Halloween Arizona Style!

Halloween Pumpkin Carvers Unite! No more dangerous knives that could kill you (like when we were kids), now we have pumpkin carver kits. Love them. The kids are getting better at it. I think they need their own pumpkin next year so I can let go of my perfectionism. :) It turned out great though (partly because I was holding on...let go, let go, let go).

It is a different land here in Arizona on Halloween. It becomes a neighborhood block party. (Well, not our neighborhood, we had to go a few streets over. But the cops tried to arrest our neighbor right before we left to go trick-or-treating). Neighbors set up tables in their driveway, have games to play, s'mores to roast and dancing to do. One house had their Nintendo Wii projected onto the garage and trick-or-treater's stopping to play. Christian was all over that one.

Here are the kids in their Halloween costumes. Katie was a Fairy and Christian was once again Buzz Lightyear, his cartoon hero. It wasn't until later that I realized Katie's costume was sleeveless. She had a jacket on before we left. Kinda funny, she danced in that, so it was never a question on modesty when doing that, like swimming. Never thought about it in a costume way. Just thought it and wrote it. If I pointed it out to her she would probably be mortified.

We had a lot of fun. Christian wanted to go home after a while because we had "too much" candy. When we got home he went in and got himself ready for bed. Katie stayed out with us while we talked to some of our nice neighbors across the street. Such a social creature like her Mom. She doesn't want to miss a thing. They are so precious. It is fun to see share these experiences with them.

Happy Halloween!

Dancing Fools, Gotta Love 'Em

Notice the rad outfits. They had just watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and were dancing to the music at the end. They are funny.

The Car is Back...

Mike's beloved Mustang has returned home all pretty on the outside, but still "wrecked" (as observed by a seven year old) on the inside. Little by little, we will get it done. For now it is pretty exciting just the way it is. We are working on the next step of getting the new headliner and the old glass back in. Then there is the wonderful task of reassembling everything that we took off in the beginning. While the car was being painted, Mike was able to acquire some new wheels and tires for the car. For those that are interested in the details, they are 17 inch wheels and tires in the "Shelby" fashion.

Of course, getting the Mustang home was eventful. Mike called me one evening to tell me he needed me to meet him at the mustang shop that put the doors, hood and fenders back on. (There is a very high degree of difficulty to getting them on "straight", so we had professionals do that) Being in the middle of making dinner, I was obviously ready to drop everything and go. Mike tells me that I am sometimes a stickler for rules. You can imagine my stress when I realized he wanted me to follow him home because he had 1) no license plate because the part that holds it isn't back on yet and it was suspended anyway, 2) there is no glass in the front or back windshield, 3) there are no lights, anywhere, on the car (i.e., brake lights, not that that is important), and 4) It is not really a complete car at this point and it is loud and gets noticed.

Away from the shop we traveled after we convinced the kids that riding in the mustang, as is, without seats, was inadvisable. Keeping careful watch on the...traffic, yeah, only the traffic,...we got 4/5ths of the way home. Carefully, I moved over to get ready to turn left, expecting Mike to follow my lead behind him, when he continued to slow down and start to turn right into a parking lot. My first thought was that the car had something wrong with the newly rebuilt motor. But no, not that at all. In his haste to get his beautiful car home, he forgot to check the fuel gage. He ran out of gas. It was a good laugh, even though I was wondering when we were ever going to have dinner. Luckily our gas can for the lawn mower was relatively full so it was rectified fairly quickly. We got home without further incident. Getting the car done will take awhile, but it is the journey and mostly the outcome that I look forward too.

Temple Bound

Here in Sunny Arizona we are truly loving the weather right now. I think the high was 82 today. We actually got to pull out our jackets when we took a little Family Home Evening field trip to the temple. It was fun to have a jacket on again. Windy and cool. Christian wanted a coat when we got out of the car because he was so "coooooold". I laughed and teased that if they thought this was cold, why would they want to go back to Idaho. Katie immediately defended herself by stating that she thought that it wasn't cold. (For some reason she really wants to move back to Idaho)

We walked around the grounds for a little bit. They have a really cool cactus garden that the kids like to check out whenever we go. You can see it to the left in this picture.

There is one that is called an old man that the kids thought was funny. It looks something like this. As you can see the "hair" looks like an old man's wispy hair. They also enjoyed picking out the plants that are in our yard and in our neighborhood.

