Halloween Parade

Yep it's the Halloween Parade, I love to go and watch the parade and this year I had a big surprise.... John and Adam didn't want to go! I was pouting around the house not wanting to go by myself. Just like that Shannon called and asked if I wanted to go with her and Elly, of course I do.

Elly absolutely dislikes wearing any type of costume, so this is what you get. Elly dressed up like Elly. Adam didn't like dressing up either, he didn't like going trick or treating, he didn't like getting the candy, he didn't like anything about Halloween so we could never take him, now El is following in his footsteps and Shan is not happy with it.

Here she is with her friend "M" who is wearing a costume!!

Good thing one of the floats gave away a tiny picture book so El was happy about being at the parade. All the candy that flew her way was shared with "M". As soon as she got the book, the heck with the parade she looked at her book like 15 times.

Here's the Medford Area Senior High School Band.

And Broom Hilda was a smash hit. Isn't she just the scariest witch you have ever seen?

Does anyone recognize the face on this witch?? You can click on the picture to make it bigger so you can really check it out and guess who it is.

The MC this year for the parade was Kris she got a ride in a bucket. She did an wonderful job and the parade had 60 floats and took a long time, we were all frozen by the time the firetrucks got there. Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention the horses.... this year there were so many horses and of course they always have to stop right in front of us. Those animals scare me more than Broom Hilda.

And on the way home El trick or treated at the Doghouse where the guys were warm and cozy in their shack. The bar is done and some of the walls are getting done, the guys are doing a good job making it a pleasant place to visit for anyone.

Ken, John, Elly, and Ed

Oh... the witch is Gayle on the Reflections float.

Happy Halloween

Corn Maze

Elly, Lynn, Shannon and I went to the corn maze on Saturday. Elly had a great time running through the maze finding the clues so she could get a prize at the end. She got to pick the paths that we took and I tried to scare her that she was going the wrong way... she didn't scare or fall for any of it.

Tia is helping her with her first clue, there was a nursery rhyme for each of the 5 clues.

Her favorite clue... the spider, now she wants to find the web... there is no web!

We finished the corn maze and Elly went straight to the round hay bale maze, she was cautious and ran around on the inside

and then when she seen the bigger kids on the tops she wanted to try it. By the time we left she was running. Tia wanted to know if I brought her helmet and Shan wasn't real impressed with Grandma teaching her dangerous boy things. Shan kinda likes her being a clean cautious little girl.

We took a hay wagon ride to the round barn.

The round barn, they moved this here last year and I forget how many years old it is but it's old. They are fixing up the inside to hopefully host weddings and picture backdrops for weddings, seniors... It was so cool.

Looking up through the center. There were two levels in the barn.

Elly in the pumpkin patch. It was a very fun day. We finished the day with eating at Applebee's for Shan's birthday and shopping at Target for Elly's new pink and brown cowgirl boots.

Happy Fall

Emmerich Soup Off 2007

It's that time of year again, SOUP OFF! The time we all stress over what soup we're gonna make, put our families through pots and pots of different soups asking if it's a winning soup.... Making casual conversations with the sisters to see if anyone is going to spill what soup they are making.... I even stooped as low this year as stopping by DiAnn's on the night before the soup off to see if I could see or smell her soup.

I'm not very good at soup, except Chicken Noodle and I already won with that soup so I can't bring it anymore. I dig through tons of soup recipes looking for the best sounding soup and I decide on a not so difficult soup, it sounds good and it's easy.

John ask.... what soup are you making this year? I tell him "Spicy Pork and Vegetable Soup", he says "Ohhhh" not the oh like yum that sounds good, the oh like I'm not gonna like it. I tell him if I went to the 8th Street and wrote the soup of the day on the board "Spicy Pork and Vegetable Soup" he would say... "oh that sounds good I'll have to try a cup". As you can tell it gets real tense when it's close to Soup Off Final Decision Day!!

Here are some of the girls with their monster glasses drinking a fun drink that Lynn brought.

