Happy Halloween

Garden Goodness

Doesn't this just scream Fall? 

Have I mentioned before that I love gardens.  Our garden this year was an absolute winner for us.  Each year we are getting better and better at figuring out what grows well here in this climate and where to situate the plants, etc.  It's not perfect yet.   But we are on our way.  One item that we know we are adding next year is garlic.  We are told that you simply plant garlic bulbs in the fall before the frost.  We will see what it does.    The garden ended up being somewhat of a community garden that we gave to friends and neighbors since we produced more than we could keep up with.  The garden may be gone now but we will have plenty of goodies from our garden for months to come.  This is just one example!!  Yum!

Halloween School Parties

Yesterday was our first Halloween at Irving. Our first parade around the building. Even Arose joined in on the festivities by walking around the block. Our first classroom party. My first lunchroom duty during M's lunch time period. We then rounded out the day with Arose's party at Big Mike and Ms Alice's. Each year we are treated to witches brew by Ms Alice---which is (secretly) my favorite! We had a great time and we all crashed from the sugar high before our normal bedtimes! Fun day!!

Irving

Big Mike and Ms Alice

Pinkalicious

M and I haven’t had a mother-daughter day in a really long time so I decided that needed to change.  Last minute I surprised her with tickets to Pinkalicous, the musical. It's about a girl who loves the color pink, eats too many pink cupcakes, turns pink--even her hair, then has to eat nothing but greens to turn back to normal.  This was her favorite book for a long time so it was extra special for her. We had a great time. The show was fun and only lasted for an hour which was perfect for the kids in the audience who were getting a bit restless at the hour mark. We couldn’t resist stopping in for a jumbo slice of pizza before the show. We have already planned our next outing to a movie…this time we will let Chris join us and get a sitter for ARose as M suggested!!

 

(Pinkalicious and her brother Peter--M was too shy for the group shot!)

A New Walker

Treat Bag

M's school participates in a program where the kids can upload some of their art projects to an online site so that friends and family who register can see all of their projects.  It's called Artsonia and is a neat program.  You can also buy all kinds of little gifts with your kids artwork on it.  My mom recently sent this cool trick or treat bag to M with one of her Halloween pieces of art.   I absolutely love this...and so does M who was running around the house yelling after she opened it.   Thanks, Nanny, for the surprise.

Fall Block Party

Last Saturday was our Fall Block Party.  Each year we have a Spring party that's pretty low key--basically just closing off the streets so the kids can play and having lunch and dinner together as a block.  Then a Fall party with more activites--usually a moon jump, arts projects, hot dog lunch, potluck dinner and movie in the street.  Chris and I have been the organizers for the last few years and we love it.  This year though....it was the best block party we've had.  We had the normal stuff but we added a pumpkin carving station, face painting station (which Tony our neighbor sat at for 3 HOURS painting little faces and limbs--glad it wasn't me! Actually our kids are glad it wasn't me since they would be a bit bored with just stick people drawings and butterflies) and one of our neighbors bands (a Talking Heads cover band).  The band was really, really, really awesome!  Check it out.  It was a cool trip down memory lane and the kids seem to enjoy it as well.  Perfect weather, perfect day.  Nice!

A Slice of Heaven

Coconut Cake....life doesn't get any better than this!!! 

I have a major sweet tooth.  Always have.  I blame my mom :-)  I remember on the weekends we would go to the grocery store and at the end of our shopping we would treat ourselves to a candy bar (I got to pick) split between the two of us.  This is one of my favorite memories as a child.  Another one is eating cream cheese danishes in the morning with my mom.  (See, I told you.)  But if I was put in the sad and unfortunate position of picking only a single sweet treat, it would hands down be coconut cake.  Preferably my Mamaw Lucius' cake (my mother's mom who passed down the sweets gene!) but she's not able to make her famous cakes any more so I have to make do with a fakey (I mean a substitute).  My substitute is pretty darn good though if I do say so myself.  Tomorrow is staff appreciation day at M's school and I'm part of an organization that plans to serve the staff lunch.  My contribution--coconut cake, what else!!  I hope they feel the love.  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Farm

Yesterday we took the girls to a local pumpkin farm.  It was another beautiful day (60's and sunny) in OP so we just had to take advantage of the day.  We all had a blast petting and feeding the animals, getting lost temporarily in the corn maze and rolling around in the pumpkin patch.  M even got to ride a pony.  And to add to the excitement of the day--we told a man who was still in his truck that his back bumper was touching another car.  He was grateful for us telling him and rewarded us with a coupon for free admission for the entire family.  We got an extra big pumpkin!

And The Demo Begins

It’s official. Chris started the demo in our sunroom last week—ripping the ceiling down, pulling really old paneling, baseboards, molding. Basically, stripping it down to the 100+ year old guts of our house and replacing the windows with newer more energy efficient ones. That’s pretty cool to see; yet at the same time, pretty scary seeing what is actually holding up (or not!) part of your house. Let’s just say we are going to reinforce some areas. Another thing that we have discovered in our many home projects over the years….people like to put stuff in the ceiling rafters. Is this normal? Apparently it was for the former owners. When we were renovating our basement a couple of years ago we found a Billy the Kid wanted poster and various other posters and recently in the sunroom we found a few radio advertisements. We’ve decided that we like this tradition so we are going to add Chris’ marathon bib number and poster to the collection.


Hopefully, within the next couple of months we will have a fully functional mudroom. Just in time for the first snow --yes, I’m being optimistic about the snow—don’t burst my bubble please!

Rub a Dub Dub

Two cuties in a tub!!!

And my personal favorite.......

Allyu Spa

The ladies of the family (minus mom mom who determined this was not necessary for her glorious skin) took a little well-deserved break during our family reunion. We treated ourselves to facials and massages at Allyu Spa. For me, searching out a good spa in the City is somewhat painful. It’s a bit like looking for just the right place to eat. Even if you have a particular cuisine in mind or type of spa service you want, there are simply too many options to choose from (I know, poor me!). It can be overwhelming for a girl like me. Since I don’t do the spa thing often (I think this should change, right!), I’m not super knowledgeable about what to look for. Over the years, I’ve gone to nice spas but I have not been that impressed with the spas. They were generally too bright for me and missing something. Well, that has changed. I finally found the spa for me. When I entered the spa it was exuding just what I had been looking for--- a calm, comforting , serene place. It had me at the front sitting room. And, speaking of rooms, the waiting area in the spa was incredible!! These were the best photos we could take since it was really dark in the room (hence the crazy eyes that I TRIED to fix, but, oh well, I'm no annie leibovitz---wow that was the understatement of the century!).


For you locals, it’s in Rivernorth next to Japonais. Hmmm, next time I should plan my spa visit around lunch time!

Thanks for the awesome company, Mel and Cat.  (missed you Lis)  It was perfect!

A Weekend with the Frigs

A couple of weekends ago we had a mini-Frigs family reunion with Chris’ immediate family. The plans for this weekend started months and months ago with Chris’ brother and girlfriend planning to visit from Portland. Then his other siblings and parents got wind of the visit and decided to join us for the weekend. Unfortunately we were missing one of the clan—Aunt Lis, the one who spearheaded the reunion—but she was with us in a sense thanks to handy dandy technology-- iPhones.

Eat, drink and laugh….that’s what we did for the entire weekend. It was awesome. Family and friends is what life is about in my book.  The kind of thing that we live for and that we miss being so far away from family.

Thanks Mom Mom and Pop Pop, Aunt Cat, Lil Noah, Uncle Mi and Mel! Already miss you all!!

Next year is Portland….I can’t wait for the coffee, vineyards, fish, chickens…..