Month: November 2022

We returned to Grand Junction for the first time in a couple years to celebrate the holiday. The Masons hosted us for dinner this year. The spread was beautiful and, as expected, we made too much delicious food – leftovers for days! It was a quick trip, but filled with conversation and chill activities.

Jack came down with a cold while we were there. He’s feeling much better now and it seems no one else caught it (yay!). This week I made another batch of deviled eggs so he could enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with his appetite back.

A story by Sam.

Cold Seat
One day a little boy
named benny and he sat
on a cold seat on a
long drive. daddy, he said.
I’m cold. You’ll make it.
responded his dad.
however, benny did not
make it. by the end of
the drive, benny was
an Iceblock.
the end

Cold Seat 2
the rock wall
when bennys father
found out benny was
a block of ice, he brought
benny to the nearest
rock wall and threw
benny at it. it chipped
a bit of ice away. So
he kept throwing.
(( OW.OW.OW! ))thought
benny. (( just put me in
the sun! )) but his dad
kept throwing.
The end

Cold Seat 3
revenge of the ice
after 100 throws, benny
was out of the ice.
hey! said the ice. I have
your butt mark! and
you broke me!
Sorry. Said benny in a
sarcastic voice. I
demand Var! said ice.
its “war,” not “var”.
said bennys dad. but
ice already was
gathering varriors.
to be continued . . .

Cold Seat 4
“Var”
at 11 oclock, there was
a knock at the door.
benny opened the door
and hundreds of people
ran in. some chanting
“war!” others chanting
“var!” they were
cornered. they ran
to the car. this
will be a long
drive. said benny’s dad.
return to Cold
Seat 1.

hot Seat
one day, a boy named
tommy sat on a hot
seat. daddy, he said, Im
hot. You’ll live. responded
his dad. tommy did
not know this was
a long drive so he
stayed on the hot
seat. however, he
melted! he did
not live.
the end.

hot Seat 2
cool down
tommys dad saw his
melted son and brought
him to antartica to
cool him down but it
didn’t work. he threw
benny on it but it didn’t
work. he tried putting
sunglasses on him
and it did work!
he was cool.
the end

Last week Jack performed with his 7th grade orchestra at the area festival. Fifth grade through high school students gather to play a couple songs, and then one all together.

I forgot the name of this first one, I’ll fill it in when I asked Jack later.

Then they played the Jurassic Park theme. With a dinosaur cameo, naturally.

Finally the whole group played 7th Nation Army all together. (Weird choice, no? )

I was happy to sit so close and get a good view of his playing! He’s really becoming a proficient musician.

On the night of the first real snow of the season, Sam dressed in island-wear and performed at the 4th grade music show “Hawaiian Beach Party.”

He did great! He says he doesn’t like doing this, but he seemed to be having a good time.

It was very cute. The teacher does a great job putting these simple shows together. Some kids get solo or speaking parts (Sam did NOT want to try out). The choreography is simple and effective.

Wipe Out was hilarious. It went on a long time too, which brought on another layer of funny.

Sam got to twirl one of the scarves in the rainbow. He proudly told me afterward of the lasso-like technique he used to get the most twirling without hitting anyone.

Well done Sam! You did a great job!

Ben has been working on some changes to my blog to help preserve it. It seems to have caused some image gallery presentation problems. Sorry about that. We’ll try to get it fixed soon.

This year we returned to our church Trunk or Treat party. Time to don costumes all together! Mom put together these amazing costumes for the boys. Sam is Doctor Finkelstein and Jack is Jack Skellington. Sam loved to lift his help to scratch his brain. Jack looked very authentic too.

Ben and I chose comfortable cosplay. He’s Wreck It Ralph, and I’m Valkyrie from Thor Love & Thunder. No one got my reference or appreciated its accuracy (as expected) but I was comfy and got to wear space boot daggers + musical theater merch.

I love decorating my trunk. Sam and I put this together in the afternoon using only decorations from the house. Sam painted the cardboard tombstones. My speaker was hidden behind Zero and played “This Is Halloween” on loop. We won the Best Trunk award!!

Sunday afternoon we carved pumpkins. Every year they do more of the carving by themselves. This year I only stepped in to do some final cavity wall smoothing. The two little ones I carved are from Dad’s own pumpkin patch.

Monday the kids wore their costumes to school. I watched the parade and then went inside to help with his class party. It was actually great not to be the room parent this year. The last few years no one else stepped up. I’m glad that a good group of parents are working together for the whole 4th grade. They put me in the game room where I ran the ring toss competition. Sam’s costume looked spectacular in the black light.

For dinner I made a spooky stew and jack-o-lantern quesadillas. Sam asked for pumpkin pie for Halloween, but was too stuffed with candy from trunk-or-treating to eat any.

As soon as the sun started to set we went out trick-or-treating. It was so warm this year that I joined them! I still bundled up and turned my costume into a “Fan Girl” with MCU hat and K-pop lightstick – which proved very useful in the dark!

We have a lot of festive houses in our neighborhood. A house near the school set up a haunted house walk-through that tantalized the children all month. It was very popular, with animatronics inside and an elaborate zombie-baby-graveyard. Sam went through twice.

A very Happy Halloween for all! They went to bed already dreaming up plans for next year.