Halloween 2012

Hola!

This week has been a wild one, and we weren't even hit very hard by the megastorm Sandy.  I'll do another post on storm things, maybe, but I did want to count my blessings that even though about half the town lost power and lots of trees and branches came down in that horrifically intense wind, we could hold some "normal" things in our town.  Like Halloween.

SENIORS DRESS UP.  Traditionally at our high school, on Halloween Day the seniors are allowed to wear costumes to school.  They get pretty creative, actually--it's fun that they have a chance to showcase their talents and look silly for the day.

David is a senior this year (I'm still allowing that to sink into my brain...it should take a full year, or 5).  He and a group of friends each dressed up like different characters in the Super Mario game.  It was very fun.  David was "Shy Guy." 


I put a picture of the actual character in the corner so you can see the resemblance.  :)

He even spray-painted his worst pair of sneakers.






Here is me helping him with makeup before seminary, getting all dressed up Halloween morning.

Here is the Mario group, and I can't name all the characters except probably Mario himself, and Luigi, and Princess Peach.

His other friends were Calvin and Hobbes, Zorro and other super heroes, etc.  There were 13 kids who came over.

iTUNES GIFT CARDS.  Kara and a few friends made up their costumes to be iTunes gift cards.  Those gift cards USED to have the bright card with the silhouette dancing.  They dressed in black and put bright cards behind them.

(Apple has since changed the cards, of course!  I thought it was a fun idea.)

OVERLAPPING PARTIES. Kara's friends came over to eat and get costumes ready around 5.  The plan was to leave to trick-or-treat around 6.

David had his friends come over around 6, to socialize and then to go out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

TRICK-OR-TREATING PHILOSOPHY.  My philosophy on trick-or-treating has evolved, over time.  I think, if the kids make the effort to dress up and wear actual costumes, I don't mind teenagers trick-or-treating.

The ones I roll my eyes at are the ones who ring the doorbell at 8:45 p.m., when all the little kids have gone home, and there stand 2 teens in regular clothes, holding pillow cases.  Please.

But if they make an effort, no problem.  And most of the neighbors were good sports about it.  One said "You're too tall to trick-or-treat," then they crouched down, and she gave them candy.

Another neighbor looked at the group of 13 teens and asked, "Okay, which one of you is from this neighborhood?" Then David and Princess Peach spoke up.  They all got candy.  Overall, it was a fun evening for them!

More later, love, Kari

Oh, P.S.  Here is when David tried to take OFF the face-paint... The white and black mixed together, and he got this great ZOMBIE effect!  We'll have to use that one another year.

Annual Pumpkin Carving

Muck Removal

Hola!

Couldn't get through October without having our traditional Pumpkin Carving Family Home Evening.

(Again: thanks to Kara, we decorate for, and celebrate holidays to the max!  The fall school and sports schedules overwhelm me so much, I would - sadly - probably take a "pass" on some of this.  But energetic Kara will have none of that!)

We usually wait until pretty close to Halloween Day to carve the pumpkins.  Maybe we learned that in southern California, where it's always warm and your pumpkin gets old and moldy after just a few days.  But even here in the Arctic North, we have a few warm days in October, so we are still better off waiting.

Make sure all the gunk is cleaned out...

Eeewww...

searching for the perfect pumpkin face

Get the music playing on Pandora.com...

Sometimes we like intense music from adventure movie soundtracks.  No words, just fast orchestra music that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

(Think John Williams with Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Also Hans Zimmer, with Pirates of the Caribbean, Mission Impossible, The Dark Knight Rises, and Inception. The music is phenomenal.  They belong to an amazing, elite club of genius composers.)

Puking Pumpkin

So anyway, David (our high school senior) found this great group who plays very intense music--their music could be part of soundtracks for very intense movies! We really like the music when he plays it for us on youtube, and we ask him the natural question, since we like it so much: "What group is this?"

"Two Steps from Hell."  (Oh.  Bummer.  Now I can't recommend it to anybody without swearing.  That's a little awkward.)

