quarter, was directly in his path on the way up to our front door. So I went out and caught it. We brought it in the house and the kids got to look at it and beg to keep it. So we learned that wild animals like to be wild and it would be much happier outside than in a cage in our house. Our little friend stayed inside for about 30 minutes before I decided it was time to say goodbye.

 

Going to the Orchard (but the farm was better)

Arizona is a very diverse state. We are best known for our saguaros and deserts, but we also have mountains and forests and grasslands and even wetlands. We decided to take the family out to commune with nature. It is almost "Fall" after all. It is also apple picking season (if there were any apples to be picked). Our original plan was to head up to Date Creek Ranch North West of the Valley. Luckily my husband decided to check things out on their web page before we left. Seems that Arizona suffered some pretty bad freezes back in April that devastated this year's apple crop. So we decided to head south past Tucson to Apple Annie's Orchard and Farm in Wilcox, AZ. Their apples were also hit by the freeze, but there were still apples to pick.  We came home with 15 lbs of various apples. What does one do with 15 pounds of apples? Make apple sauce. It was my first try and I would have to say it was very easy.

But even better than the apples was the farm!! They had rows upon rows of vegetables (which I pretend to like for my children's sake) for the picking. So we all tromped out into the fields and picked yummy veggies. We came home with eggplant, various peppers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes and a cucumber for Cas. We even got enough for the neighbors. :)

A fun day was had by all.