My Pumpkins

These are 2 of the pumpkins I carved this year. Unfortunately our pictures don't turn out well in the dark, but you get the general idea. I also did a witch design, but we didn't get any pictures of it. Jeff did a gargoyle, an evil twin, and the headless horseman, which he altered a little.

Ewww "Pokin Guts!"

Bug and Bear just had to help clean out the pumpkins that we carved for our Halloween party this year. Last year, Bear was saying pumpkin pretty well, but for some reason he decided it would sound better pronounced another way. He now calls them "Pokins". While helping his Daddy with the cleanup, he yelled out "Ewww, pokin guts!" But they both had a lot of fun squishing their little fingers through the slimy gooey mess! Thanks for the help, kids!

Halloween Party '06

This year's party was a great one. We fogged up the entire street, spooked the kids, and partied until 3:00 a.m. I think it was a success. Unfortunately, there were a couple small drama situations, but otherwise everything was fun... Cold, but fun!

A Legless Lizard

About 2 weeks ago, Bug noticed that our little iguana "Anouk" had lost her tail... She had gotten it caught in her climbing vine and unfortunately she decided to drop the tail about 5 inches from the tip. Although we were sad about it, their tails do eventually grow back. We thought this was her only injury. We went on with our lives until a few days later when Jeff was misting her cage. He got a very concerned look and said in a very upset voice, "Oh, no..." When I saw the cause of his concern, my heart sank. Her back left foot had died. Three of the toes were completely black and dried out. Immediately we knew what had caused it. She loves to climb in her mesh cage, but unfortunately she climbs the top like monkey bars and in fact has declawed herself on one front finger. However, she falls all the time. The only thing is that she has never acted like she was hurt. We think she must have landed wrong and broken either the bones or a blood vessel. Either way, we knew what had to be done. Now just for the record, if Anouk was "just an animal" to us, we would have euthanized her immediately, however as strange as it is to some people, she is no different than any cat or dog is to anyone else. She is one of our babies and part of our family. She only cost us $25.00 at the pet store, but we easily spent over $200.00 on her comfort and well being. At first we were going to surrender her to an iguana rescue, but finding a good home would take a while and her foot needed to be taken care of now.
So I called a vet and we took her in. She was diagnosed with dry gangrene and her foot had to be amputated. When we dropped her off and I handed her to the vet's assistant, I almost cried. They told us that reptiles often stop breathing during sedation and because of her size they would be unable to insert a breathing tube. They said that most likely we would lose her, but we had to give her a chance so we agreed to the $200.00 surgery... Yep, that's right, $200.00 for a lizard to have a leg amputated. We left her overnight since the surgery would be in the morning, and let me just say that I really missed her while she was there yesterday. I waited for the call to tell us if our baby Anouk had made it or not. Finally the assistant called and the first thing she said was "Anouk is doing GREAT! She's already up and running around."
I could barely believe it, not only did our baby survive against all odds, but she was doing much better than anyone expected. We picked her up last night and even with half her leg missing, you can't tell that she's even hurt. And the best part is that the vet gave us a discount and it only cost $160.00 instead of the $200.00. I'm so happy that she's ok.

Rocky Point

Well let me just start by saying that I'll be glad to see this one go. I know it was voted the most popular haunted house in the nation, but it has been the same set up for the past 5 years. Jeff and I decided that we just had to go to it this year since it's the final year. We figured that they would go all out to make it awesome this year to give everyone something to remember. We got there at 9:00 last night and the line was to the back of the building. We stood there, cold, bored and with very sore feet for 3 hours! At midnight we finally got inside to pay. First the workers started yelling at everyone to move as fast as we could into the next room. They had a "museum" set up of all the hollywood costumes and effects that they've used there. As soon as we walked into that room, there was another lady yelling "Hurry up, keep walking, get as far into the next room as you can go... KEEP MOVING!" I mean my hell, you pay $16.00/person you should be allowed to actually look around before being pushed into the next room... right? The house was so crowded that we walked in a line through out the entire house. There was a traffic jam every time someone got startled and so the rest of us were stuck in the same place for about a minute at a time, so the spooks in that area would scare the same people over and over again. The first thing we noticed was that pretty much everything was the same from past years. However, their Pirates of the Carribean display was AWESOME! They had a ship built and when you walked through the ship, it would rock as if it was actually in the sea. It was so realistic that several people, including myself, felt "sea sick." Then when you walked through the next door, Davy Jones was waiting to jump out at you. After taking only 30 minutes to get through the entire haunted house, and not being startled even once, I think we should have saved our money and just took another trip back to Nightmare on 13th!

