Halloween Party with Friends

A few months ago, Ben and I were trying to decide what we were going to be for Halloween this year.  As you all know, this year was super busy with wedding planning, the arrival of my nephew and the actual wedding in July.  Those events pretty much took up most of our time.  

The summer Olympics were also this year and were held in Paris, France. There were some memorable games, matches and athletes.  Break dancing was officially included in the 2024 Olympic games, marking the first time a dance sport has been included in the summer games. The competition included 16 males and 16 females, each representing their country in one-on-one battles.  Five judges assessed the break dancers on criteria such as technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality according to Olympics.com.  

Well, one of the female Australian break dancers competed and received a score of zero in one of her rounds.  Her performance, particularly her "kangaroo bounce" move, went viral, leading to both positive and negative reactions around the world.  I didn't actually watch the Olympics this year because we were busy, but it was all over social media.  It was hard not to see the memes and jokes.

Despite the excitement surrounding the debut, the inclusion of break dancing in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is uncertain, raising questions about the sport's long term Olympic future.

There was another well-known athlete participating in the games, and he was one of France's top pole vaulters.  He failed to advance to the finals because a video of one of his attempts where he knocked down the crossbar with his wiener went viral.  Following that, he was offered $250,000 by the Vice President of the porno website to create a webcam show.

Ben suggested that we be the failed Olympic athletes this year and I couldn't say no.  We looked into my costume, which could be purchased in its entirety for about $25 on Amazon, and Ben's costume, which could be purchased in pieces off of Amazon and created.  We thought our costumes were going to be hilarious.

I also thought it would be funny to post hints on Facebook for people to guess what my costume was going to be.  I had quite a few people follow and had no idea what the hints were until almost the last day. I had fun with it. Ben spent most of October getting his costume perfected but was having trouble with the pole.  He could not get it to stay where he wanted it.  We tried many different things, but it was just too heavy and did not give it the illusion he envisioned. 

The last few years after Covid, Celeste and Isaac have been hosting Halloween at their new house. We all planned a game night with costumes and food.  I was excited to see what everyone was going to dress up as.  Ben and I drove over early because we had the extra table and chairs.  We also got to park in the driveway.  Their neighborhood has crappy street parking and there are never enough spaces for everyone.  We brought everything inside including our dish and my gluten free pumpkin cookies we made for the party.  We helped set up the extra table and chairs.

Celeste had great Halloween and spooky decorations all over the house and the table was very festive as well. It was fun to see what everyone dressed up as once everyone showed up to the party.  Everyone thought our costumes were hilarious.   We ate food first, then got a bunch of group photos, individual photos and then dove into the games.  

We played a couple different ones but one of our favorite ones from the night was Poetry for Neanderthals. We also played a game to where we had to shout out songs to a word.  It got pretty competitive at times. A few people had to go home early but the rest of us stayed for other games until Celeste and Isaac were tired of guests and wanted to go to bed, lol.  Ben and I left before midnight because we had a Seahawk game to go to the next day.  I am excited to see next year's costumes.

Next Adventure:  Seattle Seahawks vs. Buffalo Bills

Pumpkin Carving and Mom's Birthday Party

Mom's birthday was quickly approaching, and she hasn't told anyone what she wanted to do.  We were running out of time to plan something. I asked Mom what she wanted to do for her birthday and of course, she said she didn't know.  I gave her a couple ideas to ponder.  I told her we could carve pumpkins after her party, and she said we could do that.  I asked her what kind of food she wanted to have at her party, and she said she didn't know.  I threw some suggestions at her and she agreed to have chili and corn bread.  She added that I get her an Oreo ice cream cake.  I noted that as well.  I let everyone know when we were going to celebrate Mom's party and that we were carving pumpkins.  Because most of the weekends were busy, we had to have this one on a Friday night later on in the month.  Her birthday was on a Wednesday this year and those are hard to have in the middle of the week.

A few days before her party, I went shopping for all the stuff I needed to make her birthday dinner and dessert.  I'm glad she picked chili and corn bread because that was relatively easy to make, and I didn't have to dirty up a bunch of dishes. I found a couple birthday presents months ago that I made sure were wrapped and her card was signed.

The day before and most of Friday afternoon I spent getting the house ready.  I already had pumpkins from when we went to the pumpkin patch a few weekends prior, so I didn't have to get any more.  Plus, Mom and Dad, both left me with theirs, so they were already at the house.  I got the house vacuumed, put up the tables and chairs, made sure I got some big bowls out and the pumpkin carving tools out, cleaned the kitchen and waited to log off of work on Friday afternoon so I could start the food.  I did the corn bread first and then the chili second.  I was hoping I had enough food for everyone and pretty sure I did.

Ben came home, changed his clothes and helped finish setting up the tables.  The cornbread was done, so I took that out and let it cool.  People started to arrive and making themselves at home. I finished up the chili and let that cool for a few minutes.  I told everyone to come in and grab some chili and cornbread.  There was cheese, sour cream and Fritos if people wanted that along with their chili.  I took a couple handfuls of Fritos, poured some chili on top and added some cheese.  That is my go to.

We ate our food around the table and chatted about the latest and greatest things that have happened since the last time we hung out.  I told everyone how my DJA was going and what kinds of things I was learning. I was excited to see where it went in the future.  Doug told us about the status on his job he's been doing since June and the hope to stay with them beyond his internship and Brian was almost 5 months old.  Time sure flies.

