Halloween Party 2011!!

Everyone who knows me well knows that Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. I just love the creativeness of the whole thing and the fact that you can just act like a kid and it's excepted as normal for a short time. We had a blast this year, as usual: I just wish more of my family would participate, and that the rest of them would be closer to be able to, but we had fun anyway!

 

While I decorated the house and did last minute food preparations the "kids" went outside and carved our mini-jacks. I love to put these around the house with tea lights in them.

 

 

We, of course, started out with our annual pot luck dinner at the house with a few friends. We didn't have as many people this year as past years, and many had to leave early due to other commitments, but we had fun despite the low numbers. 

 

 

After a few hours a lot of us headed out to Jack's for the Chrome party. I had a blast dancing all night long while Aaron rocked the guitar up on stage. I was able to get up and play a couple of songs with them as well and it was SO fun!! What a great night!!!!!

That costume of Aaron's sure took me a long time, but it turned out amazing and he rocked it perfectly all night long. That's my man!

and then me!!!! ;p

 

 

A Visit To Jess

Jess has been having a hard time with missing everyone the last week or so, and we have been missing her: we haven't seen her in 4 weeks, so it was time to go for a visit. All four of us were able to go, along with Grandma Taylor. It was such a great day and we all had a lot of fun hanging out. I don't really think any of us really cared what we did, we were just happy to be together.

We took grandma in to see Jess's home away from home and then we all loaded back in the car and drove to Leavenworth. It was such a beautiful drive - Fall is such an amazingly beautiful time of year!!!

We all had so much fun and can't wait until next weekend when Jess comes home for our big Halloween party.

Love ya Jess!

If You Give A Wife A Faucet

So, a while ago our bathroom drain started leaking. The thing is so old that it cracked and needed to be replace. Praise Allah! That gave me the excuse I needed. 

Of course, if you are going to replace the drain, you might as well by a whole new faucet and if you are going to buy a new faucet then the next logical thing is to get a new sink to put said drain and faucet on...... right: AND, if you let me replace one bathroom, then I'm going to want to replace both bathrooms so that they match.

Now, if you happen to let your wife replace old sinks and faucets with new, and she happens to be at Costco and sees a sale on light fixtures, can you blame her for wanting to replace those as well? I mean, come on, we still had original 1970's fixtures in our bathrooms, and it was a good deal! And, of course, we still had to have continuity, so both bathrooms needed to be done.

Okay, let's be fair. If you decide to paint the hallways in your house to match the rest of the house and force your sick wife to help, then is it unreasonable to allow her to paint the kitchen as well? I think not!

Oh, I'm just getting started! Now said wife receives a bedroom set for free from her mother, how can she turn that down?! A bed big enough for guests to sleep in (barley, but big enough) and is going to get a guest bedroom soon. Why would I say no? But, in the process of switching the beds it becomes painfully obvious that I do not have any sheets or bedding to fit the new bed: we only have a queen bed and two twins in the house. So..... off to the store to buy new bedding for the new bed in Jess's room.

And, I couldn't buy a new bedroom set for Jess's room/guest room without buying one for myself. I mean, come now! I have had the same bedroom set for 15 YEARS!! Yes, you read that correctly - 15 YEARS. Um... I deserve a new one too!

The last thing I will be doing is painting the bathrooms. I have to do that because when we replaced the light fixture the footing was smaller and you can see the foot of the old one on there.... duh, must be fixed. That will be my big project for tomorrow and Sunday, after that Aaron said I had to stop for a while. Well, at least until after Christmas ;o)

Pumpkin Patch Fun

No, you do not have to have small children to enjoy the wonders of the local pumpkin patch! Why on earth would you buy your pumpkins from the grocery store when you can walk around outside in the sunshine, enjoy watching all of the little ones walking around with their found treasures, and pick that perfect pumpkin? That's just what we did for my mom's birthday. Food, pumpkins, family, perfect!

