Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween! We had a busy day! We carved pumpkins a few weeks ago, but they had since disintegrated, so we had to carve again today. Chris did all the hard work with/for the girls while I was working at Bath & Body Works this afternoon.


Jessica picked a ballerina template for her pumpkin.



Katie chose a gory one - a pumpkin eating a pumpkin that's throwing up. I think she was inspired by the pumpkin she saw at the soccer game yesterday...a big pumpkin eating a deflated soccer ball. Fun!



Megan picked a happy face pumpkin.



Girls and pumpkins.



We all napped this afternoon, then Chris made a yummy dinner from our garden. We're expecting our first frost tonight, so we harvested all we could. For dinner, he roasted peppers, carrots, parsnips, and beets (shown here), he cooked up beet greens, and he made kale chips. All from our garden! Yummmmm



Then we got ready for trick-or-treating. The girls are dressed as the girls from the Little House on the Prairie books - Mary, Laura, and Carrie Ingalls. Don't they look great?



Closeup of the pioneer girls.



Side view of the bonnets - too cute.



On the front porch.

Before trick-or-treating. You can't see my costume well, but I'm dressed as "Ma" Ingalls! I borrowed a pioneer costume from a fellow 3rd grade mom. It was beautiful, a long blue skirt, blue bonnet, and black shirt. Hopefully we have good pics from last night's Halloween party that will show it off better.

We were quite popular in the neighborhood - Ma and her three girls! Chris even fashioned the wagon to look like a covered wagon! He duct-taped hula hoops to the underside of the wagon, and draped a white blanket on top. Katie's American Girl doll rode in the wagon. No pics, but it was cute.

It was cold this year, high 30's and very windy, so we TOTed in small segments. The girls got plenty of loot despite the many breaks to come home and thaw out. It was a great Halloween!

Pumpkins on the porch - they were a big hit.

Jessi's ballerina pumpkin.

Megan's and Katie's pumpkins.

Hope you had a very Happy Halloween, too!

Pumpkin Festival!

Today I took the girls to the city museum's Stonewall Pumpkin Festival! So fun! So many pics to share of my cuties!

It took them about 30 min just to decide which pumpkin to pick! They are as indecisive as their mommy - oh, no! We took a tractor/wagon ride over to the other part of the museum to carve our pumpkins.

My wrist is soooo sore after carving three pumpkins! The girls were not much help, other than playing with the guts and separating out the seeds for roasting later.

Jessi's pumpkin has a big smile with lots of teeth...remind you of anyone?? :)

Megan chose a template with bats flying in the moonlight.

Katie chose a witch template. They all turned out so cute!

Then we lugged the pumpkins to the stone wall in front of the museum. Over 1000 pumpkins were carved today, placed on the stone wall, and lit with candles tonight. It's such a neat tradition. We didn't go back to see it, the traffic is horrendous. We'll drive by tomorrow morning to pick up our pumpkins and bring them home.

The festival had tons of other activities, games, etc. Here are the girls in a fire truck, they love getting to climb in and turn the steering wheel.

I managed to get a few cute pics of the girls with the beautiful fall colors!

Girls by Stoney Creek, the same one they waded/swam/played in this summer.

Jessi the pumpkin bowler!

Girls with crazy hats (their own creations). What a fun day! We were there for four hours and had a BLAST.

Then we hustled off to Katie's soccer game and then Megan's soccer game. Here's Katie's team, it was the first time all nine kids were at a game, so we took a team picture. Katie was great today, much more aggressive than usual. She ALMOST got a goal, only off by about 6"! Megan's game was hilarious per usual. She scored four goals, but remember there are no goalies in her level. She is fast and already has a pretty good understanding of the game. And look out for Jessica, she is going to be good! She can dribble like a pro already, with all the time she spends on the sidelines at her sister's practices and games!

Amy's trip to California

Last weekend, I went on a girls' trip to California - it was soooo fun! I flew into San Jose, and we drove down to Cayucos, which is 3.5 hrs south of San Francisco area. I LOVED driving through the Salinas Valley, marvelling at the hundreds of miles of fields of lettuce and every crazy vegetable in the world!



My friend Ali's parents have a house right on the ocean, and the twelve of us girls stayed there. It was such a beautiful house - and view! Right in front of the house we regularly saw dolphins, seals, surfers, plus the occasional whale spout!



This is looking north to the town of Cayucos.



It was only about a mile to town, so we walked there a few times to visit the shops. Here I am at the end of the pier.



Me by a gorgeous California sunset.

Cool shot of the sunset reflected in the house's window.

On Saturday, a few of us took a day trip to Hearst Castle. It was a private residence that was donated to the CA State Parks system, and is open to tours. OMG it was incredible! The art, the gardens, the opulence! Here is one of the guest houses.

This is the outdoor pool, with real Roman art.

One of the many gardens.

In front of the main house.

The indoor pool, with 22karat gold tiles! I took tons of pics inside the various houses, but won't bore you with them all. Take my word that it was AMAZING! I could have sat in each room for an hour, just taking it all in.

The last day we spent tons of time on the beach, even though it was cloudy. There were always surfers and paddleboarders.

Here's Beth jumping rope with a strand of kelp!

Here's the house we stayed at, it was soooo nice of Ali's parents to let us stay there! We loved being all together in the same house, instead of in different hotel rooms like last year.

Right before we left, the sun came out, so we sat around lounging for a while longer. I had to get this toe shot.

Grape vines galore! On our drive back to San Jose, we took a slightly different route and passed tons of apricot and walnut orchards, and mile after mile of grape fields. So of course we stopped at a winery!

It was such a wonderful trip! I'm so grateful to Mom C. and Chris for covering for me so I could escape for the long weekend! I feel so refreshed after this getaway!