We finished up our food, cleared out our bowls and I got out Mom's Oreo cake.  Ben was sad he couldn't have any with his recent gluten free diagnosis.  We had to learn how to eat food without gluten in it and so far, it's been an interesting journey.  I put two candles, a 6 and a 4 in it and brought it out to Mom.  We sang her happy birthday, she blew out the candles, I gave out ice cream cake to those who wanted it and then she opened her gifts. The weirdest gift she got was from Doug.  He painted her a sloth pumpkin, lol.

We cleared off the table from the presents and ice cream cake and got it set up to carve pumpkins.  I grabbed the large bowls, knives, spoons and the pumpkin carving tools from those little kits they sell at the Dollar Tree.  I couldn't decide what I wanted my pumpkin to look like.  I went through some of the stencils and decided to just free hand a face to carve. It was fun.  Then Mom told me to carve out another pumpkin so we could get a picture of Brian inside of it with the outfit Mom bought him a few weeks ago.  I wasn't sure if the pumpkin was going to be big enough but surprisingly, it was.  Erika got his outfit on, and we plopped him into the pumpkin.  He was not happy, but we got one good one of him.

Everyone had a great time carving pumpkins and we got some creative ones.  We plopped some candles inside of them and got a few pictures of them on the front porch area.  

Everyone helped clean up the pumpkin messes on the tables before they gathered up their stuff and headed home.  I made people take their pumpkins with them.  I didn't need 10 pumpkins on my front porch.

Happy Birthday Momma!

Next Adventure:  Halloween Party with Friends

Brian's First Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

Mom had mentioned a few weeks ago that we should find a weekend in October to take Brian to the pumpkin patch. I told her that we needed to talk to Erika first, but we should totally push for early October since the weather is most likely going to be nice.

They had a conversation, and we came up with sometime in early October at Rutledge Farm around 1 p.m. We invited everyone because Brian going to the pumpkin patch for the first time was a big deal.  We finalized the day, and everyone wrote it on their calendar.  Mom found Brian a cute outfit to wear to the pumpkin patch too. 

I invited Ed, Amy and Trish to come down since this visit to the pumpkin patch was a special one.  They agreed to come down.  Sadly, Ben couldn't come with us because he was on shift that day until 7 p.m.  I told him I would pick out a pumpkin for him. He said he was okay with that.

I got up late that morning, got ready and had time to make a scarf down a breakfast sandwich.  I made sure to wear my pumpkin shirt I bought a couple weeks ago for $5. I hopped into the Escape and made my way to Rutledge over on 93rd.  Trish had texted me that they were already there and I told her that I was almost there.  When I finally did get to the farm, I saw that it was insane.  Finding parking was going to be challenging.  I've been there several times over the years and had never seen it that busy before.  I think it was because it was a nice day, the Seahawks game wasn't on, and it was right after church.

I finally found a parking spot.  Mom, Dad and Grandma showed up and Doug and Sonya pulled up in his little blue car.  Everyone was there and accounted for.  We grabbed a couple of wheelbarrows and set off to the pumpkins.  

Before we picked any out, we started with the photos of Brian.  It was really hard to get him to look at the camera because he was so fascinated by the pumpkins themselves.  We did eventually get a couple good ones of him and the family.  We wandered around for a bit looking at the fall flowers and picking out the perfect pumpkin.  It was quite a warm day for mid-October.  I kinda over dressed and was getting sweaty.

I found a couple good ones and ended up having to pick between them.  I sent Ben a couple pictures of the ones I found for him, and he picked the one he wanted.  I put mine and his into the wheelbarrow and tried keeping them separate from everyone else's.  We all headed towards the building so we could get into the giant line to pay for our pumpkins.  It was really hard standing in line for that long, but we prevailed!

We wheeled our pumpkins over to the vehicles and Trish, Amy and Ed paid for the corn maze.  Nobody else seemed to be interested in the corn maze.  They thanked us for inviting them to the pumpkin patch and walked back to the building to head into the corn maze.  This year's corn maze was Marshawn Lynch with a Kraken hat and hockey stick.  We got together in the parking lot and decided to go have lunch together somewhere in Tumwater.  Mom wanted pizza so we found out Inferno's on the corner of 99 and Tumwater Blvd turned into a Farrelli's. 

We all got into our vehicles and drove into Tumwater.  We all got seated in the far side of the restaurant and our server took our orders immediately.  I just got a drink since I ate breakfast not too long before that.  We had fun hanging out with Brian even though he was only 5 months old.  He did a bunch of laughing and smiling while everyone ate their pizza and calzones.  It was a fun family outing.

After pizza and saying goodbye to everyone, I decided, since I was in that part of town, to go grocery shopping.  I hit up Walmart, Costco, Fred Meyer and the Dollar Tree for a few things.  It was nice to get that chore out of the way.  I headed back home, unloaded the Escape, put everything away, ate some salad for dinner, did some laundry, worked on my blog (since I was way behind) and watched some football.  Our game was the Thursday night game, and we lost to the stupid 49ers.

Ben came home after 7 p.m. that night and he told me about his day on shift.  I showed him his pumpkin I got him and told him about my day.  We finished up our chores and got ready for the upcoming work week.  It was a big one for me since I was starting my Developmental Job Assignment (DJA) with Employment Standards the next day.  I was excited yet nervous to see how it was going to go.  I haven't done anything new at work in almost 7 years. I was looking forward to the opportunity.

Next Adventure:  Pumpkin Carving and Mom's Birthday Party