King Tut and Ben Kanobi

We have survived another Halloween and the kids had a great time. T was King Tut and R was Ben Kanobi(the young Obi Wan Kanobi from Star Wars). M and I made their costumes last weekend and they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. M found a patter for R's costume online, but it was for an adult. M figured that R was about two-thirds the size of an adult, so he cut all of the measurements by one-third and used a T-square to draw it out on the brown fleece that we bought. It wasn't so hard to sew, but was just a bit tricky to gather the fleece in the back of the hood. (R doesn't have the hood up in the pictures.) I designed T's costume using a glue gun and sewing a bit for the head dress. M and I tag-teamed on T's staff. M cut down a piece of pvc pipe he had. T and I spray painted it gold; M screwed in the ornament on top; and I wrapped and glued the ribbon around it. I had fun with T as he helped with all of the decorations of his costume -- lots of gold and jewels :>

I was able to scoot out of work early to help out in T's classroom for his Halloween party. Here he is sitting with his buddy, Black Spiderman

Here is R as Ben Kanobi in his school parade. Can you tell that he feels pretty good about his costume?
For the third in a row (I'd call it a tradition) we had our friends, the H's, over for dinner and trick or treating. As you remember, they live in the country on 40 acres and don't have a neighborhood to trick or treat in. Their son dressed up as a knight. Notice the very solomn poses all the boys took in this picture. I tried to get them to smile, but they were in character, so to speak.

And here are the boys checking out R's loot at the end of a profitable trick or treating night.

Autumn has Arrived

I do love the changing of the seasons. It's a nice way to mark time. We didn't really have that in southern California, where I grew up. The fall colors are beginning to show and it's just gorgeous. Here are the colors that I see every evening when I drive home on my street:

It was cool last weekend, so we had a lovely fire in the fireplace. M read to R and T (and Mackinaw) by the fire -- what a nice, warm sight to see:

My sistah gave me a nice birthday present, full of Fall baking supplies (apple cookie cutter, tiny pie cut outs of an acorn, leaf, and apple; and a leaf and apple pancake forms. This morning we tried out the pancake forms. We finally got the hang of it after a couple of tries. R was the official pancake maker. He was very serious about his job!

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What Would You Do?

While I was at that business meeting two weeks ago, I ran into a sticky situation -- one in which I had to think fast. Here it goes:

I was in the bathroom, getting up from the toilet and the toilet was about to flush (it's one of those automatic flushing ones.) I looked down in the toilet for some reason (I don't know why; I don't usually check out my pee!) and what did I see in the toilet? A pair of glasses! They were beginning to swirl around and around as the toilet was flushing.

What would you do?
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In a split second I had these thoughts: "Are those my glasses?" "Somebody's going to miss those glasses." "Those are going to clog the toilet." "It's only pee." I also remembered that girl on the Oprah show who compared the germs in toilets to the germs in ice machines and learned that public toilets are much cleaner and safer than ice machines.

So, you guessed it.... I reached in and grabbed them. I pulled them up, dripping with water and soggy toilet paper. I took them to the sink and washed my arm up really good -- hot, hot water and lots of soap. After my arm and hand were cleaned up, I proceeded to rinse off the glasses as best I could. I decided to leave them on the counter in case the owner came in, remembering that she was in the bathroom when she lost them.

As I was doing this, some women came in the bathroom. I asked them if they recognized the glasses and nobody did. So I went back to my meeting. As I entered the room, I saw one of my colleagues (who had glasses on earlier that day) and asked her if she knew where her glasses were.

"I know right where they are," she said, "they're in the toilet in the bathroom."
I smiled and said "I'm your hero!"
She said, "Oh, I'm never wearing those again. I won't touch them. I'm a huge germophobe. I called the janitor and he's coming to fish them out."

Can you believe it? She didn't go get them. Instead, she went blind for two days, flew home and ordered another pair. I still can't believe it -- it was just pee!

Fall Harvest

We just harvested the last of our vegetable garden. T took this picture for my blog:

Catchin' Up and Regatta Remembering

Lots of things goin' on around here. The biggest thing is that M was in charge of a huge regatta at our club. He was the Race Director, which meant that he was in charge of all five races for four different fleets, with over forty boats. He did a great job! He was a bit nervous that he'd mess things up or something, but there was only one start that wasn't quite right and he did a general recall and everything was fine again. He was in charge of keeping score and awarding the prizes on the last day. I sat on the shore, talking to folks, playing with the kids, and reading a book. It was beautiful weather, making for a glorious day. Here are some pictures:

Some of the boats getting ready to leave the dock:

Some boats flying their "kites" -- what a beautiful site!


Uncle D and Cousin A drove over to race our boat. They have raced lots of boats in their lives, but never a Rebel, which is what our boat is. They didn't win or anything, but were smiling the whole time. The had a great time and want to come back next year.



Here are some other things to catch you up:

* I had a business trip to San Diego last week and I was lucky enough that my sis drove down 3 hours to see me! We went shopping, went out to dinner, and talked and talked until the wee hours of the night. I had such a great time -- I love her so much!

* R has started his fourth season of hockey and is on a new team and loves it. He has practices and/or games on Saturdays and Sundays -- nothing on weekdays, which is nice!

* T's sport is gymnastics and he loves it. After his first lesson (in a class with 9 other boys his age) he said, "I bet R is going to be jealous that he didn't pick this sport!" He works hard and has a grin from ear to ear after his hour long class is over.