The official soup off voting cans. This year we had 10 different soups

The line up of soups, everyone tries every soup and then gets one red voting spoon and places the voting spoon into the orange can with the same number as their favorite. Sometimes you have to go back for 2nd's if you have a couple favorites until you can decide on only one.

And the winning soup is "Corn Chowder"

Made by DiAnn.... her first year winning the Soup Off. Shown below with the prize winning ladle (made by Shannon E, last years winner) and her 5 voting spoons.

Congratulations DiAnn it really is a big honor, the Winner of 2007 Soup Off

Here is Terry with his son Ian in his highchair.

A new event this year was a football kicking contest won by Tom for the guys and Lynn for the girls. Tom won a pie and Lynn won cut out cookies.

Another new event... a pie shooting contest. Shannon shot a gun for the first time in her life.

Lynn trying her luck at the pie shoot.

Here's the target

Here's where the girls shot.

Gayle's shot

Lynn's shot

And Shannon's shot

Maybe next year they will do better.

Picture Assignment #1 (Color)

I found an on-line free course for some photo assignments and this is Assignment #1. Go out and take a picture of color. Well this time of year the color isn't very good. All the leaves are gone, no snow to accent the other colors.... This is as good as I could do for right now. I'm not really happy with this picture for the assignment challenge but I do like the pictures. It was a Saturday morning after a hard frost and the river was steaming.

Sun peaking through the trees.

It was one of those beautiful fall mornings that smells so cold and fresh.

The reflections were stunning.

Then after what I think is not such good color that evening during sunset we are outside and I see the most gorgeous colorful sunset...... ohhhh my camera, my assignment, my color.

How's this for color outside?

I'm still not sure if I consider myself done with this assignment, so far I have not moved onto assignment #2 so I must feel I can do better, comment to me and let me know what you think.

4 wheeling trip

John and I went on a 4wheeling trip this last weekend with some of his co-workers. It was a beautiful day for a ride, it should have been sweatshirts and jeans but instead tank tops and shorts were worn by some. I happen to love the outdoors and I look forward to this annual trip. John leans back to give me a kiss on the cheek and thank me for being a nature lover and not afraid of getting dirty.

It was very muddy since we have gotten over 4 inches of rain in the past weeks so John was going around all the puddles trying to not get real dirty. After a few hours of that he goes right straight through the middle thinking it might not be that bad.... Not that bad but not that good either. All others were carrying their cameras in plastic bags to prevent them from getting wet, nope not me, mine is right on my lap or in front of my face, if I can't get the splashing mud I ain't happy.

1 kid lost his 3 wheeler in a huge puddle, flipped er' right over, we got there and his dad was picking up pieces and putting the wheeler back together. It ripped his sock right off his foot, he only had the toes left and his show was floating away. Gotta love it. Next Brittney was trying to keep up to the dirt bikes and lost control and headed right into the brush, they had to pull her out but she was fine.

Then at the gravel pit All the kids got muddy from their ears to their toes. Check out the pictures from the day.

Alex and Monica (clean)

The start of some mud

Conrad is such a cute kid, he climbed this tree (and many others) like he was walking upstairs. Then he just sat up there....

Brittney in the pickers

The gravel pit (Alex and Monica are way back on the right and still clean)

Mark and Conrad driving through the mud holes like a 40+ year old...

Alex and Monica driving through the mud holes like teenagers (not clean anymore)

Say Cheese

Adam got his braces off today..... yeah! Look at those teeth.

No more paying for orthodontist bills.... I can't begin to tell you how much money we have spent on straight teeth but every cent was well worth it. Now let's all keep our retainers in our mouths to maintain that work.... right Lynn??? You too Shannon!!

Happy Birthday Shannon, you're 22 today. It still seems like yesterday that you were asking for everything yellow for your birthday. Yellow flowers, yellow cake, yellow presents, yellow clothes. And of course that's what you got.

