Goodbye Halloween, Hello Christmas?!

Huh?  Are we talking about WalMart here?  Or any grocery, department, or super store where Thanksgiving doesn't seem to exist?  Welcome to my house.  I just took down my Halloween decorations, which I have plenty of, thanks to my Aunt Ed who used to send me a Halloween decoration every year, in order to celebrate her favorite holiday.

As I was putting away my pumpkins, spooky tree, and scary spiders I realized that I don't have many Thanksgiving decorations, but I do have some Christmas ones.  And....since Thanksgiving will be here and gone before you know it, I decided to skip decorating for it all together this year.  Instead I skipped straight to Christmas.  I went to Target after work to get some DayQuil and Sudafed- those darn coughing, sneezing, sticky kids from outpatient pediatric clinic finally infected me with a virus.  So while at Target, I added a few more items to my Christmas decorations.  A real tree shall arrive after my parents make their appearance in December.

Penny's decorated and ready for Christmas too!

Sadly, I'll be missing both Thanksgiving and Christmas at home this year.  :(  Instead I'll be delivering babies on Thanksgiving and taking care of sick kids on Christmas.  Have no fear, I'll be home the last 2 weeks in January to celebrate as well.

Penny's ready for the trip - below is a picture of her Southwest traveling bag.  She's making the trip with me and will be my carry on stuck under the seat in front of me.

Halloween Birthday Party - Part 2

2 days late - but here is part 2.  Game Time!  Each family had to bring a game.  Aunt Sara and Rachel did a spin off from beer pong.  Ping pong eyeballs had to be tossed/thrown across the room into a cauldron (1pt), pumpkins (2pts), scary glasses (3pts) or a goblet (5pts)!  

My mom and I were a team.  Let's just say I did not carry my own weight.  I think I scored 1 pt then entire 3 rounds or however many we played.  Just one more piece of evidence that shows I studied more in college than partied :)

If I remember correctly - Grandma & Aunt Ed won this game!

Taylor showing us what Chico State has taught her! (above)

Next game required eating a donut off of a string without using your hands.  This idea came from a picture of me dressed as a lion in kindergarten trying to eat a bat (a donut w/ paper bat wings stuck in it off a string).  Well with the making of meat loaf hands and other things, my mom and I did not get to making bat wings, so we just lined up the family and had them go at it - donuts on a string.

Again, not allowed to use your hands and the first one to finish, full swallow, won!

Here's a video of the game.  

As you watch, notice there are a few different strategies being utilized.

Aunt Ed - not sure what happened here, but her donut flew across the room, she recovered it, but was not able to come out victorious.

Aunt Tina - stuck the entire donut in her mouth and chewed it string and all until the donut was freed.  She was our weiner!

Grandma - tried to pull the donut off the string with her teeth, trying to get the string to cut through the donut - not so successful.  

Next game, seen below, is called Pumpkin Puss!

Rules:  teams of 2, one person ties a trick-or-treat pumpkin around their waist, so it falls in the proper location.  Partner stands across the room & tosses candy corn (eww...) into their pumpkin puss.

Round 2 - switch partners and repeat

Action shot!

All in all we had a great night of family fun.  After game night we headed downstairs and were disappointed to find out that Aunt Ed had already watched Zombie Strippers, so we ended up watching something else.  I'm kidding - seriously, who watches something called Zombie Strippers!

Halloween Birthday Party - Part 1

While home during my vacation we threw my grandma a Boooorthday party!  As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Halloween is my Aunt Edwina's favorite holiday.  She goes all out with the decorations and used to have Bunco parties where she would make disgusting looking food, etc.  Sadly, I missed most of the festivities, because I was not at home.

Well, lucky for me this year.  I was home at just the right time and decided a Halloween Party we shall have!  The above pictures are from her front porch.  Can you guess the Halloween theme this year?  

Spiders you say!  You  guessed correctly.  Each year she picks out a Halloween theme & decorates accordingly!  Details are what make the decorations so great - did you notice the eyeball sitting in the Erlenmeyer flask atop the toilet?  There were even fingers in the soap!

Spooky - going up the stairs to the haunted upstairs - do you like the hanging mummy? or the bloody arm coming from the closet halfway up the stairs?

And really - no joke the upstairs is truly haunted.  Seriously creepy.  You would have to pay me big bucks to sleep upstairs by myself.  Heck, I stayed at my aunt's house in high school- got sick with the flu and while home during the day by myself only traveled from the living room to the bathroom, because I was too big of a scaredy cat to go anywhere else! ahhhh...

Spiders hover over the table, waiting for food to arrive.

Spider eggs!

Ms. Spider checking herself out in the embalming fluid flask prior to the party - making sure she looks her best!

Mona Lisa?

AHHHH.....silent screams fill the house.  This makes me think of the Dementors from Harry Potter.

Spiders, spiders, spiders - everywhere!

Deviled eggs or should I say eyes &  spiders - Yum Yum!

Flesh face anyone?! 

Mummy dogs!

Spider pizza!

Mmm....my favorite meatloaf hands!

Salt & Pepper eyes!

The whole layout!

COSTUME TIME!  

Biker babes, tattoos and all!

The wicked witch herself!  :)

Michelangelo and Robin Hood?!? Oh wait, I mean Peter Pan!  

"I Can Fly, I Can Fly"

The deal for the party was each family was in charge of bringing one fun Halloween game!  Tomorrow I'll post more pics from the party!   

