Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!

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Cast:
Mad Scientist: Gunner (grandson)
Bride of Frankenstein: Kim
Dracula: Mike
Frankenstein: Jesse
Wolfman: Brandon





Did I scare you?

Are you going trick or treating?


Be sure to have






I thought this funny





What are you doing for Halloween? Be sure to post about your family's Halloween activities on this blog or on your own blog (if you have one). And if you dressed up, be sure to post photos!!!

We are handing out candy to the kids. I still need to decorate outside. Jesse & his girlfriend are going to help me decorate. Then tonight they are going trick or treating with some friends. Mike needs to make sure the fog machine works and set up the projector for the "Hallowindow" DVD.

I'll post tomorrow on how our Halloween turned out. I still need to watch Dracula as well. Why or why do I procrastinate?

I hope that each & every one of you has a spooktacular Halloween!!! Keep safe and eat lots of candy. And don't forget to post about what you did for Halloween.

Kim


Thursday, October 29, 2009

Halloween of the past

So in keeping with the spirit of posting old photos of Halloween's past here are my submissions.This is me and my ex-boyfriend Alex in 2006.

I will find more photos it's that I purged my computer of a lot of photos and now I have to find them again! Though I think my favorite Halloween costume is when I was 4 and my mom dressed me as Wonder Woman. I have to find the photo of that one to upload but it is hilarious since the costume is made out of everyday clothing and that Matt was He-Man. hahaha Oh, fond memories.
-Tina (Becky's Daughter)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

TRIP TO IDAHO









HEY EVERYONE!! THIS IS ERIC AGAIN, AND WE JUST RETURNED FROM A TRIP TO REXBURG, IDAHO. JEANNETTE AND I, TOOK TAYLOR UP TO BYU IDAHO, SO SHE COULD TAKE A TOUR OF THE CAMPUS. IT TOOK US 2-DAYS, AND 15 HOURS OF DRIVING TO GET THERE. WE HAD A GREAT TIME WHILE WE WERE GONE. WE WERE IN REXBURG FOR 2-DAYS AND THEN WE TRAVELED DOWN THROUGH UTAH AND VISITED SOME OLD FRIENDS, AND WENT TO A MISSIONARY FAREWELL. ANYWAYS, HERE'S A FEW PIC'S FROM OUR TRIP. SEE YA LATER !!! ERIC

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sunday Favorites-Halloween 2008

This week for Sunday Favorites I thought I would repost what my family did on Halloween last year. I'd like to thank Chari over at Happy to Design for having this weekly blog party. I always enjoy reliving fun memories and I enjoy seeing what everyone else is sharing as well.

Since this is about my family, I am reposting it here on my family blog instead of my decorating blog Starshine Chic. But if you want to see my Halloween decor from this year. Be sure to hop on over to Starshine Chic and check it out.

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Well Halloween is finally over. I'm sort of sad, but exited that Thanksgiving is just weeks away & then Christmas!!!

So what did we do for Halloween? I baked Halloween cupcakes at 10pm on Thursday night. Jesse loves Funfetti cake & when I saw this Halloween Funfetti cake mix I knew I had to get it.

Here is me licking the beaters. The only problem with making these cupcakes was that I forgot to put in the funfetti candies into the cake mix before putting mix in each cupcake tin. So I had to add the candies after the fact & mix up each cupcake individually. Luckily I caught my mistake before baking the cupcakes.
Here is the finished product. Looks yummy!!! (Don't look at my dirty grout)
Here are photos of our grandson Gunner. He is dressed up as a horse. He wasn't too happy to wear his costume. So they didn't get any great photos. We didn't get to see him in person, boo hoo.
Brandan with Gunner

Gunner doesn't look too upset in this photo. He's a cute horse!!!Here is Mike & Jesse passing out candy from our front porch on Halloween. We had a fog machine going so it got quite hazy. At times you couldn't even see them. Mike needs to learn to button up his shirt. I guess he was dressed up as an old geezer.


This year we set up our projector in the living room & played a Halloween DVD that projected onto our front window for everyone to see. The DVD was called "Hallowindow". I found it by accident while surfing the internet. It is pretty cool. It has two 2 minute clips of various Halloween graphics. I videotaped it from outside to show what the trick or treaters got to see coming to our house.

The 1st video below is what I taped outside of the Hallowindow video. The 2nd video shows the front of our house on Halloween with all the lights. You can't see real good as it was quite dark. Plus the fog machine made it even darker for filming as there was a haze.




We had about 250 kids come to our house. Everyone loved how our house was decorated & the Hallowindow video in the window was a hit. We were told that we had the best house around. This was music to my ears. Even if we were about the only house in our neighborhood passing out candy.