Big Weekend

Elly stood up as the Flower Girl in her aunt Jamie's wedding this last weekend. She wanted Tia to give her lots of curls and put makeup on her. That was all she talked about for days. Tia did get the curls she wanted and she got to wear the flowers in her hair and her pretty dress. She was very, very pretty and is getting to be such a big girl. Her hair took a little longer than she wanted to sit still so we had to come up with lots of stuff for her to do at the counter. Here is Tia putting the last touches of curls after the tiara.

And here is the little princess all dressed up. She was so excited to get her dress on.

Here's Elly and Shannon being silly and getting their pictures taken before they head out for the wedding.

Elly got a pumpkin from Shan's friend Katrina. It has her name craved in it with a couple of pictures. I needed a picture of her with her pumpkin but she was done with pictures. I hope she does better at the wedding!

After the beauty shop at the house John and I headed up to Moniqua with the neighbors Paul and Kathy. We were going up for Beef-A-Rama.... it's were the shops on the main street cook up big chunks of beef in themed outfits/props, drink lots of beer and get judged for the best looking, and best tasting beef. This all happens on the Hwy with the traffic trying to get through with mobs and people trying to get a look at the beef.

Of course I should have taken my camera but I left it in the car so I'll have to tell you about the highlights of the day. 3:00 they shut the Hwy down for a parade.... you may think it's floats, costumes, clowns, horses.... nope it wasn't. It was for the beef to get from the mainstreet to the park. They paraded the beef down the street in wagons, carrying it on a rod, dressed the beef like a football... It was quite the experience.

Next we went to the bar to get out of the cold for awhile and watched the Badger game, thinking everyone followed the beef to the park... wrong. The bars were full of crazy, fun people. The table next to us had a cow hat that they wore and tried to touch their tongues on their nose like cows do. They took many pictures and of course the ladies wanted them deleted as soon as they seen them. We then took a walk to an outside 3 man funny band and danced a few songs. We started a Mambo line dancing with anyone who would join us. Of course we danced past a flag pole and I wrapped my legs around the pole and just about gave the main singer a small heart attack. He added after the song that I was the first pole dancer of Beef-a-rama.

What an Honor LOL

We ended up back in a bar where we watched the rest of the Badger Game, which they won and that bar went crazy. They played the Jump song and everyone in there, wall to wall, was jumping. They were jumping on the floor, tables, chairs.... WOW it went crazy in there, I'm no football fan but that was kinda fun.

Well the day should have ended with eating a Beef Sandwich, since they serve over 4,000 people, but the lines were all the way down the street so we left with no beef.

The next day we headed up to Michigan to see the fall colors, here is a picture of a lake on the way. There was a gorgeous eagle flying just over the lake when we drove by but it was gone by the time we came back. It would have been a cool picture, someone was there with their big camera and tripod so they got they moment.

We went to Porcupine Mountain to see the waterfalls and Lake Superior.

The walking brides were all the way through woods.

Just some pretty leaves

The first falls.... nothing like Oregon's but it was still very pretty and fun to hike through.

The river that runs into Lake Superior

Look at the rock formation!

And this rock....

The water swirls around and makes circles in the rocks. Very dangerous water. The leaves aren't even colored here since the Lake keeps the temperature warmer will be a few more weeks for the colors to start changing here.

Lake Superior at the end of the river.

John, Paul and Kathy walking ahead of me to the Lake.

Oh can I take these rocks home.... all of them!

John and I

Next we went to Lake of the Clouds and by now it was raining pretty good but the view was stunning. It was so windy up there we felt like it was going to blow us right over the edge (not really) =)

Paul and Kathy up at the top and John is slowly making his way up there. It really is that cloudy and rainy and John does need to hold onto his hat or it would be gone.

Paul can talk John into just about anything and this proves it. Paul is so adventurous and John is very reserved but Paul got John to go down and explore the mine on the side of the road. There was a sign saying it had 15K bats living inside it. It was dark, muddy, water was running down the sides and below..... Paul is in the cave, John is just sticking his head in and Kathy screams behind them and gives John's heart a jump start, good thing he didn't jump and hit his head on the rocks. That was it he turned around and came out mumbling something about "Why do I let him talk me into this stuff"

We had a great time!