We headed over to the reflection pools and had a chance to enjoy the peace of the grounds. They are starting to put the lights up for Christmas already, which we are pretty excited about. This picture shows what the temple looks like at the reflection pools with the lights at Christmas. The kids enjoyed running around the area as no one was around. The feeling is so peaceful there and they seemed to really soak it up.

We headed inside and were greeted by a sister missionary. The kids had wanted to see a movie and there was a really cool presentation about families that you move through with the video. I would highly recommend it if you get the chance. Mike and I were both struggling to keep a dry eye. There is one point where the grandmother is talking to a grandchild about how they miss grandpa. Christian turned to me and said, "I missed grandpa when he was in the hospital". He was referring to the last time we were there and Dad had just had his surgery. Yeah, I just about lost it. We are excited to go home for Thanksgiving under better circumstances.

One of the kids favorite things to see is the Christus that greets you when you enter the official front of the building. Christian likes to go up and touch the foot. I am not sure if that is really okay to do, but a sister missionary encouraged it the last time. It is amazing how kids are incredibly drawn to it. Christian then proceeded to plop down on the floor in front of it to wait for the short presentation to start. It was very cute. When it was over it was a little difficult to convince him that that was it.
It was a really great way to spend the early evening. Of course, it isn't Family Home Evening without a song, so Katie insisted we sing a song on the way home. I love the peace you feel by going to those grounds. We are grateful that we live so close to a temple right now and with such a big visitors center.

A day trip to Mexico costs how much?

For about a month now, the kids and I have intermittently (like every phone call) been asking my parents if they would like to come here for Christmas again this year. Last year my dad was really sick and they were only here for about 72 hours. The kids just adore their grandparents and are just itching to have them come down. As you know, we move around a fair bit and they are very aware of this fact. A sample conversation between the kids as they would get out of the car for school on many occasions has gone like this.

Katie: "Yeah, when we move to California we can do that."

Christian: Giggle, "Yeah, when we go to California. That will be so cool."

Katie: "And then we will be close to Grandma and Grandpa."

Christian: Giggle, "Yeah, and we can visit them."

Door Closes.

Now mind you, we have never said we are moving to California. In fact, we never know where we are going to move next. It is always a surprise to me about a month before we move. The biggest by far was moving to Idaho, which my kids really miss and I assure them that we are not going back (Did you know that it snowed there last weekend?). But I digress. The point is that they love their grandparents.

My parents recently acquired some nice timeshares and are wanting to use them. My dad wants to stay in Palm Desert and go to the Grand Canyon and then go to Mexicali,

which is a Mexican border town. Now, from everything I have heard, border towns are not the part of Mexico you want to see. There are beautiful places to see, but border towns are not one of them. If somebody wanted a "taste" of California, you wouldn't send them to Bakersfield either. In addition to the unattractive drive and border town status, you now need a passport to get back out so you are not trapped there. Out of curiosity for the cost of Passports, I decide to look it up. Wow. If you want a passport to do a little day trip to Mexico it is going to cost you $97. For ONE person. Now I know that I don't want to do a day trip to a Mexican Border town. Plus, I have heard it is taking forever to get a passport now that many people need them to go see their relatives. Oh, but wait, with a simple $60,...per person, you can expedite them. Needless to say, if they go, my parents will be going by themselves (they have their passports). We do still hope them come, even if they go south too.

I should play WHAT?

Okay, so my friend Jeralee had this on her blog. Apparently I should play the accordion. I don't think when I clicked wacky, that I was expecting quite this outcome. I'm not quite that wacky, I think, but it is kind of funny.

You Should Play the Accordion

You are eccentric, funky, wacky... definitely one of a kind.People have trouble putting you in any one particular category. You definitely have your own thing going on. You are a born entertainer. No wonder you'd be perfect as an one man (or one woman) band.Your musical influences likely cross all genres - and blend together in a very unusual way. While you are definitely offbeat, you also enjoy tradition and influences from the past.It's just your style to take an old fashioned instrument like the accordion and make it uniquely yours. Your dominant personality characteristic: your total inhibition Your secondary personality characteristic: your interest in obscure activities and subjects

http://www.blogthings.com/whatmusicalinstrumentshouldyouplayquiz/">What Musical Instrument Should You Play?