 

The Sick Photographer

So, I was at Aaron's gig at the Pickled onion with a full on cold. I tried to take some meds before I left to make it through the night, but it was a totally no go. I started wigging out pretty bad from the meds and really needed to go home and get my butt into bed. I was able to get a few drug induced pictures before I left though. Aaron has been really tutoring me in Photoshop, so I have been super happy with the way my photos have been turning out, and it is really fun to get creative with them. I'm having a blast with the whole band photography thing! 

I LOVE the logo too! Aaron is so amazing - from nothing to logo in about 30 minutes. He rocks on stage and off! Here are my favorite shots of the night:

You Guys Are Really In Love, Aren't You?

I had a good idea for an unusual date with my honey and a great Halloween blog post for the FS blog. I thought - Halloween, ghosts, graves.... graveyard. Let's go to an old pioneer graveyard together, look at all the cool old gravestones and take some great pictures.

We have this cool cemetery at the bottom of our hill that is from the late 1800's and has been in the process of "restoration" for the last 5-6 years. For as long as I can remember before this it has been buried in bush and bramble. I'm not sure what spurred this organization to clean things up, but it is looking really nice now.

Here is the coolest part of this cemetery. We have heard rumor forever that there is a "baby monster" buried here and we wanted to check it out. How cool would that be for Halloween to go to an old graveyard and find a "baby monster" grave stone. Well, here it is!!!

 

Um, how cool is that!!? We have the coolest cemetery ever invented! We were even blessed with an amazing day with very pleasant weather. It was a great afternoon together.

I find it interesting that on this grave stone, instead of saying 

"died" it says "promoted".

Aaron said this was the breathing tube ;o)

 

Okay, so what does all of this have to do with the title of this post? There really isn't a parking lot to this little cemetery, so Aaron and I parked in the lot close to it and walked there. As we were walking, there was a lady on the corner asking for money. We really didn't talk to her, because we were too busy talking to each other: she was still there when we walked back to the car. 

As we got in the car and started to drive away (because it was a nice day we had the windows down) she looked at us and said "You guys are really in love, aren't you?". That one comment just made my day! It felt so good that a perfect stranger could tell from the way we were interacting with each other that we are madly and completely in love with each other.

I smiled the rest of the afternoon. 

This Band Rocks and You're Smokin' Hot!

Chrome Molly played at Bison Creek Pizza this weekend. They were part of the Burien Pub Crawl on Friday night, which is part of a weekend long fundraiser and the place was packed with a really fun and energetic crowd. I was only able to take pictures for the first 10 minutes because the "dance floor" (a very small area in front of the band) got so crowded there just wasn't room for me any more.

I was standing there taking the pics when a huge guy walked up to me and said "I just want to tell you that this band rocks and you're smokin' hot!". Ha ha!! Well, thank you very much on both accounts. I'll let the band know you think they rock. This is Aaron's and my new saying - You rock and I'm smokin' hot (or vice versa, depending on who's saying it ;o).

From a photographers stand point, this was a very hard venue to shoot in. The lighting was terrible and I was so crowded I hardly had any room to move around, but I was able to get a few good shots in the few minutes I had. 

Aaron designed me a photographers logo to put on all my shots now too, so that I look more professional and people know who took them when they look at them. I really like it because it is not your typical "so and so photography" logo. I wanted something more edgy and different, and true to his nature and talent he was able to deliver. I am having a ton of fun learning how to do band photography, and I'm serious about doing well, but I want to come across as not taking myself too seriously - just having fun while doing a good job and very non-pretentious. You know, just how I am in real life ;o) It looks great on the photos!

The best part of the evening? I got to play! It was so fun. Debbie called me up, unexpectedly I might add, to play "Play That Funky Music" with them. I was slightly nervous just because I wasn't sure how they ended the song and I'm not good enough to play on the fly well, but it sounded great and turned out perfect. I love the fact that they are all so supportive in me learning to play.

Thanks Chrome Molly for letting me sit in!! You really do rock!!!!....... and I'm smokin' hot ;o)