In Which I Have A Birthday, Eat Fondue, Trunk Or Treat, And Paint A Few Walls

It's November first, and that means a full month of blogging is ahead. Last year, I made a goal to blog every day of November...and I did it! It was in keeping with BlogHer's National Blog Posting Month, and ended up being a chaotic, hectic, busy, enjoyable, instructive, rewarding experience. It helped make me a better blogger and writer. I'm sure all this is fascinating to the six of you who read these posts.

Well, a year has passed, and another November awaits my commentary. I should mention that I will try to blog every day, but I can't promise to actually blog every day. I have family coming into town for Thanksgiving, we are painting our downstairs, and our brand-new church building is opening to great fanfare. I'll try my best to chronicle all of it, but bear with me! If I can't manage every day, I'll at least try to make each post count.

As usual, our jam-packed October has rushed to a close. The last weekend contained a birthday, a home improvement project, a trunk or treat, and a sacrament meeting program (more on that tomorrow).

I turned 36 years old last Thursday. It's safe to say I can no longer think of myself as "young." Thirty-six sounds an awful lot like "mature" to me! Some would say this age means I'm in the "prime of life." Let's hope so.

I got my birthday present from Nathan one day early...it was something I'd hoped to obtain for many years now. My wonderful husband finally seized the opportunity.

It's the entire run of the Calvin And Hobbes comic strip, compiled into three large, finely printed (and heavy!) books. I spent much of Wednesday night reading. This strip (featuring the adventures of a hyperactive, imaginative little boy and his "pet" tiger) is one of my happiest childhood reading memories. I can't wait to share this with my kids (once they can hold these books without being crushed, that is).

I got my present the night before my birthday because on my actual birthday, I was attending primary meetings all day long. Whoopee! Our sacrament meeting program was merely days away, and we had to put together a little treat to congratulate the kids after they were done. We spent a few hours putting together marshmallow popcorn balls. They were dyed orange to look like little pumpkins, and then we stuck a small licorice stick in each one as the pumpkin's "stem." They were fairly easy to make, but we had so many to make that it took kind of a while. Later that evening, I attended a training for Primary leaders held by the Sahuarita Stake leadership. It was nice to see friends and get good advice on how to be a better leader, but it was not exactly a wild and crazy night befitting my newfound "maturity."

Thankfully, I was finally able to have my "birthday night out" one day late; Nathan and I went to dinner at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant that is very fun to visit on special occasions. Basically, you cook most of the meal yourself; there's a hot plate in the center of your table, and during the appetizer and main courses, there will be a small pot of something bubbling away on top of the plate. The appetizer is a cheese fondue of your choice, served with breads and vegetables. The main course is a broth/oil/seasonings combo, and you dip various meats into the mix to cook them. You are given a variety of sauces, a handful of tongs, and a bottomless plate of meat...hooray! (We didn't eat much more than was pictured above...we got filled up quickly!)

Then of course, dessert...chocolate/pecan fondue with a variety of sweet dippers (marshmallows, brownies, cake, etc.) We had to pay a little extra for the dessert...but it was totally worth it! It was a fun night out and we were quite filled up afterwards.

It was back to work with a vengeance the next day as we started our latest house-painting project. Since my sister Jocelyn and her family are coming to visit us this Thanksgiving (just three weeks away from this writing...eek!), Nathan and I decided to have the downstairs painted by the time they arrive. Well, mostly painted...there are a couple of long walls we've left white, but we'll give those walls a coat of "better" white sometime in the spring.

We've broken up the painting into small projects over the next few weekends. This last weekend, we had several "little" walls to paint, including the wall behind our television and the walls surrounding our bathroom and closet doors.

The girls were very keen on helping us this time around, so we thought giving them each little brushes wouldn't do much harm. They had a great time working on the "project," and they didn't make any big messes either! They were very careful.

Here's the finished product:

Not too bad for a weekend! Next weekend: our fireplace column. Also, we're going to start painting our kitchen (*shudder*)...a task I've been dreading since moving in, but which needs to happen!

We managed to finish our painting in time to take our kiddos to the church's trunk or treat, held in our church gym and parking lot. As usual, it was crowded, noisy, and flooded with sugar-addled children...but it was still enjoyable for all that.

