Thanksgiving And Stuff(ing)

Here are a few pictures of Thanksgiving Day

and around Thanksgiving week.

While doing some fall yard work, I took this

picture from under the maple tree in the back yard.

Michelle, Drew and the girls came for the week

and here is a picture of Isabelle with the

rotting pumpkins from Halloween.

This is actually Aubree's little car,

but Isabelle wanted me to push her in

it on the way to the neighborhood park.

A favorite sport- bugging the cat.

Actually Aubree is quite gentle with the cat

and the cat allows her to sit by him

and pet him. He doesn't run away at first sight-

like he used to do when he saw Isabelle coming

toward him at that age.

Family tradition during the morning and afternoon

hours of Thanksgiving is to make and munch on a

large tray or two of appetizers and snacks.

Isabelle is already digging in.

We had all sorts of crackers, nuts, pickles, olives,

cheese, chips, vegetables and dip. Yum!

We even had lots of these little weenies wrapped

in biscuit dough and baked.

(Back in the day, we used to call these by a different

name, but I won't mention it since this is a family blog!)

Isabelle relaxing in the recliner in between

munching on the snacks.

Everything is almost all ready.

Nice pose, Katie.

Aubree loves to eat and she thought she was

in heaven- she never stopped eating.

Oh yeah, we also had pineapple and M&M's

and beef stick.

The girls posing for a picture,

and of course Aubree is eating something.

Aubree will pack her cheeks full of food

and continue to eat. I guess she saves some for later.

Heidi and Katie made this pumpkin roll.

It is decorated with holly from our front yard.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the late afternoon we drove just up the road

to have Thanksgiving dinner with Heidi's brother and

his family. Other relatives were there also.

Drew and Katie.

This is Heidi's brother, Gibby , and her mom, Clara.

Heidi's mom lives less than a half-hour away.

Clara is in her pilgrim garb just for fun.

Heidi's brother, Roy and his wife Julie.

They drove up from their home in

North Carolina.

This is Heidi's brother, Ed.

He lives about 20 minutes away.

Katie cutting up her pumpkin roll for dessert.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A day later, it was time for Katie and I to

take down the Thanksgiving decorations and

put up the Christmas decorations.

We bought some new LED lights for the outside

of the house two years ago after Christmas.

But last year we forgot that we had them until

the old ones were up. So this year we made sure we

put up the new ones and skipped using the old ones.

Katie putting a string of LED lights

on the dwarf Alberta spruce tree.

Me finishing up installing the lights

across the front of the house.

On Saturday, we had one last time to go

to the park before Michelle and family

had to return to Pennsylvania.

It was cold and windy so

Isabelle and I needed to bundle up.

She had fun making faces at the plastic

bubble in the playground.

She also had to shake her booty.

The End

That Cat Is Whacked

Brian's cat, Cortez, just gets stranger with age.

He has always been a 'people' cat- he likes to be

around people and when he sleeps, he needs to

touch you with a paw or his head.

If he feels that you are not paying enough attention

to him, he will make sure he becomes the

center of attention. Here are a few pictures of

his latest antics.

Katie was reading and the cat didn't like being ignored.

So he climbed up on her so she would notice him.

Well Katie kept reading, so the cat would get

up and move around to become more noticeable.

Cortez finally got comfortable,

gave up and went to sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cortez finds a new 'favorite' place to sleep

every few weeks or so. One day, Heidi and Katie

came home from shopping and when they walked

by the refrigerator, Cortez was sitting on top of it.

We all thought nothing of it. Then a few days later

while I was doing dishes at the sink, I heard the cat

hit the floor from what sounded like a real high jump.

I didn't think much of it and soon forgot about it.

Well we all come to find out that Cortez jumps onto

the counter, then the refrigerator, and then to the top

of the cupboards. He goes to the inside corner of the kitchen

at the top of the cupboards and sleeps behind one of the

baskets of flowers. You can't even see him there- that's

probably his point, so he can sleep peacefully.

Here are some pictures of his new 'favorite' place:

He sits up here above the refrigerator

surveying his kingdom.