Teresa requested the Open-Mouth, Puking Pumpkin.  Sometimes it's a little ridiculous, what you can find on the Internet.

Got to get a picture of this on my phone

Here are the final products, with candles to show them off on the doorstep!

Thanks to all the Whitesell participants. :)

Fall Stuff

This is about the 10th time I have tried to post on the blog, and then I am distracted by "the next thing!"

It's a rainy, blah day today, but I'll put up the photo I took yesterday of a pretty tree by the middle school.  We do have SOME really nice, picture-perfect fall days in October.  Just not today.

LEAVES CHANGING.  In front of our house the trees are still mostly green.  But as you drive around town, you can see the yellows, reds, orange leaves.  Very pretty!

NEW MAILBOX.  Frank spent time Saturday digging out the old and putting in a new mailbox post.  I think it looks much better!

Now the mailbox has the same "look" as the lamp post.  (in the 2nd mailbox photo you can see the lamppost to the right an behind the mailbox.)  Here are some before and after photos.  Somebody kind of bumped our mailbox, so it was held together for a few weeks by duct tape.  (I dont' have photos of the duct tape, sorry...)

PET CEMETERY.  We said good-bye and had a mini-funeral for Spice, Kara's hamster, who passed away last week.  Hamsters only live about 2 years, and Spice was 2 months shy of 2 years old.  We have a little "Pet Cemetery" in the back corner of the backyard.  It now shelters 3 hamsters, and a garden snake from a few years ago we found in the basement and kept for a little while.

Our backyard looks very different now (the tree in the center died last year), but I've pointed to where we buried the animals, way back in the corner.

BAKING A SNAKE.  Here's Kara's science project...she made a milk snake out of clay, baked it, and painted it to show the adaptive coloring!  It looks like a coral snake, which is poisonous, but the milk snake is not poisonous.  But its enemies don't know that, so they stay away.

Ok, by the way, there was only one "K" in the set of letters!  Kara creatively used an "X" for the second "K" in the title: "The Milk Snake." :)

DECORATING for HALLOWEEN.  If it weren't for Kara, we'd have a boring house!  For every holiday, she digs around in the bins in the attic and finds things to hang up, to decorate the house.  Halloween is only 11 days away, you know.

Well that was probably more than you wanted!  But doing photos on the blog (or anywhere) is therapeutic for me, so that's mostly why I do it.

Hope your October is going well.  Have a great weekend!  Kari :)

Mary Lou's Memorial

Hello!

I completely forgot to mention Frank's Virginia weekend, in the last blog post.  (We did miss him over the weekend.  It was a pretty quick trip.)

Frank got to visit with some family members he hasn't seen for awhile, when he went to a memorial service for his Aunt Mary Lou.  She passed away during the summer and Amelia (his cousin, Mary Lou's daughter) organized this additional memorial service, for those who didn't come to the one earlier in the summer.

I remember Mary Lou's passion for nature.  She would take these crazy-long camping trips, and got into birding.  Then it became a quest to search for birds, birds, and more birds, in their different habitats, in different regions of our country and Canada.  I think it was called the "700 Club" that she was in.  She observed and identified over 700 species of birds! I posted this bird on our blog once, and she told me almost immediately what it was.  (I can't remember the name now.  But she knew!)

Her brother Bill remembered how she was a voracious and fast reader.  When they were younger, he would watch as she would read, just slowly turning pages continuously.  He was skeptical, and didn't think she was really reading.  Periodically he would "quiz" her on the material she had just gone through.  And yes, she would actually remember the information!

Once she came to our house when we lived in Colorado, and she showed us her very fancy, custom camping van.  Frank and I were amazed at all the amenities, that she squeezed into a normal-sized van!  (Who cares if it rains or not when you're camping, if you have one of those cool vans?)

Here is a photo of Mary Lou when she was in her 20's (my guess).  Isn't she beautiful? :)







And here is the group of family members who went to dinner after the service.  Frank was glad to be able to visit with his aunt & uncle, cousins and their families.  It's good to get together when everyone lives so far apart.