Aurora was very nervous with all the noise in the gym, but she soon loosened up when she realized there was candy involved.

Here are all the girls in their Halloween costumes. Lorelai, in a dramatic departure from her usual style, went as a movie star...and looked pretty glamorous if I say so myself. Celeste borrowed a costume from a friend and went, in her own words, as a "witch fairy princess." Despite the "witch" part, she refused to wear a witch hat...go figure. Oh well, it's still my first witch after three daughters and eight Halloweens with children! Aurora, being the trooper she is, became the third daughter to wear the Grandma Barrett-made "Little Orphan Annie" costume. She looked adorable! However, she drew the line at wearing our (well-worn) red curly wig, because it was "too itchy." Oh well, a blond Annie is still adorable.

After gathering their candy, the girls took a break in the car to sample their loot:

Good times!

Well, after driving the girls home and putting them to bed, Nathan and I painted a little more--mostly touch-ups. Then, I made an appearance at an adults-only Halloween party dressed as...wait for it...a painter! Or, a "manual laborer," if you prefer...I wore Nathan's hat and brought along a clean paint roller. It was simultaneously my most lazy and honest Halloween costume. I had fun visiting with friends and playing Just Dance on the Wii at the party; Nathan stayed home to finish painting and to watch the girls. He had gone to this same party with me last year, and he didn't mind taking a break this time!

More Halloween stuff coming up tomorrow!

Pumpkin Cheesecakes And The Great Outdoors, In That Order

Yet another busy weekend in this month of October. It's becoming a common theme. Luckily, this weekend was pretty fun as well as busy.

Thursday night was Nathan's annual company picnic, held at Reid Park in Tucson. Each year, a dessert bake-off is held, with the winner receiving a good-sized gift basket. Last year, the big winner was me...thanks to my yummy Berries On A Cloud dessert. The pressure was on to repeat this year, so I decided to scour the internet for another great dessert idea. Here's what I came up with:

It's a two-layer pumpkin pie/toffee cheesecake, with a cinnamon graham-cracker crust and fresh whipped cream topping. I got the recipe from Our Best Bites, a wonderful cooking blog. And yes, it was as delicious as you'd expect.

HOWEVER: I had to settle for second place this year (by one point--d'oh!!). One reason may be my late arrival; I didn't make it to the picnic until it had been going for about an hour. By then, several people had already cast their votes without ever tasting my yummy cheesecake. Also, the champion this year made a cake with Nutella-infused frosting. And I have to admit: if I'd had time to vote, I may still have voted for that dessert, because Nutella anything is a-okay by me.

But in spite of missing out on the big prize this year (a Honey-Baked Ham store gift certificate), we still had fun at the company picnic. The catered dinner was nice, the company pleasant, and the girls got to see a bunch of ducks at the nearby lake. Plus, my cheesecake was eaten right up...all that was left was one small piece for me to finish off the following day. In a way, that was just as satisfying as a victory...seeing that people enjoyed what I brought!

The very next day, we packed up and headed up to the mountains. Our ward (the Sahuarita First Ward) was holding its annual camp-out, at the LDS Church-owned camp high up Mount Lemmon, which is a good hour and a half drive from home. We were excited to go up; last year's camp-out was a lot of fun, and there were no fire restrictions this year, which meant campfire!

We actually got to cook our dinner this year, as opposed to last year's "feast" of cold sandwiches. Of course, since we are such novice campers, we stuck to hot dogs & marshmallows...the "easy" stuff.

It was great to sit around the fire toasting our dinner (of course, the hot dogs were slightly chilled inside but that's camp food for you).

The girls entertained themselves as the sun went down visiting their friends' campsites...

...or telling ghost stories!

We pitched our tent a little apart from everyone else...not because we wanted to avoid people, but because we wanted the campsite's south view, which overlooks the whole city:

Beautiful!

This was a much smaller ward camp-out; fewer families participated, and so our evening consisted of casual socializing, and a short game at the amphitheater. We were really enjoying ourselves...

...until it was time to go to sleep. As you may have noticed from the picture of our tent above, we kind of forgot to bring the rainfly for our tent, so we were left exposed to the night air. We could see the stars through our roof, which sounds very romantic until you remember we were sleeping under nothing but blankets outside on a 40-degree night. Yeah, we are definitely amateur campers! We ended up desperately snuggling together for warmth throughout the night, and Nathan and I woke up pretty miserable (although the kids seemed none the worse for wear. Darn resilient children making us look bad!). I think this was finally the event that taught Nathan and I that we need proper sleeping bags, and maybe some foam pads as well Let's hope we remember this lesson.