Scavenger Dash

The weekend before last - my co-resident, Sarah, and I entered a Scavenger Dash.  It's approximately a 5 mile, run/walk/ride public transportation race around the city - following clues, completing tasks, and gathering items.

Here we are prepping for the race - both packing our bags.  2nd use for my camelbak and still I didn't drink enough water during the day.  I guess I forgot that I was in the desert.

"Two White Chicks"

That's our team name.  It's from an inside joke, that one of our other co-residents honestly believed that we both are through and through white.  According to her, neither of us appear to have any different ethnicity in our blood.  hmm....???

The rest of our team uniform - tail feathers and all!  MoJo is our favorite type of granola bar.  My favorite MoJo flavor is mountain mix - Trader Joes sells them for $0.99 each.  (like that plug)  Maybe next time we should contact the Clif Bar company to see if they will sponsor us!

The starting point - "The Hut" in Tucson.  We ran to get our envelope of clues and then immediately started trying to figure out the answer.  They give you all of the clues at once, so if you figure out all the places you need to go then you can map out your route accordingly with the least amount of back tracking.  You're allowed to use cell phones and have a "pit crew" who is at home and can look up stuff.  I immediately called Waseem (my old roommate from last year who was in town visiting) and Sarah started searching on her phone.  After a few minutes we decided to start and have Waseem figure out the clues as we headed for one of our first destinations.  (I eventually ended up emailing Waseem a picture of the clue sheet)

1st photo clue done - Picture with a Mannequin.

1st challenge - we met a representative for YELP and had a challenge that involved searching their website for clues and reviews.  This took us longer than it should have, because we were trying to use our iphone apps rather than use the actual YELP website.  Eventually, I got fed up trying to find it on my phone and called Waseem.  This ends with me yelling "SPLOOGE" - S-P-L-O-O-G-E - into the phone in the middle of a cafe.  Waseem couldn't hear me for some reason and wasn't getting "splooge."

2nd challenge - (sorry no picture) involved Sarah blindfolded in a park standing in a maze of cones.  It was my job, using only my voice to guide her through the maze without touching a cone or else we would have to start over.  1st try was a success!!!  I guess all that talking I do paid off and Sarah's a good listener.

Next photo clue - picture of the team in an elevator.  This is a random elevator at a parking garage on the U of A campus.  

Next up - put a dollar in the donation safe at a museum (can't remember the name of the museum now)

While on the U of A campus - we made a quick run into a Jimmy Johns and grabbed a "WIPE" - which apparently is just a Jimmy Johns napkin with the word WIPE on it.

A picture of border issues.  Who is who?

NCAA Softball Champions for a certain year - we found the plaque.  woo woo

Time to do some planning.  Where are we headed next?  Can we catch a bus back part of the way?  Let me tell you - reading the bus map/schedule is more complicated than you would think.  And....if you know me - you know that I'm not the best when it comes to directions.

YAY!  Having fun.

Oops....something went awry.  One of our clues was GPS coordinates that needed to be converted into an address.  Waseem sent us an address and well....it stuck us in an alleyway.  We actually caught a bus by chance, rode it for one stop - jumped off, only to find we were not in the right spot.  Sarah called another friend to try and see if she could help us with the coordinates after we both attempted searching on our iphones.  A new $1.06 iphone app later and we had found the address.  Waaaayyyyy down the street from where we were - many more bus stops.  Now that we knew where we were headed, guess what  - no bus.  So we walked and eventually made it to Rocks and Ropes to pick up a sticker.

Last stop/worst stop - at least for Sarah anyways.  Time to eat something nasty.  A pickled egg.  No bugs though.  Sarah reported the egg as being disgusting, all the wrong texture - apparently it was chalky and not easy to swallow.  A small 5 ounce beer helped wash it down, but probably a whole gallon of beer wouldn't have been enough.  We were both glad that was our last stop & not our first.

WE MADE IT!!!  Woo hoo.  Drinks in hand.  We didn't finish so hot in terms of ranking, but we had FUN!!! 

Goooooo GIANTS!!!

Last night - game #4 - I was THERE!!!!  Wooooo!!!!!  It was a great game.  I can't say the same for tonights game.  Lucky for us we were there for a GREAT game, giants win 6-5, and beautiful weather.

A drink before the game with cousin Liz.  Yummy, margarita.  Thanks Liz.

Entering the park - surrounded by tons of people wearing orange, black, beards, jerseys, hats with fake Lincecum hair, not a smidgen of red in sight.  (Phillys are red & white - and I will admit in the fear of being cold almost packed a red & white ski jacket, but mom stopped me.)

Gorgeous stadium.  We sat behind right field.    

Let's Go Giants!  Let's Go!

Behind us sat one of those "fans." One that yells at the players and the entire team.  I learned lots of new info about the right fielder, Werth.  "You sucked as a Dodger and you suck as a Philly."  or "You're Werthless."  "Werth nice mullet."  There were many more, but I can't remember them all.  My favorite though was when Panda from the Giants was up and "Fear the Fat" was echoed from behind me - a play on Fear the Beard. :)

Excited!

Uncle Kevin, Dad, and Uncle John.

Time to close...it's Wilson on the mound - FEAR THE BEARD!  This is Sief's current man-crush.  He is growing a beard himself to show his support.  

And..... a trip to San Fran would be incomplete without dim sum!