October and November 2016

October is the end to any enjoyment of weather for about six months. Ah, well.  I'd like to believe I'll be pulling weeds before I know it.

Hailey is in fifth grade this year. She's been begging for her own phone. In the meantime she's practicing selfies on my phone.

I'm also seeing a lot more of the neighborhood thugs. 

They are busy leaving little presents on the grass and eating everything in sight. 

Toward the end of the month, I headed to Utah to spend time with pregnant Jessica.  I was lucky enough to be there around Halloween. I remember doing these same parades at Park View Elementary school, wearing costumes and walking on stage and around the gym to show off our disguises.

And there's my favorite ninja.

While these two cuties headed out to gather goodies with Jessica and Jorden, I got to stay home, meet the neighbors, pass out candy, and get my fill of chocolate. Perfect deal.

Remember the witch's brew? Jessica is carrying the tradition forward.

Myla and Krew were on a kick while I was there, telling me "old grannie" jokes.

It goes like this:

Myla: Why did the kid cross the road?
Me: To get to the other side?

Myla: No, to see her old grannie!

Krew: Why did the man eat breakfast?

Me: Because he was hungry?

Krew: No, to see his old grannie!

Krew and Myla told me a million or so old grannie jokes while I was there, and it got so ridiculous I laughed till my face hurt. 

After my Backman visit, I headed to Arizona to meet my sisters (and sister-in-law) for Time Out For Women. We had so much fun!

We visited the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.

 These gardens date back to 1939.

There were an amazing variety of cacti and desert plants.

The gardens were a delightful mix of flowers

and spikes.

Everyone needs a cactus sundial.

Desert plants range from beautiful 

to weird

to man-made. 

When cacti have bad hair days.

When cacti grow radishes.

Whooo is that in the tree?

When cacti wear fancy hats.

 When cacti grow daggers.

When cacti grow hair.

We had a good time at the conference, but the real tun was being together.

Here's some great graffiti looking out from the parking garage.

It was fun to get so much time together. We had lunch at a tasty Chinese place.

Indulge my gelato obsession? Who me?

 More parking garage art.

Bonnie and I had a later departure time than everyone else. We ubered over to the Musical Instrument Museum.

I learned there are a lot of unusual instruments in the world.

The various instruments in the museum were arranged into the countries they were popular and originated from, and/or they were arrange by the type or era of instrument.

Why blow a conch shell when you can blow a jeweled conch shell?

Well this looks fun to play!

Have you ever noticed instruments look like people?

Here's a useful instrument: If you can't decided whether to play in the school's orchestra or band, get a violin horn and play in both.

An armadillo guitar. Many instrument displays had a movie with people playing the instrument so you could hear it.

Recycled music.

A really big drum.

What to do with the garbage that doesn't quite fit in the garbage can.

Female drums.

 I never did see the pinky or index finger pianos.

More what to do with your garbage. Gives new meaning to "one man's trash is another man's treasure".

An ornate multi-person drum.

Want to play Crocodile Rock? Here's the instrument you'll need.

 These instruments come from Paraguay.  The local music teacher got the idea to gather a team to search the landfill for materials which could be turned into instruments for the very poor students of his community. 

As you can imagine the music program at his school took flight and they now perform internationally.

Alas, eventually my out-of-town partying, overeating, and late nights came to an end. Luckily I had a couple of party animals waiting at home for me.

I thought I should join in the fun to work off a little of all of that over indulgence.

Nah, I think I'll feed quarters into the massage chair here and just enjoy the view.

Hailey is getting pretty good at that flip.

I made sure the girls were good and worn out before we headed home.

The next day was half day at school.  Gotta love those half days. We, including Hailey's friend, headed to McDonald's,

 followed by the movies,

capped off with a visit to Chuck E Cheese. I wish school was half day everyday. 

No I don't.

Neither does my bank account.

Soon it was time for Thanksgiving. As it turned out, for the first time ever the traditional extended family dinner was not happening this year. Everyone was doing something different, and we were left to feed ourselves. What do you suppose we ate? Turkey? Caviar? Duck?

Amy and I decided that the best Thanksgiving of all would be to take a vacation from cooking.  We ordered some takeout Chinese food from our favorite restaurant.

Best. Thanksgiving. Dinner. EVER!!!

Shortly after lunch, Hailey and Makayla fell into an ipad coma, so we decided to get moving.

We headed to the bowling alley for an exciting Thanksgiving Day bowling contest. Stan recently had his rotator cuff surgery, so he's going to watch.

Ready, set, 

bowl!!!

 Hailey, showing us how it's done.

 Makayla's great technique.

Bowling buddies.

I don't want to brag, but

I even topped Hailey today.

We did manage to keep some tradition in our Thanksgiving.

After all, it isn't Thanksgiving without some pumpkin pie.

Makayla, who doesn't eat sugar, took her whip cream with mandarins.

I've got to say, this was a great Thanksgiving. I hope we can do it again some year.