Monday, October 31, 2011

Our First Nor’easter of the season.

 

Well we managed to get through our first bad storm of the season unscathed.  We didn’t lose any trees unlike my SIL who lost several big ones in her front yard!  The wind was bad so the power kept going out during the night but the generator would kick on so we didn’t lose any heat or water.  We wondered if Mom and Dad would get out on their flight Sunday morning but they were only a half hour late due to deicing and 16 minutes late getting into Clearwater.

We only got about three inches of snow which was nice as they were predicting at times up to a foot of the white stuff.  My sisters that live west of here each got a foot, but they live in the snow belt so that wasn’t unusual.  The sun is shining today and melting what snow we have which will make it nice for the little trick or treaters that will be coming around tonight.

I took a few pictures of my decorations as I will be taking them down tomorrow and putting up Thanksgiving.  This first picture is the coffee table in the sun room and notice the pillow that I won in Needled Mom’s Halloween give away last year.  I LOVE that pillow with the candy corn on it!  That is Noodles laying on the floor, he is bored as the project is done and there are no workers here all the time to play with him!

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I have lots of things sitting on the self I had made in the sun room.  There are outlets all the way around the shelf so that I can plug in things.

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This is the dining room table.

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This is under the tv on the table.  The little candles are battery operated and flicker when they are on.

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This is the fireplace in the living room.

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This is on the kitchen counter just some things that I put together.

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I got this little cupcake holder at TJ Maxx and love it!  We used it at the HAM Halloween party which I will be telling you about shortly.

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This is the kitchen table.  The pumpkin is a soup tureen again from TJ Maxx.

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Here are the little guys that hold all my trick or treat candy.

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This little guy I have had for YEARS. Back in the day when I was still doing hair one of my clients made it for me in her ceramics class.  It lights up and blinks.  I think he is soooooo cute!

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The weekend after we got home from Florida the kids held a Halloween party fundraiser for HAM which is for the Hemophilia Association of Maine.  This is close to our hearts as one of our dear friends has a little boy with the worst case of hemophilia in the state of Maine.  His name is Devin and he is three years old.

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Tthe kids started working on the decorations before we went on vacation and continued when we got home.  They put a ton of work into this.  Most of the things were made out of cardboard that they painted to look like something else.

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They used a pulley to make it look like this Rhino hit the tree.

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This whole thing was made out of cardboard, even the black trees.

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This was the mad scientist booth.

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There were different characters at each station.

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Devin driving the Rhino (with some help)!

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Getting the pool shack ready for all the food we had.

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Putting up spider webs.

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All these pictures were taken in the daylight but believe me it was must spookier in the dark with the black lights on and the music and all the people dressed in character.  We had about 150 people attend and we raised $900. for HAM!!!! It’s our dream that they find a cure for hemophilia, SOON! We had a great time and I am proud of the kids for spending so much time on such a worthy cause!!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Universal part 2

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The Portofino Bay Hotel is designed like an Italian village.  It is very pretty there with numerous yummy restaurants to choose from.

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Here’s Mimi and Bampie will the grands.  We love sharing grandchildren with them.

 

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We had lots more to see at Islands Of Adventure.

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The Harry Potter section was amazing.

 

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I haven’t read any of the books but it was fun seeing everything.

 

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I didn’t dare go on the ride the first day we went but Son and grands did and it was wild.  I figured I would give it a whirl the last day and it wasn’t open!!  They were having mechanical issues.  :o(

These were the talking pictures.

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Then on to Jurassic Park.  It has a roller coaster that takes you through some water and I did not want to spend the rest of the day walking around in wet clothes so we opted out.  It’s one thing if it is 90* and your clothes dry out in an hour or so but where we had been walking around in the rain for two days we really didn’t want to add to it.

 

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The kiddos wanted to rock climb so up they went!  Even their Dad joined in.

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Whoops!

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We always try to pick up a couple of new hats while there for Crazy Hat Nite at Awana.

 

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We happened to notice this little guy munching on something.  We also saw one at the pool munching on a cherry from someone’s drink!

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There was much, much more that we did for the week that we were there.  One day the kids, Son and the Grampies went over to Disney for the day while DIL, Mimi and I shopped for Christmas.  The best part was being together and making memories.

Well guess what?  We are supposed to get up to a foot of snow this weekend!  What’s up with that?!  Mom and Dad are supposed to fly out Sunday morning to go back to Florida so now we are wondering if they will have a flight.  Bangor International has one of the longest runways in New England as it was once an airbase so if the planes can make it in from where they are coming from we can usually get out snow or no snow but we’ll see….

We are headed to Tennessee next month to Blackberry Farm where we went two years ago.  I can’t wait, they have the most gorgeous well bred horses around for us to ride.  The Hubs has classes part of each day but there is plenty for me to do there on my own or with one of the other wives.  Anyone know what the weather will be like in Tenn. in November????