Nightmare

Last night Jeff and I took advantage of the fact that the kids are gone for the weekend... We went to Nightmare on 13th. It was great. They've changed most of the props, and there were plenty of spooks around. There was even another guy who just decided to jump out at people and scare them even though he didn't work at the haunted house. Tonight we'll be going to Rocky Point. This is the last year that Rocky Point will be open so we just have to go to that one. I'm hoping that it's as fun as Nightmare on 13th is. I used to go to the haunted houses every year, but then for a couple years it seemed that they didn't change their setup, so I stopped going. We also have some Christmas shopping to do this weekend since Walmart is going to discontinue their layaway program this year. I'm hoping to get most of that done, as well as some shopping for props for our Halloween party next weekend.

Don't call the fire department!

Jeff and I have been getting ready for our Halloween party in a couple weeks. We're all excited. A little while ago we bought a fog machine. Unfortunately, we didn't try it out until last night and it didn't work. We exchanged it today and right away we tried it out. It says "For indoor use only" but it completely smoked us out! We had it turned on for less than a minute. We thought about opening the doors but quickly changed our minds when it gushed out the door like smoke. I thought for sure someone would call the fire department. So instead, we just turned all the fans on high and waited it out. Unfortunately for Mary, all the fog blew downstairs and stayed there. But it was fun and we all had a good laugh.

Red Butte Garden

Today we took a trip up to the garden for the first time. They've had a special "Jurassic" display for several months now and it will be over on the 31st, so we had to take Bear to see it. We waited until now so that the temperatures wouldn't be so miserable. As I said, we'd never been there before. I was in awe of the beauty there. Everything was so beautiful and the air smelled so fresh. The fall colors were perfect, and the many waterfalls were so relaxing. The kids enjoyed the dinosaurs, as well as watching the koi and the ducks. There were also a couple sections of Halloween displays hidden among the trees. We really loved the walk. We found some plants and trees that we fell in love with. I think my favorite part was walking through a cove, shuffling our feet through the fallen leaves, listening to the nearby stream and finding acorns with my family. It was awesome. We had forgotten the camera, so we're planning another trip just so we can take pictures. We couldn't have asked for better weather... It was cloudy, so the sun was not overheating nor too bright, and the air was crisp just as Autumn should be. We also observed a couple squirrels, and a bunny too. I can't wait to go again!

My Knight In Shining Armor

Introducing my brave little knight! Okay so technically right now he's dressed as a miniature king, but after we buy him a shield and sword, he'll become a royal knight... Or a royal pain! He was so excited when I showed him that his costume had arrived. He ran through the house yelling "YES! I GOT IT... YES!!!" I ended up buying it from ebay because I didn't win the original auction, which was selling it for .99 but I found this one for just over $20.00 so that wasn't bad. It was the next cheapest one. We searched everywhere for this costume and when we found it, it was too small and the stores didn't have any more because it was clearanced out. I'm so glad to finally have it.

Grrrr.

Okay, for the past couple days, I've been trying to look at my blog, but when it comes up, it shows a previous post and not my current posts. My sister in law's blog was also coming up like this for me, however now her blog is back to normal. I've already tried to republish my entire blog, but this didn't work either. Has anyone else had this happen? If so, what can I do about it? It's becoming very frustrating. I cleaned out my cookies as well, still no help.

UPDATE: Apparently adding a new post can fix this problem! That does make sense because my Sister in law's blog was like this until she added a new post yesterday, now I can see it again.