Happy Birthday!

Okay, I know it's Halloween. We had tons of kids come by the house today and one that made us laugh pretty hard. I was on the couch in the sun room and Jer went to answer the door. This cute little kid is standing there on the porch as Jer opened the door. The dad asked the kid, "What do you say?"

The little kid says, "Happy birthday!"

Funny kids. We haven't had too much going on this week, just getting ready for winter. I have to say I am looking forward to it a little bit. That is, as long as it doesn't last until summer next year. Sure would be nice to have Spring. I never realized just how much work is involved with a house, especially one with a garden and fruit trees. Bills and a lawn, no problem. But all the tilling, planting, weeding, watering, pruning, trimming, thinning, spraying, harvesting, processing, cleaning, raking, and trimming adds up. Yes, trimming gets two since we have to do it before and after the fruit comes. I didn't think it would be as much work as it has turned out to be, but man that took up a lot of our summer days. And nights. That made us realize just how much effort Jer's parents put into this place. Now we just get to look forward to shoveling snow!

Anyway, as promised, here are our pictures from the Halloween party that our friend Tya and her husband Brandon put on a few weeks ago. Jer and I went over a few hours early and helped them get everything set up. Jer helped Tya with the food and I helped Brandon with some of the decorations. They went all out and we had a good time. I even got to play with a hot glue gun and an air compressor, how could that not be a good time? That was to make it look like there were cobwebs, it looked pretty good. Where it worked. We had some issues getting enough air pressure for the spraying of the hot glue. I wonder how easy that was to clean up...

After we got the house ready, Jer and I got into our costumes. Jer did a great job getting us something to wear. I wasn't much help, sad to say. Jer spent the morning sewing her little outfit together and making my little sailor tie-thing. At one point during the party, Tya asked me to go to Target to get her a new printer cartridge. She takes a picture of everyone when they arrive and at the end of the night hands them out. Like the picture you'll see down below. So Jer and I took off and walked through Target in our costumes, I kept my little hat on. It was fun to see how people reacted as we walked around the store.

Here is the picture I took of us getting ready for the party.

Picture of my cute wife in her costume, finishing with her makeup.

This is our party picture that Tya took of us, like a school dance picture. I hope that it is obvious that I am Popeye and Jer is Olive Oyl. I told people that I had no pipe or tattoos because I didn't want to condone them. Oh, and I have hair. Guess I am the younger version of Popeye, before years of service in the Navy wore him down...

I was able to get a little bit of the magician's act on video, not bad considering I just used my camera. One of these days we'll get a camcorder. The magician was great! He performed for about an hour and he was entertaining. He had some great tricks, and sadly I wasn't able to record the best ones. The first one you'll see was his opening trick, where he had a rolled up dollar bill and would make it appear under his cup. The second trick you'll see was with a few pieces of rope, where he made the uneven lengths of rope become even. You'll see what I mean. One cool trick he did that I didn't record involved a $20 bill, a pouch and a lemon. He had a kid in the crowd sign his name on the bill and another person on the other side of the room holding the pouch. In the end he pulled a lemon out of the empty pouch and the $20 bill had disappeared. He pulled out the lemon and then cut it open, and there was $20 bill folded up inside the lemon. Jer and I figured out a few of his tricks. But on most of them, just when you think you have him caught, he did something different. It was fun to watch. Hopefully the video and sound are in sync, when I watched the footage it seemed like some parts were a little off. Enjoy!