Fall Fun

Hi!  I hope you are all doing great.  We survived our first Hurricane.  Sandy did hit us and caused  damage.  Tim's office is actually marked  uninhabitable and they are moving to a temp location.  Part of his roof was gone and it was a big water and wind damaged mess. He couldn't get over there til 2 days later and then was stuck over there for the night because there was no way back to this side. Our house suffered some damage that they are working on now.  We had two spots the water came in side.  The front wall the paint bubbled up so they tore a section of the wall out and are replacing it and another section above our kitchen cabinets.  They also fixed the soffets in the front roof that blew off during the storm.  They are also working on our house because we have a severe ant infestation with 2 kinds of ants and of course the hurricane drove them in even worse.  They came and drilled holes in the walls and treated inside some of the walls the other day and then drilled outside around the foundation and treated there also.  When fixing the wall they said oh no call pest control there were lines all over and they came back out and determined it was termites but old damage and that on record they treated this house for it a couple years ago so it was from that.  They also said what they did yesterday also works for termites so even if they were there it would be the same thing.  All our beaches are closed and may be so for quite a while.  There is too much debris and they have to test the water to make sure it's safe to go in.  They also have to dive the beaches first since some big stuff has washed up they need to see what's on the sea floor.  I know the most common family beach is actually gone :-(  yes gone.  All the sand washed up into the parking lot and now the water is right there no beach.  They are going to have to import sand in for it, to remake a beach I guess.  Sandy made quite a mess but the base is in clean up and repair mode.  It really wasn't too scary at home since the worst was in the middle of the night while we were sleeping but boy it was loud!  We were without power for about a total of 15 hours which made us appreciate our air conditioner that much more!  It went out just after midnight and then came back on for a couple hours about 10am and then was off til 7pm.  Our driveway flooded but we had sandbagged the garage so all was fine.  I feel so bad for the east coast Sandy has caused so much destruction.  Here it's a smaller environment so yes we got hit hard but it's easy to keep everyone safe just because it's so small and everyone can be accounted for.

Well here are some of our fall festivities.......  I will start with Simon's 10th (Oh my I can't believe he is 10) birthday.  I will end with Halloween! 

Simon's bowling party with friends

There is no bakery here so I made his birthday cake from a recipe I found!  Oh man was it good!  Who doesn't love M&Ms and Kit Kats!  It's a chocolate cake underneath.

They put on a fun little Octoberfest for us with German food and a traditional Bavarian Band in leiderhosen!

I love this picture he is so growing up way to fast.  This is the beach I mentioned that's gone :-(

Fire safety week ended with a fun festival where they got to put out fires and watch demonstrations and jump houses and stuff.

They brought a part of a plane in to show us how they put the fire out.  They also showed how fast a dry Christmas tree can go up in flames.

Paige and I have gone to the ceramic shop a few times and I made Tucker and Piper their very own bowls!

PTO does a fall festival every year and we enjoyed it!

They had all kinds of fun stations and games.

Soccer season is in full swing this was Nixon #39 in his first game!

Simon in his first game, he is the goalie for his team (the orange team)

Paige is #12 her first game ever too!

Pumpkin patch time!!  They did a great job of making one for us in a field by a park and then on the other side had hay rides and rock climbing wall and jump house.

Hay Ride

This is Baby.  She lives at Tim's office (outside) and also has a little baby named BeBe.  They both survived the Hurricane and his new location is still close that they will still see her.

She is awesome and so cute.  Little for an iguana

Tucker and Piper or Mut and Jeff as I call them or the trouble makers or the mess makers or the best kitties in the whole world!

Awesome Banyan Tree reminds me of Maui!

We found our first Geo Cache here!  It's world wide you can look online it's kind of like a scavenger hunt.  There are 8 here so far we have found 2 and Tim has found 3.

Fixing Sandy's damage

That's the wall that had to be replaced.

This pic doesn't do justice but the moon was so beautiful shining through the palm tree in our front yard the other night it lit up the whole yard and was just perfect between the branches.

Pumpkin carving time!

Nixon did a Tin Tin face, Simon did a castle crashers (a video game character) and Paige did a mocking jay from hunger games.  We did have 2 other pumpkins but lets just say in this heat even without being carved it molded quickly.

Happy Halloween!! (with out my sister in law to take our picture we set it on timer and accidentally cut Tim the ghost buster's head off)

Without much here it was all homemade costumes this year!

Pippy Longstocking, found this dress at the thrift shop and the tights at the store.

Ninja, They sold the mask at the store with the sword, found the red suit at thrift shop (was iron man but I cut off those parts) also at thrift shop got man's black T-shirt cut sides and arms off to make strips for arms and legs and used middle for the black over part. Tim and I actually came up with all that ourselves!

Tin Tin complete with white dog snowy.  Nixon won $25 dollars for his costume in a competition!

Paige is FoxFace from the Hunger Games, I used an orange gift bow unraveled and duct tape to make Tim's black rain coat into the Hunger Games Jacket and the district 5 pack.  If you haven't seen the movie google FoxFace Paige looks just like her.  She has been asked by everyone since the first day of school if she is related to her.  Some kids even call her that.

Paige and Simon each went with their friends so Tim and Nixon and I were on our own. We ended up walking with our neighbors attached to us Nixon and their son are buddies.  This is their cool yard next to mine with just a pumpkin light in the window LOL.

Ahhhh what better way to take a break, while walking the neighborhood getting tons of candy, then to relax at the foot of a palm tree!

Hope you all had a wonderful fun filled Halloween.  It was strange after 5 years of having chili dogs and trick or treating with cousins to have two kids off on their own with friends and only have 1 to walk with.

Hopefully by the time I post again we will have some open beaches to enjoy!