Cortez likes to sleep behind the flower basket in

the corner above Heidi's head.

Well, here he is behind the basket. I had to stand

on the counter to get this picture. The kitchen has

9-foot ceilings and he is just below that.

I wonder what he is going to do next.

Rockin' With TSO

This past Saturday, Katie took me to

a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert up in

Philadelphia. Now that she is a working woman

with a job at a local sub sandwich shop, she wanted

to buy tickets and surprise me by going to this concert.

So, several weeks ago, Heidi helped her purchase tickets

online and plan the day. It was the first concert I have

been to in about 35 years!

Katie with the tickets. She is driving with a

conditional license until the end of March,

so she drove us all the way up to Philadelphia,

about 40 miles or so. She also drove us back home

after the concert was over. She did real well

with 'big-city' traffic too.

My turn holding the tickets.

Self-photo of us before the concert. The concert was

over two and a half hours long and held in the arena

where the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and the

Philadelphia 76'ers basketball team play. Just next door

is where the Philadelphia Eagles football team plays.

Our seats were on the main floor and reasonably close,

about 15-20 yards from the main stage. They had two

cat-walk like parts of the stage that had lights on the

bottom and a walkway on top that the guitar players

and backup singers/dancers used.

That part of the stage ended up about 10 feet from us.

This picture was of one of the guitar players, and of

course, he turned just as I was getting the picture.

Here is a picture of the other cat-walk.

There were about 11,000 people here for this show,

and there was another show after this.

Of course there was lots of smoke and lasers and LED lights.

Parts of the stage moved up and down and there were

lots of other props. It was a fun show and lasted a lot

longer than I thought it would.

The following pictures Katie took at the concert:

More eye-candy during the show.

All the lights and smoke were in sync with the music.

There were plenty of lasers throughout the show.

And the finale.

The finale went on for quite awhile.

Thanks Katie for a great time!

Halloween

Friday night was Trunk-or-Treat at out church.

Inside the church, games and a spook alley

are set-up for all the younger kids.

Outside, in the parking lot, people open their

vehicle trunks and decorate them. Then the kids

trick-or-treat from car to car, that is why it's called trunk-or-treat.

I decorated our trunk with pumpkins,

a small cardboard coffin for candy,

and my famous pet spider that the kids love

to be scared of. It is a fake spider- complete with a

tube and bulb at the end to squeeze and make it jump.

I tell the kids they can get a piece of candy from the coffin after

they pet my spider. Of course the spider jumps as they go to pet it.

Some kids are really scared to even try and pet the spider.

Others scream when it jumps.

I love to aggravate the kids.

Heidi dressed up for the event.

Here is a picture of her while driving to the church.

I told her I hoped she doesn't get pulled over.

Heidi served root-beer from a container

hidden inside this 'cauldron' of dry-ice fog.

Some kids were in awe when they saw

the dry-ice fog. Others would not

take any root-beer from her.

I don't know if it was because of her costume

or the dry-ice fog.

On Saturday, Katie and I carved our pumpkins

and made them into standard-looking jack-o-lanterns.

Looks like Katie missed lunch.

Katie's pumpkin was really thick,

so I carved the top for her.

Then she scooped out all the guts

with this spoon.

Yum, my turn to sample the seeds.

Not really, we did separate all the seeds

and roast them. I put seasoned salt and

garlic salt on them. We got a bunch of seeds

from the two pumpkins, so we have a supply of

roasted pumpkin seeds to last awhile.

Katie starting to carve the eyes on her pumpkin.

Katie almost done carving her pumpkin.

Here they are all done. Mine is on the left

and Katie's is on the right.

A night shot with the flash.

A night shot without the flash.

On Halloween, Katie went trick-or-treating

with a group of friends from her school.

She dressed up as an indian.

Another driving picture.

Like mother, like daughter.

Katie driving to her friend's house.

After I went with her to drop her off with

her friends, I went home and handed out treats.

We got more kids that we have had in awhile, but still had

leftover candy. I guess we can send it to Brian.