Despite our chilly night, we still had a nice morning with our friends. After a small breakfast, and after breaking the tent and loading up the car, we drove a little further up the mountain to a trail near Marshall Gulch. Since we had about 12-15 kids running around everywhere, we didn't go too far. However, we got to see some beautiful fall color along the way!

I sometimes forget that such places actually exist in Arizona. I miss fall more than any of the other seasons since moving to Tucson, so this was a welcome sight to my desert-weary eyes.

After reluctantly saying goodbye to the mountain beauty, we loaded everyone into the car and headed back down Mount Lemmon...and towards home. I think we gained a lot of valuable experience this weekend; we learned that we need better camping gear, and we learned where to catch a little break from the heat! Marshall Gulch is now on our "to-visit-again" list.

See you on the other side of Halloween!

Fall Break Was Busy But Enjoyable

Halloween decorations are up! (such as they are)

Well, it's October, so that means our family is crazy busy again. Fall Break for the local school just happened to be the week after General Conference weekend, so we've spent many days "off-schedule"; we're just now getting resettled! We managed to have a lot of fun though. Here's a quick rundown of some of the week's highlights:

MONDAY

This was our "little bit of everything" day. As a bonus, it was Columbus Day, so Nathan had the day off from work as well. Hooray! We went out to breakfast (where Celeste and Aurora were both fabulously rude; at one point Celeste yelled, "The problem with your restaurant is that your food takes forever!!!"); we took advantage of a lovely cool morning to visit the Reid Park Zoo; I visited two different Sunflower Markets to pick up Jonathan apples for my applesauce (the first store was sold out (!) of Jonathan apples, so across town we went!); and last but not least, we visited Bookman's, a used book/DVD/game/etc. trade-in store that's one of our favorite places in Tucson. Aurora found a pretty neat tiger hat there (but she sadly had to put it back; we had bought our allotment of used stuff for the day). We also managed to sell off a bunch of our old books and games. The constant trading-in and buying on store credit means we have rarely paid for anything out-of-pocket at Bookman's; part of why we love it so much! That afternoon I taught two piano lessons, and the kids had a play date with some good friends.



TUESDAY

This was the day I put all my Jonathan apples to their intended use, by turning them all into applesauce. You may have read my account of this event not long ago. Besides that, the girls all had playdates at various homes, which gave me a couple of quiet hours to do my canning. I spent the evening teaching piano lessons and attending a free dance class taught by one of the sisters in our church, who was a dance major in college. It was fun, but I was the oldest and fattest person there. I also woke up the next morning aching something fierce, in places I didn't even know I had muscles.


WEDNESDAY

Probably our least "interesting" day, but certainly enjoyable. We went to our local library's story time for kids; I managed to get a little blogging in; Lorelai had a play date; I taught a few more piano lessons; and we braced ourselves for the crazy days ahead.


THURSDAY

Lorelai had her annual doctor's appointment this morning (all was well, of course). Since our pediatrician is in Tucson, we also ran many other errands while in town. I took the girls shoe-shopping for their cold-weather shoes. Being in a shoe store with my three girls is akin to bringing a cat into a yarn store; let's just say it became quite difficult to keep everyone close by and on budget. We all went to CostCo as well; I love CostCo, but doing CostCo with three young kids is a laborious experience. Going through the "free samples" gauntlet all by itself can take a loooong time.

But our Thursday wasn't all business; we still had this to look forward to in the evening...

Disney On Ice!! A friend directed us to some pretty cheap opening-night tickets; I took Lorelai and Celeste (Aurora went to a game night with Daddy and some friends). The theme of this performance was "Dare To Dream," and it featured Princesses Tiana (of Princess And The Frog fame), Cinderella, and Rapunzel (of the movie Tangled, naturally).

Rapunzel's "floating lanterns" light up the sky

 I was amused by the whole show, but there were a couple of sequences I found genuinely lovely; a large rope of Rapunzel's "hair" was hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the ice floor, and the skaters playing Rapunzel and Flynn Rider would periodically climb aboard the lovely locks and go flying through the air.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I got of the flying, but trust me...it was pretty cool! It added a nice element of acrobatics into a cutesy ice-skating show.