I don't know what the problem is, but it seems more & more people are not celebrating Halloween. I love Halloween and I feel bad that kids are missing out on some great memories.

On Saturday I invited Eric's family over for dinner & to watch "Bram Stoker's Dracula" out in our backyard. Thanks Danica for bringing it over for us to watch. No Halloween is complete without watching it. We had a great time. Everyone in Eric's family came over. I cooked pork roast, baked potatoes, corn & broccoli. Jeannette brought over a fabulous salad. For dessert we had pumpkin cobbler.

After dinner we went out to the backyard to watch Dracula. Brandon & Jase stayed in the house & played video games and Taylor played on the computer instead of watching the movie. The rest of us enjoyed the movie. Danica, Jeannette & I all love this movie. Mike & Jesse had never watched it before but enjoyed it as well. I was surprised when Mike said he had never seen it before. How can we have been together for all these years & he never see it? I watch it every year.

It was quite warm out on Saturday night. It was cloudy & we saw some lightning, but warm enough to watch a movie & not need blankets. The men folk watched from the jacuzzi.

So my Halloween ended up being filled with great memories. And now I have shared them with you. Now on to Thanksgiving!!!

For the rest of this month, our Monday show and tells will be about Thanksgiving. You can post Thanksgiving decor, recipes, photos or write your memories of past Thanksgivings or share what you are thankful for. Anything to do with Thanksgiving or thankfulness.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Let's go to the fair

Last Friday night after work we went to the Southern California Fair aka: SoCal Fair in Perris, CA. We met up with Eric's family at the fair. We have done this for the last couple of years. This year it was still hot when we got to the fair about 6:30pm. The last couple of years it had been cold, so it was weird having it be so warm. But nice.

This year Jeannette was the only one not to go from Eric's family. She thought it would be funner to stay home by herself. She was probably right. Everyone but Brandon went from my family. Jesse brought his girlfriend Brin. And Eric's kids brought a couple of friends.

We weren't at the fair more than 5 minutes when Eric announced he was already out of cash. Between paying for his family to get into the fair, buying each of his kids carnival ride passes and giving them money for dinner, he was broke. I told him he hasn't trained his kids right. Mine pay for themselves.

All the kids went their own way except for Danica, she hung out with us adults. Our first stop was to get some Shave Ice (fancy word for snow cone). They were only $1.00. Such a deal & very yummy. Next we went to the vendors. Here is Eric buying some nuts and candy. Luckily this vendor took debit cards.

Then we went inside the big tent to see all the displays. Of course, Eric & Mike liked the old cars the best. Danica had to wear her sun glasses as she had a blood vessel break (or something like that) in one of her eyes & had been to the eye doctor. He said to wear the sunglasses as much as possible.
In the home arts section I saw this beautiful wedding dress that someone had made. It got a "best of show" ribbon.
I couldn't possibly imagine making my own wedding dress.
There were beautiful quilts.
The quilts reminded me of Grandma Manning. I remember her quilting with her friends all the time. She tried to teach me how to quilt, but I could never make my stitches tiny enough. I really admire people who can quilt.
Next Danica & I checked out the tablescapes. Every year we say we are going to enter one ourselves & then we always forget. I think we could do a better job. Here is a simple "Fall" tablescape.
And a cute one for Halloween. We again agreed that "next year" we will enter.
It was at this point in our adventure that my camera said "Out of internal memory". What? How could I be out of memory? I opened up my camera & it was missing my memory card. Drats!!!! I had left it in my computer at work when I was downloading photos earlier in the day. And the internal memory of my camera doesn't hold only a few photos. So I was not able to take anymore photos of our adventure.

I was so dissapointed. Taking photos is actually the best part of going to the fair. I didn't get any photos of the rest of Eric's family, nor any photos of my family. This was the first time I had forgotten to put the memory card back in my camera. And I was just worried that the battery wouldn't last all night.

After visiting the displays, we walked down to where the animals were, but none of us were in the mood for seeing the farm animals. You've seen one goat, sheep or pig, you've seen them all. Really it was because Mike & I were still feeling weak from having the flu so we just didn't want to deal with stinky animals.

We decided instead to eat. Eating is one of the best parts of a fair. Eric found an ATM to get some more cash. He was happy that the fee wasn't very much for the ATM. Eric & I each got a carne asada burrito and a soda. Danica wasn't hungry. How can you not be hungry at the fair? Mike & I shared our burrito & soda. And what does one carne asada burrito & a large soda cost? $10.50. It was pretty good, but we were still hungry.

