Acorns!! For you, Annamarie!

We had such a great time in Julien, the kids wanted a souvenier! So rather than spend money, they gathered Acorns! Just the bottoms mind you, there were tops but they were not as nice as the bottoms! The kids literally polished them until they shone! So for our dining room table I made a candle arrangement with the acorns the kids gathered and polished. Annamarie has such neat ideas for seasonal decorations! Steve does too! They decorate their house so beautifully! I am inspired! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Let's all do the Cockatoo!

Ok, maybe not. But Kaleigh sure had fun!
This bird sure liked Kaleigh! The owner of the bird said that Cockatoos rarely speak unless they are with someone they are truly comfortable with or just plain like A LOT! He said this is the first time he has seen this bird talk to a person other than himself! The bird really just said "Hello" but we all heard it and it was pretty cool! Usually they just squawk like this!

A Wonderful Weekend!

Ok, I never quite know where the photos will fall on my blog, so I will try to go in order. We went down to visit with Steve and Annamarie and family down south and had a relaxing, fun, wonderful time! The adults got along, the kids got along and the visit (in my humble opinion) was a huge success! The top photo is our time at the park with the cockateels and the parrot.

More on that later, video to follow... Then the next photo down would be the last day when Carl was able to go with Steve on a cool helicopter ride and training session! I think he had a blast!

The kids and I got to see the helicopter too (before we left for home). The next photo down was the delicious meal that Annamarie prepared for us, that we all enjoyed! It was heaven having someone cook, who does it so well and enjoys it! I truly enjoyed doing nothing but enjoy! Oh wait I did "chop" some lettuce...heehee. Then the last photo is of all of our kids at Vieja Mall. It was fun and they just got up on the rock like that! Gee you think these kids have their photos taken much? All around good time! Thank you so much Annamarie and Steve! And thank you Mckenna for watching the kids and letting the grown ups visit a while!

Ashes, Ashes, we're all OK!

Ok, so there is a fire near us...kind of. I mean if you are looking at a map of the Yorba Linda/Brea area, yes, we are pretty close to the Brea fire. It would take us all of 5 minutes to drive up into the fire. However, that is up on the hill where all the brush is and we are a bunch of houses, businesses and a large Hwy away from it. So we are all ok, no sign of any evacuation orders and mostly everything has been north of us moving east and north. Yes, the 57 fwy is closed as is the 91 fwy. Things are looking worse for our school then our residence. We are waiting to see if anyone from the school will be calling to say not to come to work or the kids to school. There is an area about a mile from the school that has been evacuated so.... who knows.

Kaleigh did get home safely from her camp out at Lake Arrowhead so that is all good. The air quality is something different. It is smokey and stinky and we are not thrilled with all the ash that has fallen on our cars, and everything else! As you can see by the photos there was a lot of ash that blew our way. The last photo was of the Yorba Linda fire when I was on my way home from our Silent Auction at our Church. Needless to say our Auction was not too well attended because of the fires. We still did pretty good though. So no worries, at least so far.

Kaleigh's first "Real" Girl Scout Outing...
Well, it has happened, Girl Scouts has dealt a blow we weren't prepared for. The first camp out with her troop is this weekend, today, tomorrow and coming home on Sunday. Not real close by either. Lake Arrowhead. I was going to go until I found out when it was! The same weekend as my Silent Auction at our Church! Well, as some of you know (mainly Tina), I started this Annual Silent Auction about 12 years ago, it was my baby and it has done really well in the years past. I Emcee it, I run it and it would most likely not go as well without me. It is tomorrow. Well, I know that Girl Scout stuff like this doesn't come about every month, so I really wanted Kaleigh to make her own mind up about it. She didn't really want to go without me, but she knew if she didn't go, she would hear about how fun it was from all her friends! Plus her best friend would have been upset. Well, I left it up to her and she had a few tears over it, since she was truly undecided for a long while! She finally decided it was better to try and possibly get a little homesick then to not go and be horribly disappointed because how fun everyone will make it out to be (even if it isn't that great, her friends will make her think it was, don't ask me why, must be a 9-10yr old thing). So she is at this moment up at Lake Arrowhead, in most likely a gorgeous cabin, having a great ol time. I told her she was more than welcome to call me and talk to me if she missed me but so far everything is good. We will see a little closer to bed time whether or not she is handling it well. More on this later.... I miss her though....sniff.

Pumpkins-Real vs. Fake

For the last couple of years I have carved fake pumpkins that I purchased very cheaply at Michael's. They are a resin or plastic of some sort and last forever! The only problem is that they are so hard to carve that you cannot do a lot of detail work unless you have wood carving tools! The normal pumpkin carving tools are too wimpy and will break if you are not careful. So the kids do not carve any part of the pumpkin, but they do design them. Last year, Kaleigh drew her face on and I carved it, and Cole basically just told me how to make the face. Then this year they just told me what they wanted.

The photo with the three pumpkins are the ones from last year. You have the cute surprised face, the cute baby face and the mean ol' face.

In the other photo are the pumpkins from this year. Kaleigh's butler-faced pumpkin (on the body of the skeleton) and Cole's Spongebob teethed pumpkin. They had fun coming up with the designs and we get a lot of compliments. Next year I may have to get at least one real one that Kaleigh can try carving!
Oh and sorry it is daylight, this was taken Nov 1st before they were put away!