Thanks, Amelia, for organizing this!  You're a star! :)

Joys of October

Hola--

It's October!  Yes!  I love this month.  New England has a few really beautiful months, and this is one of them.  The leaves have started to change, so as the month progresses the drive around town becomes brighter and more colorful.  It's truly wonderful.

Two weeks have gone by since the last post.  I'm thinking it has been more like two months.  It is fall, and every fall I am (Understatement Alert) a little overwhelmed.  They are all good things, mind you!  I just feel scattered.

PHONES.  This was a more painful and tedious process than we could have imagined, but we have a new family plan with phones for everybody.  (As my brother Kris would say, "Nice, Kari.  Welcome to the 90's.")  It is true we have always dragged our feet a little on the newest technology.  Why pay for the hype?  Just wait a few months/years and the prices come down.  We all have phones, I said.  NOT smart-phones, or the newest and fanciest version of whatever just came out from Apple.  Plain phones, no Internet on the phones.

We are ALL texting now, finally.  Some of us more than others, to be sure.  I think Kara -- 7th grade -- racked up 1000 in one week.  Please.  (Of course, I think she has more friends than all of the rest of us combined...?)

The catalyst that pushed us to finally get everybody phones, has been my own thinking: next year David will be in college and (pause)...will we EVER actually get a phone call from him?  Maybe not.  But we may be more likely to get a text from him.

So here we are.  We switched to AT&T--again, it was a nightmare, so I can't recommend them to anyone--because they had the best-priced family plan for us, with the corporate discount from HP.  And after hours and days of waiting on hold (you think I'm exaggerating but I'm really not), and occasionally talking to people, who had varied and different information they would make up...

(Happy Ending) Over the course of 2 weeks of agony, we finally talked to two different truly helpful people.  One of those people was appalled at our runaround story.  He went into the computer and gave us credit for 2 months of service on our account.  Yes.  I was floored.  Awesome!

IN OTHER NEWS.  A new mailbox post sits in our living room, to be hopefully installed this weekend.  I might have before/after photos next week.

SOCCER.  Kara's school team is doing quite well, and Kara is improving and really likes the game.

VOLLEYBALL.  This sport is such a highlight for Teresa.  She wishes it would last all year.  It does make for some loooooooooooong days, though, leaving the house for seminary at 6:00a.m., school, vball, and on game days home at 8p.m.  Homework, she is not so fond of.

PUMPKIN LAUNCHER.  The Young Men at church are in charge of the youth activity this week.  David has been building, along with other youth and leaders, a pumpkin launcher.  They will get into groups to design and decorate a pumpkin, then they will launch them outside.  Prizes will be given for creativity, design, distance, etc., etc.

TUTORING.  I finally have a schedule pretty well in place for my tutoring at school.  (Bonus: they even sent my time cards, after about a month, so I can get paid!)  They are such nice kids.  I have a really good job.

FIVE THINGS to be THANKFUL FOR.  To finish the post, off the top of my head:
1)  I am thankful for reliable transportation.
2)  For sweatshirts in the fall.
3)  For other adults who care about my kids, too.
4)  For sunshine breaking through the clouds.
5)  Comfortable, nice-looking shoes.  On sale.

Happy Week!  Kari

A Week in the Life of...

Hola!

It's a long weekend here--Rosh Hashanah on Monday--so the kids get Monday off.  It always cracks me up that we wait so long to START school, then right off the bat they get a long weekend for Rosh Hashanah, then NEXT week they'll get Wednesday off for Yom Kippur.  It's a choppy September.

SOCCER.  Of course our soccer news is for Kara.  Background is, the town has soccer teams for all ages of kids.  The season is appx. 10 weeks: 2 practices a week, + games on Saturdays.

The Middle School also has a soccer team, for 7th and 8th graders.  (Kara is in 7th grade.)  Practices are after school 4 of the 5 weekdays, + games during the week after school.  So Kara was already on a town team, and she wanted to try out for the school team, too.

