Happy Halloween!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

fo real

USS Alabama

Today, October 29, 2010, Dad, Julie and I left her home in Mississippi and drove to Mobile, Alabama. We stopped at the USS Alabama and took a tour. It was so big and Julie and I made it especially fun by figuring out that our family could actually run this battleship! We made assignments for everyone, and some of us...well practically all, have to double or triple up on our duties.

Dad is of course the captain and that's a big job in itself.

Danny is THE ENGINEER of the whole ship! He has to know what all these machines do and manage all the control knobs.

(Good luck Danny)

Owen will be working closely with Danny and he will have to manage the
ship's computer. It's an entire room!

(Good luck, Owen.)

Oh, yeah, we also assigned Owen to be the PLO.

Julie and I can help load the ammunition.

I've been working out and Julie's on a football team, so I'm sure we can handle that job.

We figured that Jeff would not only have to be the doctor/surgeon, he'd also have to be the dentist. Karen can help with the pharmacy but she is also the physical therapist, recreation advisor and the jailor. (I wish I had taken a picture of the "Brig". We figure Karen would keep those hooligans in line.

Julie and Megan would be running the post office, the plotting room, and all the clerical stuff.

Kathy and I and possibly everyone else will have to help with the food stuff.

There was a soda fountain, and I'm sure I'd be in charge of that so you'll all want to stay on my good side.

Of course, Kathy will be the barber/hair stylist, but she will also be in charge of the bakery.

Daniel will be in charge of all the guns, and actually EVERYTHING on deck. He'll have to be flying back and forth from the battleship to the aircraft carrier.

(Good luck with that, Daniel.)

We'll be posting as we move along on our trip, so hope you will let us know what you think of your assignments so far. You may want to put in requests as we near NASA.

Rainy Fall Day = Homemade Soup!

While reading the blog of the "Good Food Fairy" (my niece), I became inspired to make her homemade butternut squash soup! After going to the temple this morning, we stopped at the store, got all the ingredients and I was anticipating cooking most of the day, which seemed alright to me because it's rainy and I could read and play my fiddle in between needing to do something in the kitchen.

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Well!! This recipe was so easy and much quicker than I thought, that we had it for lunch instead of dinner. I've been so pleased with it all that I decided to take pictures and post it on my blog. If your thinking about trying this recipe, DO IT!! It's so yummy!!

To be honest, I've never even cooked this type of squash before.

I LOVE how the food fairy posts pictures as she cooking so you can actually see what things are supposed to look like.

W When the soup was ready, I went outside to get a little more lettuce from our garden to add to the salad we already have.

Okay, maybe butternut squash soup isn't enough for men. Richard cooked up some chicken breasts on the grill to have with the meal.

If you look at the "Food Fairy's" blog you can see something pretty that she put on the top of her soup. I don't know what that is....I'll have to ask her about that.
There's plenty of left overs. Wish I could have you all over for some!

The Early Bird Catches the Worm ? (or $10)

The Early Bird Catches....$10.00?

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Several weeks ago, Karen sent me a training schedule to help me prepare for the Turkey Trot this year. The first week I walked for 6 minutes, then jogged for a minute, then walked for 5 min. and jogged a min. and did this about 4 or 5 times.

Since I'm so old and out of shape, I stayed on week one for about a month. Then I graduated to week 2 , which was a little harder. I stayed on week 2 for about 3 weeks.

Last week I began my week 3 and while out very early (partly because I know I look funny running and would prefer that my neighbors don't see me)...

I spied something in the street!!I could hardly believe my eyes!!

This training schedule is really paying off!!

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This last weekend was dad's 55th birthday and to celebrate we went out to eat at a very yummy restaurant in Ventura.
It was one of his goals for the day to score the "Senior Discount" but that didn't happen here.

Dad has been on a Jenny Craig diet (and doing very well)

but for his B'day....

It was SO delicious!!

We stayed over night in a motel and in the morning I took a fiddle workshop at the Scottish Highland Games...although it was called the Seaside games since we were right off the beach!

I was nearly the first one there!

Had to get my front row seat, you know!!

:)

Our Visit with Owen and Megan

On the first weekend in October, dad and I drove to San Diego and visited Owen and Megan. We spent the night on Friday and on Saturday dad and Owen went golfing and Megan and I went shopping for maternity clothes.

BUT, before setting out to do those fun things, we took Monkey to the "dog beach"! Here he is swimming! Owen had thrown a ball in the water and he just kept swimming out there to get it! He's so CUTE!!If you look close enough, you can see a little white dot ahead of Megan. That's Monkey running about 50 miles an hour. He would run SO
fast and SO far and then turn around and run back! It was so much fun watching him.
Monkey LOVES the beach!!
We had a great time with them and hope to go back soon.

Kathy's Fashion Show

One time, while dog sitting Monkey, I caught him playing in some mud and had to take a quick picture. He had a lot of fun! The last time Karen was home, we went to Franklin Elementary School and I showed her where they still have her name and cross country record up. No one has beat her time after all these years! Great job, Karen!!!
On September 24th, Kathy's salon put on a fashion show for breast cancer awareness. I was SO happy that I could go! BUT, I forgot my camera, so all these pictures were taken with my cell phone...my apologies for that.

Rebecca Tucker was one of Kathy's models and after the fashion show they all changed into T shirts. She looks so beautiful though and seemed to have a fun time.

Each stylist had a theme and Kathy's was "HOPE".

What a wonderful theme.

She had 5 models. These two little girls were the cutest! One came out and danced to the music playing and enjoyed her time on stage so much that she had to be coaxed off.

Everyone thought it was SO cute!!

Kathy and Jeff (the proud husband)!

AWESOME job, Kathy!!