Things That Go Bump in the Night

Since before we moved, way back 14 years ago, and now back, our community has regulated the celebration of Halloween to the weekend. At first they would put it on either Saturday or Sunday, depending on which day the real holiday was closest to. Then they began putting it on Sunday every year. Well we've always felt that the celebration of Halloween was not really a sabbath appropriate activity so all those years we had to tell the kids we weren't doing Halloween and find some other way to enjoy the season while still keeping the sabbath. So we were particularly pleased this year when our community decided to just celebrate it on the actual day of Halloween. How refreshing. So each of the kids decided what thy wanted to be and set about making themselves a costume. Now this on - he seems like he may have been confused about exactly which holiday was being celebrated.

They actually did quite well. We didn't have to spend hardly anything on costumes. They mostly put together costumes from what we already had. This young lady did rather well, I thought.

Our youngest and his friend got away without being photographed. He can be a toad that way sometimes. But his outfit was equally cute and imaginative. So here's the whole crew (almost), all decked out and ready to go.

More Wedding Prep

Today's big project (at least for me) was to get some significant work done on the decorations for the open house coming up in just four short weeks. It was the best day we've had for a couple of weeks for painting. Unfortunately, we didn't get so far along as to get any painting done today. But Maulbeere was a great helper and did a fantastic job at getting the backdrop ready. This is the back drop that is planned for behind the cake and some other stuff that will be nearby. So we set up shop in the garage and used the trailer as our "work bench" and went to work.

We had these 4'x8' pieces of lattice wood that we wanted to put some edging on to make them a little stronger. So we laid the lattice across the trailer and fastened some wood strips around the edge of the stuff. Some we didn't have to cut.














Some we did have to cut. An old friend who was a really good carpenter told me once, "measure twice, cut once."














So we thought we'd give it a try. Maulbeere did really good - she only had to recut once. Pretty good for her first time with a skill saw.



















We got quite a bit done but not as much as we'd hoped. And when we got all three pieces trimmed we decided we needed to do more to make them a little more sturdy. So we had to go get more wood, along with the paint, and will work on it again during the coming week. But it was a good time, nonetheless.

A Berry Good Time!

A couple of weeks ago some friends asked us if we could feed and water their dogs over a weekend while they were out of town. To sweeten the deal they offered to let us have a picking at their raspberry patch. That was sweet! So we went over and gave it our best. We didn’t get over there as early as we would have liked to so it was getting dark fast as we picked. But we still managed to give the patch a good going over. Mom was the best darn picker of the bunch. Maulbeere (and in all honestly, others) picked but kept missing the bucket. But we still managed to get quite a few home. So they went in the freezer. Yum Yum!