Tryouts were last week, 3 days.  20 girls can be on the team, and they "favor" the 8th graders.  FIFTY girls showed up to try out!  14 of the girls who made it were 8th graders.  So they chose six 7th graders, and...Kara made the team!  She was so excited.  Congratulations, Kara!  :)

TUTORING.  I also started tutoring English Language Learners (ELL or ESL) again, at the same 2 elementary schools where I worked last year.  I will work 2 days a week, with children grades K-3.  We are still in the "testing" phase, to see how many additional kids including summer move-ins and new Kindergarteners, we will add to the students who receive services.  The Kindergarteners are so little!

I have been thinking about getting my ELL certificate, so I could be an official "ELL teacher."  I need to take 2 standardized tests, pay fees, and have my transcripts sent to them.  It's kind of a long process, and a little arbitrary.

My degrees are also from 20 years ago, for Pete's sake!  They may laugh and say "time for you to start over."  I took the 1st standardized test last week.  The 2nd test is specifically about English as a Second Language so I'll have to either take a course or study by myself about the theories, etc. behind learning second languages.


CAR MAINTENANCE.  Frank took the car over to help the girls in the church youth group learn about maintaining your car.  Checking the oil, other fluids, jumpstarting the car, etc.  They had quite an extensive list, and I think they learned a few things they did not know before.

TARANTULA.  Ok, I'm going through photos and I thought this one was cool.  That's Frank's ring so I know it is him, but I can't remember what trip this was, exactly...?

GRANDMA.  And I'll end with this Blast from the Past: Thanksgiving, 2002.  It's our family reunion, and her's a photo of Grandma with all of her great-grandchildren!  This was almost 10 years ago.  You can imagine, that now we have 2 more in the group, plus all the kids have changed.  (Grandma, of course, has not!)  These same great-grandkids are graduating college and serving missions, or married and starting their own families!  Grandma is 101 for another 3 months.  You can click on the photo to enlarge it.  Love you, Grandma!

Have a great week, Kari :)

2nd Gear into 5th

Hola!

That was Frank's description of the transition from summer to fall, just over the past week or 10 days:

"All of a sudden we shifted from second gear, into fifth."

Of course our calendar is full of all good things.  But everything starts up all at once, and I fill the calendar with pick-up times, evening events, back-to-school nights, sports practices and games.  Oh, and then there are church activities and friend and neighborhood events.

Ho-ho-ho!!  (Bet you didn't know that Christmas is almost here...)

I'm kidding.  Christmas is a LOOOOOOOOng time from now!

FIRST DAY of SCHOOL.  The kids went back to school on Tuesday.  Here they are, humoring their mom by standing still for a picture (during the mad dash to get out the door).

Early-morning seminary also started, on Thursday.  Nothing like hitting the ground running.  That alarm goes off VERY early.  Painful for everyone involved.  Good thing they have awesome seminary teachers!

SOCCER.  Kara had her first soccer game last Saturday.  That's for the town team, and she also wants to be on the school team.  We'll see how tryouts go.

VOLLEYBALL.  Teresa played her first away games this week.  I can't wait for a home game so I can watch!

REFFING.  Teresa has taken classes to be a ref for the town youth soccer games this season.  Her first game will be at the end of this week.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL NIGHT.  Amazingly, the High School already had their Back-to-School night, after just 3 days of school.  I still think the new building is to die for.  Worth all the hassle and hype, and paying our property taxes through the nose.  It's beautiful.

RED SOX GAME.  Frank and I had Red Sox tickets last Friday night!  It poured.  Then it stopped, so the game was delayed about 90 minutes.  The best part?  The Internet saved us...we saw the storm warnings online, so we waited at home.  Then the Red Sox website kept us updated on start time status.  By the time we found out the new start time, we had avoided the nasty traffic and weather, and sailed right downtown to Fenway.  Very cool.

FRANK GETS BETTER.  Well, he is still coughing some, but the cough always lasts the longest, I think.  He was in bed for 3 days, for Pete's sake, but has slowly come out of the "sick fog" this week.  Ugh.

Hope your week was productive--  Onward!  Love, Kari