Halloween

Today I was remembering Halloweens of the past. It is hard to miss when we had a vampire and a lady my mom's age dressed as a baby serve us breakfast! We also had a pirate winch take our photos for some visas!

Kyle remembers his parents setting up their house a haunted house. He had an elderly aunt who was legally blind (possibly a cataract???) dress up as a witch with a metal caldren filled dry ice. She was the greeter at the door. Kyle's mom had put packing peanuts all over the ground and told kids that they were ghost terds!

As a kid, I remember going to many Harvest Festivals at my old school. As a teen, my family went to Boomers often and played miniature golf on Halloween. In college, Kyle and I went to our college group's parties. I remember someone coming as Bart Simpson with yellow paint all over his face. A couple dressed up as characters from the Drew Carry Show. The guy dressed as Mimi with lots of blue eye shadow. The girl dressed as Drew Carry. When Vons was picketing, someone dressed regularly and made a picket sign! As a newly wed, I remember joining some good friends of ours as they passed out candy. We enjoyed a great meal together and a kids Halloween movie. One year, I think it was The Great Pumpkin staring the Peanuts gang.

Today Kyle and I had goodie bags and an extra supply of candies if we ran out. You won't believe how many kids came to our door. You can't even count them on one hand. That is right! A big, fat ZERO! Kyle did have fun dressing up with stuff he already had at home though. I opted to work on lesson plans rather than dress up.

I told Kyle that he was scary with the paint ball mask. To which he replied, "But, I'm smiling!" So... he got creative.


Here is Kyle using REGULAR paint on his face. Let's just say I wasn't thrilled with this idea.

I then decided to make it a photo shoot and took a dozen shots of him painting his face. This is my favorite one!

A morning walk

Fall is on its way! I love when the leaves change colors. Cool morning walks are so inviting. Kyle and I went for a walk this morning and enjoyed some yummy breakfast at a local downtown coffee shop! We also had to stop by one of my favorite spots to take leaf pictures. Of all places, it is the post office:)
This turned out to be a fun angle to get the leaves.

There are still flowers blooming here!

I love lilies!

It is still early in the fall season leaf wise, so many of the leaves are still green.

Aren't these cool!

Rudiger Maul

Well I haven't been playing my drum much. :( I went looking for a frame drum tonight and came across some great doumbek videos on Meinl's site. Check out Rudiger Maul>

Pumpkin Decorating Contest

As an outreach, our church had a pumpkin decorating contest! We had so much fun! We had some new people join us that hadn't come for the ice cream making event. There were 3 grand prizes of $5 gift cards to Target. Everyone got a goodie bag and cookies too! Plus, we had several left over pumpkins, so we also gave out pumpkins!

This was our winner for the funniest face!
Here is my Bible character, the great fish from the Jonah story!
A little girl loves the Miss Spider books and tv series.
When we picked out the pumpkins, Kyle looked at this one and said it would be a great strawberry!
I love the trunk on this elephant!

Day Light Savings- November 1, 2009

I found some information on Day Light Savings that I thought was interesting.

Daylight Saving Time has been used in the U.S. and in many European countries since World War I. At that time, in an effort to conserve fuel needed to produce electric power, Germany and Austria took time by the forelock, and began saving daylight at 11:00 p.m. on April 30, 1916, by advancing the hands of the clock one hour until the following October. Other countries immediately adopted this 1916 action: Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, and Tasmania. Nova Scotia and Manitoba adopted it as well, with Britain following suit three weeks later, on May 21, 1916. In 1917, Australia and Newfoundland began saving daylight.

The plan was not formally adopted in the U.S. until 1918. 'An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time for the United States' was enacted on March 19, 1918. [See law <http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usstat.html> ] It both established standard time zones and set summer DST to begin on March 31, 1918.

Too much fun

We had SO much fun making these silhouette pictures! Can anyone see the message???





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The Random Mix

Here are some other cool shots from this past weekend.
A friend took a diagonal picture for a thank you for her wedding. I fell in love with the idea and have played with it since.

As it turned out, the Clam Fest was also happening during our planned relaxation. There were TONS of people there! We found this stunning booth with orchids!!!

I know, I know, but I can't help but love the flowers!!! These were at the Avila Valley Barn.

I had no idea the pumpkins could come in SO many colors!

Aren't these coo?!?!

We saw lots of dog on the trip. This one was enjoying the sunset.

What a cool looking decomposer!!! The tree was near our campsite.

I just love fall. This was at the Avila Valley Barn.

Awe, the pumpkin field at Avila Valley Barn. On Saturday there were tons of people in the fields picking their pumpkins.

For more information on the Avila Valley Barn, check out their website. http://www.avilavalleybarn.com/orchards_fields.html

Oh, and the Butterflies too!!!

While in Pismo, we got to see some early arrivals of the butterflies that migrate to (or possibly through???) Pismo.

Pismo Beach

The forecast has said low 70s, but it turned out to be in the 90s!!! The good news is that since we has only packed for cooler weather, we found some great deals. Kyle found shorts for $5! I found some for $14!

I must say that the ocean is one of my favorite things in the whole world! We had amazing blue skies, warm enough weather to walk through the water, and great finds like a tide pool full of sand crabs!

Avila Adventures

Kyle and I had great plans save money while celebrating his fall break. We were going to make sandwiches to eat at the Avila Valley Barn. We brought oatmeal to make breakfast at the camp fire. We picked up some sweet corn and soup mix from the Avila Valley Barn. These great plans worked well except for the sandwich part. Kyle made the sandwiches and then left them in the refrigerator. We realized our error at the AVB. One of the nice ladies on the ice cream shop recommended a sandwich place. It was very tasty! There was also a great trail right by the sandwich place that provided the perfect spot to take our first spider web pictures!

The sandwich place was very close to AVB.