Lorelai, being my little tomboy, had been unsure if the show would be "her kind of thing." However, the aforementioned flying skaters won her over...as did the pyrotechnics. In the Princess And The Frog segment, when Prince Naveen was cursed and turned into a frog, she turned to me and yelled, "Mom...is there real magic in this show??!!?" Only the "magic" of entertainment, kid.

But while Lorelai had initially been a tough sell, Celeste was completely sold from the moment she heard we were going. For weeks she kept talking about the "real life princesses" we were going to see; she asked over and over again which princesses would be there. She spent most of the show clapping, cheering and generally squealing at the top of her lungs. Her reactions were worth the price of admission for me.

Of course, I had to buy some souvenirs...ugh. Just don't ask me how much they cost!


FRIDAY

We all got to sleep in a little bit Friday morning...except poor Daddy, who headed back to work. We still got to squeeze in a little family time, though; I took the girls to meet Nathan for lunch. We actually had some fun in Downtown Tucson...and I don't usually use the words "fun" and "downtown Tucson" in the same sentence! Last weekend, however, the city was holding the Tucson Meet Yourself Festival. Essentially, it's a showcase of many Tucson businesses, organizations, and artisans. And restaurants...let's not forget the restaurants!

There were dozens of food stands set up everywhere, with cuisines representing dozens of countries. It all smelled soooo good and it was sooo hard to decide what to eat! In the end, Nathan got some good old fashioned barbecued beef (wrapped up in a tortilla...because we're in Tucson), and I tried out a Costa Rican combo plate. It was quite delicious! I got a tamale (which had chicken, rice, and even a little fruit inside!); some sweet chicken mixture, and some rice and beans.

The girls weren't up for such exotic fare, so we took them to a nearby pizza parlor. They were very happy with their large slices of pizza, so everyone ended up full and happy. Our Friday evening was spent with various friends; the girls had a friend over to play, and Nathan went to his monthly gaming group. Fun times!


SATURDAY

It's officially fall now, and that means pumpkins. Since none of my girls had a pumpkin patch field trip planned, we decided to take a family trip ourselves! This year, we decided to stay close to home and visit Agua Linda Farm, which Nathan and Aurora had never been to before.

Here's the farm's "corn maze"...pretty lame

Agua Linda is a working farm run by a bunch of hippies local family; everything is organic and thus their pumpkin fields appear pretty wild and uncultivated. Every time I've gone there, I see huge crates of pumpkins they've bought somewhere else; then I walk into the pumpkin patch and see those same store-bought pumpkins tossed about everywhere, so everyone can "pick" a pumpkin. It feels like cheating to me; if they can't grow enough pumpkins for everyone, they should stop scheduling field trips and gouge people who want a "real" pumpkin-picking experience!

Luckily, there are some pumpkins to be found on the vines at Agua Linda; they are usually a little smaller than the store-bought pumpkins, but that suits our family just fine. Here are the three we managed to pick from the patch:

Now it's time to say some nice things about Agua Linda Farm--because we really did have a nice time overall! There are a lot of wonderful activities for young kids at the farm. Take, for instance, their cute little hay-bale maze:

And how about their petting zoo? Look, you can crawl right up close to the chickens (and potentially trap your family in a cage). At one point, when a chicken came too close, Celeste and Aurora started screaming their heads off. So funny!

There were also tire swings aplenty...

...haybale mountains...

...mini tractors for kids to sit on...

...and, last but not least, a tractor-pulled hayride, that took us all around the pumpkin patch. The girls absolutely loved it!

The weather was beautiful; our girls even more so.

What a fun trip!

SUNDAY

In church news, I attended Ward Council; later in the day, I directed the first run-through of the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. Ugh. The less said about that, the better. Too many crazy wiggly kids to get much out of church on that day. Oh well...just two more weeks, and we can put this year's program behind us...and get on to other worries, like assigning classes and teachers for 2013. Man, Primary can be a headache in the fall.

NOW do you see why Aurora looks like this?? She looks like we all felt at the end of this long, happy week.

See you next week, after our ward campout!