Halloween Fun

I am not a fan of Halloween. When I was a kid I loved dressing up and trick or treating as much as anyone else. Then I got into high school and mom said I couldn't do that anymore. Since we lived in a country area and houses were a mile apart, it became my job to drive the kids from house to house on Halloween, but I couldn't trick or treat with them.

As a parent I tolerated the whole dress the kids up for Halloween, but when they became pre-teens I decided that they were old enough to figure out their own costumes. So every year they get out the Halloween costume box and try to decide what they want to be.

Here's this year's results:

Tim is Sponge Bob Square pants

James is a super hero...I think Monkey Boy is the name

And Hannah is Alice from Twilight.

Isn't Hannah's haircut cute?! All that natural curl! All the kids got some of my natural curl (except Tim who got Tom's fine straight hair).

I'm glad Halloween is over. On to the other holidays...my favorites...Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!

Another crazy week

This last week was another crazy one. Monday was a funeral for a man in the ward. Tom traded his shift thinking the funeral would be around 10 am, but actually it was at 12:30, and he had to be to work at 12:30. The family dinner was at 4 and I helped with that. Tom got home from work at 9:30 pm.

Tuesday was the awards concert for marching band. Tim's band did the best this year that they've done in several years. They took first in their division and second overall at one competition (the first time they performed the show all the way through), and then they took second in their division a week later when the competition was stiffer. That was the third time they had performed the show. Considering all the injuries, illnesses and other challenges they faced this year...including a freak early snow storm that kept them from the first competition of the year...they did extremely well this year.

Wednesday was Scout Court of Honor. James received his star award. Both boys received the hiking merit badge since they completed the 50-mile hike this summer.

Thursday was the book group. We read "Enna Burning" by Shannon Hale and met Thursday to talk about it. The other Ann had prepared a fire in her backyard fire pit and we roasted marshmellows and drank cider as we discussed the book.

Friday was Halloween and the church Halloween party. I had decided we could do it with the other ward which meets in the same building we do and the other chairman took charge. She was so adamant that they had to do it on Halloween (even though the building was scheduled for our ward to use it that night) and we HAD to do everything her way. Well, I was afraid there was no leadership to follow the bluster, and I was right. I won't bore you with the details, but I was NOT a happy camper at that party. Never again! One good thing was that I filled and carried 2 - 5 gal thermos jugs from the kitchen to the table where the drinks were set up. I was surprised at how easily I did that. I've always had good upper body strength, but just last summer I couldn't have done it. The benefits of bp meds and exercise is all I can think of for that.

Today we finally had time to go to our home teacher's and pick grapes. Tom has been helping me steam them and put the juice in bottles. We also went shopping. I finally decided that I needed an exercise bike because my foot is taking so long to heal. Last time this happened (with my right foot) I didn't have any problems staying off my feet while it healed. I hated exercising then and I wasn't working every day. This time I am working every day AND I enjoy exercising. It's been killing me to not be able to do it, and now the weather is too cold to want to bicycle around town. So we finally settled on a bike, bought it, brought it home, I put it together. James and Hannah have both done 30+ minutes on it since we set it up. LOL...maybe I'll get to use it. I didn't want to spend as much money as we did, but he said it was an investment in my health and I was glad he had such a good attitude about it.

Well, that was my week. I'm teaching Hannah's Sunday School class tomorrow and next Sunday I'm talking in church. Never a dull moment around here!

Now Tim is riding the bike.

It's been a crazy week

We got the earliest snow in recorded history on Oct 10. Only one inch here in Boise, but the flakes were huge. Eastern Idaho got slammed. Burley had 16 inches of snow! The freeway was closed because of it for several hours. We were supposed to go to Pocatello on Oct 11 for a band competiton. The director called it off, and we were so glad when we learned how bad the storm was in Eastern Idaho. We could have been stuck on the freeway with two busses of band kids. Not fun at all. We hadn't even turned on the heater until the night before it started snowing.

My sister Nancy and her kids visited us this week. We had lots of fun making memories with them. We kept busy the whole time, shopping, going to the corn maze and such. The maze is a corn field with a total 6 miles of trails...if you don't back track and you take the shortest route through. There are four different mazes of varying distances. We stumbled onto the first checkpoint. After that I was able to follow the map and get us through the rest of the checkpoints and out of the maze. lol...the kids thought I was cheating. The maze we did was 1.75 miles, but I'm sure we walked over 2 miles.

We had my piano recital this week. The father of the other girl was sitting too near the piano for my taste and I felt nervous the whole time. He's a nice guy, but somewhat intimidating. Oh well, what do you do at times like that? Stop the song and move the piano? Not! I played a Sonata by Beethoven. It was 12 pages long and 15 minutes of nerves...lol. My teacher and I also played a duet and that went much better.

I am also planning the church Halloween party so that is taking some time. We're doing the traditional chili cookoff, activities and trunk or treat, but this year the high school kids may be involved in a district football game that night, and many of the leaders (children and youth) weren't planning to attend at all. It's been quite a snag to work around.

Last week a man who has been involved in scouting with the boys (unit advancement counselor) passed away. His funeral was this week. Then, one Tom's high priests passed away this morning so we will be helping with the funeral and dinner after this week.

We found out this week that our friends are moving to Utah sometime soon. They don't have a date yet, and she will stay here until the house sells. I'm really going to miss her. She's more like another sister than just a friend. We have plans to meet at Bear Lake next summer for camping.

Tim's marching band took first yesterday. First in music and overall in their division. Second overall the competition. That's the best they've done in the years Tim has been involved.

Hannah had her first orchestra concert of the year this week. She loves playing the cello and is getting pretty good at it.

Whew! That was just this week!

See ya soon...I hope.

Ann