Witches' Night Out 2008

My friend Almond and I participated in our yearly ritual of dressing up and attending Witches' Night Out at Gardner Village on Friday the 24th. When we arrived, we got witch make-overs complete with green make-up and colored gem warts. After we were thus witchy-ized, we enjoyed an ever-so-delicious dinner at Archilbald's restaurant. YUM-O!!

After gorging ourselves silly at dinner, we browsed through all the nifty shops and mingled with all of the other witches. We topped the night off by singing and dancing to the spooky Halloween tunes and sharing a delicious caramel apple. It was a fabulous night!

Cornbelly's

Our family had a fantastic Fall time when we visited Cornbelly's on Saturday. As evidenced by the photos on this blog post, the kids enjoyed a variety of harvest-time festivities! My favorite picture here is of "Princess Scarecrow Jocelyn". There was a booth called "Dress a Scarecrow Princess" and it had lots of princess dresses and crowns and, yes, even full wigs! Off to the side were some wooden scarecrows with burlap sack heads and faces painted on them. I believe the objective was to dress up THOSE scarecrows. Alas, in the passion of the moment, most of the little girls were dressing themselves up....not the scarecrows. It was quite a sight to see since the wigs were all full of straw which gave all the little girls a distinctively "farm-ish" look. Jocelyn was not satisfied to just dress up and have her picture taken, though. After her photo shoot with mom, she entered the nearby playhouse castle and climbed to the top turret. Once there, she stuck her head out the window and waved as proudly as any Rapunzel-esque scarecrow princess I've ever seen. She knew she was beautiful! --- straw and all :)
Not pictured here are the panicked and frantic looks on our faces when Jocelyn got lost in the throngs of Cornbelly revelers! So scary! We took our eyes off of her for a second and "Poof!" she was gone. We were running to and fro shouting her name and becoming more and more alarmed and frightened as each minute ticked by. Then, like a voice from heaven, someone announced over the loudspeaker that a lost little girl named Jocelyn was at the information booth. We all breathed a sigh of relief and ran as fast as we could to where she was. Thank heavens for the alert mother who noticed a small girl crying and alone. She reassurred her and took her to the information booth. I could have KISSED that woman!
Also not pictured here are the pig races, the Halloween Egg Hunt in the kiddie corn maze, the Horrible Haunted Beast (Parker and Jocelyn were screaming and crying like it was flu-shot day), the Cornbelly's slides and the amazing JUMPING PILLOW!!
It really got us all in the Fall/Harvest/Halloween spirit.

A List of Eights

Tagged

I was tagged by Camille. A list of eights.

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch (if I have time)
1. The Office --- oh, the funniness!
2. Criminal Minds (don't act surprised....you should all know by now that I LOVE the creepy, scary, catch-the-psycho shows)
3. Ghost Hunters....I even have a TAPS t-shirt (The Atlantic Paranormal Society)
4.The Amazing Race
5. Survivor
6. Supernatural (uh-huh...it's a creepy one --- but super funny, too!)
7. Cold Case (catching the bad guys again --- but from OLD cases gone cold...Nice!)
8. Ramsay's Kitchen nightmares...I'm addicted!

8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. I tried to sleep in since it was the first day of Fall Break, but my throbbing finger had me awake popping Tylenol at 6:43 a.m. Grrrrrrr..... As for an explanation of the "throbbing finger" --- I chopped a chunk off of my finger while cutting green onions for Gyoza on family Japanese food night. Owie.
2. I watched an episode of Cold Case before the family woke up.
3. Lazied around the house for a while...checked people's blogs and facebook.
4. Showered and got dressed at about 2:00. Nice. It took me about an hour, too, because of my crippled index finger :( Got re-bandaged.
5. Fell asleep and took a nice (tylenol-induced) nap --- no more throbbing.
6. Took the kids bowling. Score breakdown = Kevin-1st place, JOCELYN-2nd place, Me-3rd place (yes...I was beat by my 5-year old), Micalyn-4th place, Parker-5th place. I think next time I'll use the bumpers and ball ramp.
7. Ate at "Spanky's Diner" for the first time. Food was good, but service was slow and the prices were high. Don't think we'll be going back there.
8. Came home and watched "Ghost Hunters" as a family --- yes, I am turning my kids into creepiness-lovers, too :)

8 Favorite Places to Eat
1. Magleby's Grill and Oyster Bar. I am HOOKED on their wonderful halibut and yummy cranberry rice pilaf!
2. Outback (when we can afford it)
3. Olive Garden
4. Bajio
5. JCW's
6.sundance Foundry Grill (special occasions). Their chicken pot pie is AMAZING!!
7. Sensuous Sandwich --- no better sandwiches anywhere!! I always get the "Almond Special" named after my very own bff, Almond ;)
8. The Training Table.....MMMmmmmm....the hickory dipping sauce is so good, especially when you have a sore throat...it totally burns away the pain.

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. The end of this economic downswing in the country. Enough already.
2. My birthday. I know that sounds selfish, but I really like my birthday :) Especially when there is cake involved.
3. Christmas...I love the WHOLE season!
4. Weekends and vacations.
5. The next time I get to have some Dr.Pepper --- I am such an addict :( Is there such a thing as "DPA" --- Dr. Pepper Anonymous???!!
7. Hot bubble baths
8. New episodes of my favorite TV shows.

8 Things on my Wish List
1. An INSTANT way to lose 20 pounds. I know it doesn't exist, but it doesn't hurt to wish now does it?
2. For my kids and husband to stay healthy and happy...forever.
3. Financial freedom including the opportunity to easily help those in need (I copied this one from Camille)
4. World Peace and I'm not kidding --- not the "answer to a beauty queen question" kind, but the REAL kind of peace....stop the wars and the killing and the fighting.
5. A maid to clean my house (I stole that one from Camille, too. She has such good wishes).
6. Calorie-free, GOOD-TASTING Dr. Pepper...for reals...'cuz Diet Dr. Pepper doesn't cut it.
7. Upper-body strength so I could be a better climber...I'm so whimpy :(
8. To have all of our "pending" property matters end Happily :) (Heber...Mazatlan...Alpine...Elk Ridge)

8 people I tag
1. Teryn
2. Rebecca
3. Lindsay
4. Carola
5. Jill
6. Mignonne
7. Jani
8. Whoever wants to do it :)