Pre-Boo

Song - Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon

Every Halloween Mr. B and I enjoy coming up with a design and carving our pumpkins.  For the last few years we have made it into a small party with family.  So on Sunday night........

The table was set with parsnip & carrot noses, carving tools and designing tools as well as gut buckets.  Andy even got out the power drill (behind the "noses").

As we began to work our magic everyone got quieter and quieter.......until.......

...Buddy showed up in his Lion costume and we all cracked up as he was so proud of his new look!

Ashley finished her pumpkin fast so she could have some cuddling time with Buddy-the-Lion.

After that Jack-O-Lanterns started popping out all over the place!

And the winner of this years event was Walter's sideways scary pumpkin!

Yikes!!!

 Then we all settled down for some delicious Tortilla Soup & Corn Bread.......

.......with our Jack-O-Lanterns lighting the night.

 As guests were leaving, we found Monica had sprouted fangs and Tyler forgot to go to the dentist....yuck!!!

As the night was winding down, Chewy fell promptly to sleep.

All of this monster stuff was too much for the little guy!!!

And Mr. B and I joined him shortly.

"When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam,

may luck be yours on Halloween"

--Anonymous

Sisterhood

Song - Sierra by Boz Scaggs

Fall was definitely in the air up at Donner Lake this past weekend with warm days and crisp nights.  Leaves were dropping and swirling on the forest floor.

It was our 11th annual Girls Weekend and on Friday we headed up to the Sierra's for a few days of sisterhood, visiting, reading, shopping, relaxing, food and music.....oh......and quite a few laughs!

However this year things didn't go quite as planned. As Ellen and Barbara almost got locked up in the Truckee Jail!!!  This jail was used continuously from 1875 to 1964 and besides the two prisoners above, it has held notorious criminals such as Baby Face Nelson, Ma Spinelli and Machine Gun Kelly!  However, after we bailed these two out, we just went next door for a good cup of coffee.....

In historic downtown Truckee we did a lot of shopping and a little sightseeing

and we had a wonderful lunch together........

 ...at Moody's Bistro. (we were supposed to be mimicking the lady in the poster behind us but some of us - certainly not me - got confused)!

In the afternoon we relaxed around the cabin and then Ellen gave us a short but delightful talk on her passion of raising honeybees!  So many questions about the life of this very important little critter!

We played a late night game of Scrabble.....

I erased some of the words because of your delicate ears.....

But I promise....there was absolutely NO drinking involved!

"Just remember if we get caught, 

you're deaf and I don't speak English." 

 --Annonymous

PS - The menfolk seemed to adjust to their womenfolk being gone from the homestead just fine!