Costumes

October 30, 2010

Well, I've been actually making Grace's costume this year.  It involves no sewing, however.  You will have to wait till Halloween to see our creation.
But here she is for the costume soccer practice last week.  Yes, they all practiced in costume.  This is not her actual costume.  She came up with this in about 10 minutes.

A disco hula girl.  She made a coconut "bra" by taping brown construction paper "coconuts" to a swim suit top.  She had the skirt & wig.  The mask was over the top.  She's crazy.  Have I said that before?

Karen

Camp Out Success #2

October 25, 2010

We made it: 18 fifth grade girls, 10 moms and 1 dad.  No rain.  1 tarantula.  And best of all NO girl drama!
The girls stayed incredibly busy with archery, geo cache-ing (is that a word?), wood burning (the artistic kind, not arson), climbing rocks, low ropes/obstacle course, camp fire songs (Baby Shark is stuck in my head forever), and of course making lanyards (it is a girl scout camp after all).
For those like me who had no idea what geo cache-ing is, let me explain.  I thought we would be polishing rocks.  Seriously.  Like geodes...geo-cache.  See my confusion?  It is actually where some other people hide "treasures" or in our case, trinkets, in a secret location that you find after getting the satellite coordinates and then you use a GPS thingy to find the treasure.  So more like a high tech scavenger hunt.  A little tiring for un-athletic me, but the girls had a blast.
Here are the highlights:

Grace at the obstacle course:

Grace at archery:

The whole gang: 

 Some great girl moments:

Our little hairy friend:

 Me & G: (cabins in the background)

 The bunks (yes the moms slept in these too, but the dad had to sleep in the "men's cabin"):

 The troop:

Happy Birthday Mom!

October 24, 2010

Today is my mom's birthday. I am a little late in wishing her happy birthday but, it's not midnight yet, so it counts as on time.

I really wish my scanner worked on the mac because I'd love to scan some old photos, but it is too much work to figure that out so here are the most recent ones.

We will wish her happy birthday in person tomorrow, so for now, here is my birthday wish blog-style.
Happy Birthday Mom (aka Grandma Joyce). I hope you had a great day.  We will shower you with love, desserts, and presents tomorrow between soccer and football.  But just wait till next year for the big 70!  Now there's an excuse to have a party (or a vacation of some sort).

Friday Fun Day!

October 22, 2010

Frozen yogurt for lunch + no work = Friday, my favorite day!

Happy Friday!

Karen

Camp Out Time Again

October 22, 2010

I seem to remember that I swore off camping after the last Girl Scout campout in May.  Well, no one else thought I was serious because I am getting hauled up to Prescott with 18 fifth grade girls and 10 other parents to the Girl Scout camp Willow Springs.  And it is coooold up there now as you can see:

Weather for Prescott, AZ

 

46°F | °C

Current: Cloudy
Wind: SW at 3 mph
Humidity: 88%

Thu

56°F | 40°F

Fri

57°F | 41°F

Sat

60°F | 42°F

Sun

61°F | 44°F

This time we will be in actual cabins with real beds that have mattresses.  Yipee!
So I will be reporting back with pictures from the fun-filled weekend.
Just so you realize what a trooper I really am
(1)  Grace asked if we could skip it and I said, "Of course not!" while thinking, "hell yes!" to myself.
(2)  My BFF Nikki is not joining us because she has some wedding to go to (I mean really, it's just a wedding!) and
(3) there will be no cocktails.  

Hope y'all think of me this weekend.

Karen

Photo Shoot

October 21, 2010

While the cousins were all together for the first time ever, we got together for a photo shoot.  Here's a preview.  I would also like to say how nice it was to work with Amanda.  This is her facebook preview from our shoot here.
And the reason MY family is not all in one photo (because everyone has asked that) Tom was working and I didn't want a picture of 3 out of 4 of us because that's just not right.  And we all know how much Tom loves a big family photo op.

Karen

Monday Night Football

October 19, 2010

Last night the Colts played the Vikings.  Double OT resulted in a 0-0 tie.
Here's our MVP: #44

Hello Again

I've been offline.  Well, I've just been off lately. In the three weeks since my last post...some good things at the Halterhome since then:

Soccer season started and I'm having WAY more fun watching than ever before,

Football continues and is really fun to watch even thought I can't figure it out and lose sight of Tommy in the jumble of boys,

It is slightly cool at nighttime here,

My sister came to visit for a few days and we had fun and giggled a lot, like always,

Tom's sister Kristin and family came to visit from Ohio,

Ashleigh brought her gang up from Tucson for the family reunion,

Melissa came from San Diego for the same reunion,

My family got up to Munds Park for a few days of fall-ish weather,

Grandma Joyce & Poppy Don came to see us up North and played marathon Uno games,

Tom & I went to the Coyotes home opener (alas, they lost in OT, but it was a good game),

I went to 2 really nice classes and services at our "new" church (we've gone on the rare Sunday for over a year so it's not technically new).

And some not so good:

my friend's husband passed away unexpectedly on September 25th.
Not much else seems "not so good" in comparison to that and my heart hurts every time I think of it.  

Karen