We went down to the carnival midway to see if we could find the kids. Ran into Jesse & Brin who were on their way to the stadium to watch the monster trucks. When we got to the midway, we did find Eric's kids and friends. Jase was feeling a little sick after getting off some spinning ride. We hung out with them awhile & watched them ride the rides.

Then the kids decided to get dinner. Since Mike & I were still hungry, we thought we would try a tri tip sandwich. We shared one. And boy was it ever good. But expensive. Cost almost $8.00 for one sandwich.

Afterwards we (minus Jesse & Brin) got a couple of funnel cakes to share. I got my funnel cake with strawberries & whip cream. It was so yummy and was only $5.00. Eric got the regular funnel cake with powdered sugar. His was only $4.00. I thought that was pretty reasonable. You can't go to the fair & not get funnel cake.

Usually one of our favorite things to do at the fair is to watch the hypnotist show. But this year there was no hypnotist. Boo hoo!!! If I would have known that, I probably wouldn't have gone to the fair.

Since we didn't have any entertainment, Mike and I decided to just sit and watch the people. Plus we were both pretty tired. While we were waiting and watching we did see a pirate show. Lucky for us, it was all way up high on a tight rope. It was pretty good, but not as good as a hypnotist show.

About 9pm Eric's family decided they wanted to leave. But Jesse & Brin were still having fun, so we stayed until 10pm.

I'm pretty sure the kids had a fun time at the fair. For the rest of us, it was just OK. Eric said he probably wouldn't go back next year. We probably will, but it really depends if they have a hypnotist show next year or not and I'm not going if we are not feeling well.

The SoCal Fair is a small fair, but perfect for a few hours of fun.

Kim

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

RIDING IN THE DESERT!!









HERE'S SOME PIC'S OF ERIC'S FAMILY IN THE DESERT LAST WEEKEND. ERIC, JASE AND CADE AND TAYLOR ALL WENT WITH A BUNCH OF FRIENDS TO JOHNSON VALLEY TO GO RIDING.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Happy Birthday Mari!

Today is Mari's birthday. Mari is Todd's oldest daughter, grand daughter of Dorothy. So that makes her my niece. I'm not positive how old she is. I think she is 19.

Happy birthday Mari!! We love you and we miss you. Wish we lived closer.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

OFF ROAD EXPO



IT'S ME AGAIN !! JUST THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE SOME PIC'S OF THE OFF ROAD EXPO THAT WE WENT TO ON SAT. ERIC

NASCAR WEEKEND !!!


HEY EVERYONE, THIS IS ERIC AND I JUST WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU ALL WHAT CADE AND I DID THIS LAST WEEKEND. SATURDAY MORNING WE WENT TO THE OFF ROAD EXPO IN POMONA AND WE HAD A GREAT TIME. DANICA AND TAYLOR WENT WITH US. AFTER WE GOT HOME , CADE AND I WENT TO THE MARRIOTT HOTEL IN ONTARIO AND WE WENT OUT TO DINNER WITH SOME PEOPLE WHO WERE INVITED TO GO TO THE NASCAR RACE IN FONTANA. WE GOT FREE TICKETS AND PARKING PASSES, AND WE ENDED UP IN A SUITE RIGHT ABOVE PIT ROAD. THE PEOPLE THAT INVITED US HAD SPONSERED ONE OF JACK ROUSCH'S CARS, AND WE GOT TO MEET JACK ROUSCH AND ALSO MATT KENSETH (1-OF HIS DRIVERS), WE GOT AUTOGRAPH'S AND PICTURE'S WITH THEM. WE GOT TO HANG OUT IN THEIR HAULERS AND IN THE GARAGE'S BEFORE THE RACE. WE ALSO, SAW OTHER RACE DRIVERS AND CELEBRITIES, SUCH AS (NAME DROPPING), KELSY GRAMMER, AND ROBBY GORDON, AND BOBBY LABONTE.

WE WATCHED THE RACE FROM INSIDE AND ON TOP OF THE SUITE, AND THEY GAVE US HEADSETS SO WE COULD LISTEN TO THE DRIVERS DURING THE RACE. WE HAD A GREAT TIME!!! I'LL INCLUDE SOME PIC'S.
SEE YA LATER, ERIC

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Sunday Favorites-Halloween Show & Tell


Sorry that I haven't posted anything new to either of my blogs in the past week or so. But I've been sick. I've had the flu. Probably H1N1 aka: Swine Flu, but I don't know for sure since I didn't go to the doctor. And does it really matter? The flu, is the flu. Your sick, you hopefully get better. Which I am doing.

But now hubby is sick. And when he gets sick, it's like he is dying (not literally), he just acts like he is. Men don't know how to be sick. Lucky for him I am feeling well enough to take care of him. No one took care of me while I was sick, I still had to make dinner & clean up. But I guess that is my fault, I trained everyone.

