Happy Birthday to Doug

Doug's birthday is just before Halloween. This year, we carved our pumpkins on his birthday. So, we decided to wait and celebrate it the next evening - which was a Friday - and then we would have Halloween the next night. I planned it all out and didn't tell him what we were doing.

For dinner, Ryan and I made Hot Dog Mummies with chips. They were very yummy.

A close-up of one of the mummies:
The only thing Doug knew was to dress warm. We went to the first Howl-O-Ween at the Zoo. We got there a little bit after the opening time and actually had to stand in line for about a half an hour. I've never had to stand in line at the zoo before. The line did move really quickly. It was a blast! Here is a horse drawn carriage with a coffin in the back. The coffin was full of cereal samples.

The only animals we got to see were a couple zebras.

We did go on the Haunted Train Ride. It was totally cool. Along the ride there were different characters dressed up that would chase the train - they had a mummy, Frankenstein, a werewolf, and a Dracula. The guy that drove the train was pretty funny. At one point he asked if anyone got their blood sucked. It was pretty scary and fun at the same time.

Carving our Halloween Pumpkins

October 29th was our annual pumpkin carving. My whole family gets together to carve our pumpkins at my brother's house. We have a wonderful buffet style dinner where everyone brings a fun Italian style dish. Then we move outside to carve away on all those pumpkins. There have been many varieties of pumpkins carved over the years. Here are some of the pics I took that night:

The cutest pumpkin head I ever did see - Payton:

Patti's traditional, and extremely yummy, carrot bars. These are definitely a crowd favorite!
The carvers getting to work:

Pumpkin guts - yuck! They did turn into yummy pumpkin seeds to munch on Halloween night!

This year we decided to carve a Beagle pumpkin. Here it is about halfway through the carving process:

And the finished pumpkin - looks just like our "boys" at home!

AZ Science Center Free Weekend - Beware there are LOTS of pics

It has now been over a month ago - yikes! I can't believe it's taken me that long to get these pictures posted! After you see how many are on here, you will understand. And I only put the REALLY good ones on here! Just one day after we went to the Pumpkin & Chili Festival, we went to the AZ Science Center. They were offering a free weekend to Fry's VIP customers. Woohoo! I LOVE FREE!!!! We had a great time. It's actually been a couple years since Ryan
& I were there on a school field trip and Doug has never been before. They are always changing things up there. Many of the displays stay the same, but about half of them get changed up and rotated around with other museums so it's always fresh. Check out some of the fun things we got to do.

The music room, where you get to see music come to life!

This is a favorite display. You stand on this stage like area surrounded by large screens, wind machines, misters and even heaters to simulate the forces of nature. You get blown by the wind, you get rained on and have the heat turned up like the desert. It's way cool!
Doug & Ryan when the heaters are on. It got pretty hot - even to me.

A display that allowed you to morph yourself on screen. Ryan looks pretty crazy with such a large upper head.

Building circuits:

Checking your weight at different angles:

Ryan had a great time with this trying to ring the bell when the lever was pulled over to his side.

Checking how fast your reflexes are:

This bridge felt weird, everything under your feet moved independently:

We even went to an IMAX 3D movie for only $5 per person - bargain!

Ryan & I waiting for the movie:

These are the largest 3D glasses I've ever seen:

Wheel chair races:

Ryan laying on a bed of nails:

An interactive water feature. The kids press different buttons all around and the water shoots to different areas:

What a great day we had. We got to do so many fun things and all for only about $20. Thanks Fry's for sponsoring a free weekend!

Pumpkin & Chili Festival

For those of you that know us, October is always an extremely busy month full of lots of fun activities. Well October of 2009 fell right in line. We were constantly on the go - and with the hundreds of pictures I took . . . let's just say it's going to take me a little bit to get caught up!

We went to a Pumpkin & Chili festival with my niece Brittany, her husband Ben and their two kids. Last year we went for the first time to this particular festival with them also and had such a great time, we've been looking forward to going again all year long. Finally the day came. We went earlier this year than we did last year and we still didn't get to do everything there. We ended up leaving a little early. We all got worn out & our allergies were going crazy! But well worth it!

We Love Sonic at our house & couldn't pass up the opportunity to pose with the Sonic drink:

Ryan got to spin the Sonic wheel of prizes and won his choice of anything off the table. He picked a Sonic football that has been going to school with him everyday since the festival:
Baylee won a super cool Sonic straw:

Family pics before we got too tired and dirty from all the fun. Here are the Harper's:

The Halls - thanks for going with us on this fun day!

They have the coolest go-karts there. Ryan remembered them from last year and couldn't wait to get on them again this year. You pedal them yourself. They set up a really fun & sometimes tricky course to ride on. By the time you get done you are actually pretty tired. There are two courses with different karts - one for families where two people pedal and up to four can ride and another course for single riders. Ben got to pedal his whole family by himself. Way to go Ben! I tried to take picture of them while I was being bumped around on our kart by Doug & Ryan. They were literally trying to see if they could bump me off the kart.

Doug & Ryan on the single go-karts:

Doug, Ryan and Ben waiting in line for the swings:

Ben playing airplane:

Ryan flying high:

Ryan shooting tennis balls at targets:

Ben & Baylee's turn. Halfway through their turn, their "strings" broke, so Ben improvised and threw the balls at the target.Ryan & Baylee on the airplane ride. He wanted to take Baylee on the ride. She was excited to go on the ride with Ryan but was more excited about getting the plane with the flames.

Last year we didn't eat there. This year we had to have some chili. It was pretty good. Here's Ryan with his hot dog meal:

Doug & I split this chicken and chili meal:

Ben & Brittany shared a hot dog and pulled pork sandwich with Baylee:

While eating, Payton let me take a bunch of pictures of him. What a cutie!

Mini golf time. I'm not sure how they think this works well, but all the golf balls are white! Ryan lost his in the bushes. It was really dark off the course. So I let him have mine. Then like two holes later he found another stray ball so we all got to finish the game. We don't ever keep score, we just go for the fun of it.

Waiting for our turn to golf:

For those of you that have almost given up on me posting here, keep checking back, there are plenty of more fun activities from October that I will be getting ready to post soon!