So for this weeks Sunday Favorites hosted by Chari at Happy to Design, I thought I would continue with my Halloween posts from last year. This post originally posted on 10/27/08:


The most dreadful day of the week is here again. It's Monday!!!! Time for show and tell. This weeks theme is "Anything Halloween".

I was trying to think back to my favorite Halloween and you know what? I can't remember a specific Halloween being the best. Probably as my memories of my childhood have faded. I remember my favorite costume was the year I was a greek goddess. I also do remember going trick or treating and worrying that someone might egg us or run us over. And that we were suppose to only go to houses of people we knew so we wouldn't get something poisoned or a needle in our candy (we never followed this rule & we never did get poisoned & never found a needle in our candy). Yes even then, Moms had to be a little paranoid.

I remember going to the school carnival each year. I remember loving Halloween and dressing up and we couldn't wait for it to get dark so we could go trick or treating. I remember coming home after trick or treating & all of us kids sitting on the living room floor, emptying our loot of candy & trading candy with one another. I always wanted the Snicker bars. This was the best part of Halloween. I remember Mom telling me that I was too old to trick or treat when I turned 16, but I still dressed up and went out trick or treating with my friends. All in all, I have nothing but warm loving memories of Halloween.

And then when I became a parent, Halloween was still fun as now I had to be the one to make the Halloween costumes, take Brandon out trick or treating and be the paranoid Mom. When we lived in El Cajon, I would always take Brandon over to Mom & Dads neighborhood for trick or treating. We lived in an apartment building & never went trick or treating there. Everyone knows the good candy is in the residential neighborhoods with houses.

To this day, I still love Halloween. My favorite movie to watch this time of year is "Dracula" with Gary Oldman & Winona Rider. There is something about this movie that I love. I haven't watched it yet this year, but I still have a few days until Halloween. I'll have to borrow it from Danica as I can't find my copy.



I'm so looking forward to this Friday night when all the ghosts and goblins come trick or treating to my door. I have about 1000 pieces of candy to pass out. My boys are hoping that we have lots of candy left over. We'll see.


To get you in the mood for Halloween, enjoy a few more Halloween costume photos I found this past week.
This photo is dated May 1966. But we all know that Halloween isn't in May. My Mom must have been a procrastinator and didn't have the photo developed until some 7 months later. So the photo must have actually been taken in Oct 1965. The house in the background is our house on Ellen Lane. I remember wearing my Greek Goddess costume. It was my favorite costume of any Halloween. Probably would have looked better if I had been a little older & had boobs. From left to right: Eric, me, Jodi, Todd. Andrea wouldn't have been born yet.

This photo says it is 1966. I don't remember dressing up as a bride, but here is the proof. Funny how I can remember the costume from the year before, but this one I had no memory of. Jodi, me, Todd, Eric.



This photo I don't have a date for it. But from the looks of us, it must have been in the 1970's sometime. Check out mom!!! Dad obviously took the photo. I wonder if he dressed up? I have no clue as to what I was suppose to be. This is the only photo I have from Halloween for all 5 of us kids. Finally a Halloween photo with Andrea.



The next 3 photos are of my Grandson Gunner. He was only a little more than 2 months old when these photos were taken last Halloween (2007).


This 1st photo is so cute. Gunner is wearing the pj's that I got him from Old Navy. It says "Bone to be wild"on the pj top. The bottom had little skeletons all over. He had fallen asleep & must have been dreaming about something that made him happy (probably me).
In these last 2 photos, Gunner is wearing the M&M outfit that Mike & I had bought for him from the M&M store in Las Vegas. It came with a hat. I wonder why he isn't wearing it. This was Gunner's first Halloween costume.
Well that is the end of my Halloween photos. I was going to show you one last photo of the scariest room in my house but the photo didn't turn out. Too bad. It was of what is suppose to be our game room. It had been our storage room for about 2-3 years. This weekend we decided to clean it out and make it our game room. We didn't get it quite done. I will post photos later of our progression if I can get the photos down loaded correctly.

Next Monday you can post on what you actually did on Halloween. Did you go trick or treating? Did you go to a party? Did you pass out candy to the little kiddies? Report on "How I spent my Halloween" on next Mondays Show and Tell. Did you notice that I was milking Halloween for all it was worth?

Happy Halloween!!!!

Kim

I hope that you enjoyed revisiting my post. As you can tell, I love Halloween and I did indeed milk it for all it was worth last year. This year, not so much. Except for the reposting of last year. Oh well.

Now hop on over to Chari's blog at Happy to Design to see all the other participants for this week.