Happy Halloween

Every Halloween since we have been married, Barrett and I go around the neighborhood with our nieces and nephews while they trick or treat. We look forward to this each year. This year we were able to bring along our own little trick or treater - JAVA!!! She dressed as a ballerina in a pretty pink tutu. Our 2009 Family Halloween Picture
Our dainty ballerina - I know a delicate ballerina costume doesn't match Javas personality - but it's Halloween! She is pretending. :-)

Cal (yellow), Dylan (black), Cami (Cinderella dress), Chandler (long black hair with hat).

There are always lots of trick or treaters walking around Savannah on Halloween. This year seemed extra crowded! It is so much fun seeing all the costumes and watching all the children run from door to door collecting candy.

Every year this one home grills out hotdogs and gives them away instead of candy. Cool idea!

Dylan and Calahan

The neighbors right next door to the hotdog people had baskets of apples, pears, and bananas to choose from. No need to eat before going to trick or treat...just eat as you go! The kids really loved this.

Candy....and this is just from Korbins bag of candy!!! WOW!!!

Funnel Cakes

Okay...after a visit to the Texas State Fair and then a visit to Mckinney Trade Days where I was surrounded by funnel cakes, I decided that I must have one!!! Never really had I thought that I myself could make a funnel cake, but I hopped online and found a recipe. They were delicious! If someone told me it was a fair funnel cake, I would have believed them. Try it sometime. You will love them!

Funnel Cake Recipe

(found on allrecipes.com)
Ingredients
3 eggs
2 cups milk
1/4 cup white sugar
3 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Directions
In a medium bowl, mix salt, baking powder, and half of the flour. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream eggs, sugar and milk. Add flour mixture and beat until smooth. Continue to add remaining flour, but use only enough to achieve desired consistency. Batter will be thin enough to run through a funnel.
In an eight inch skillet, heat the oil to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Put your finger over the bottom opening of the funnel, and fill the funnel with a generous 1/2 cup of the batter. Hold the funnel close to the surface of the oil, and release the batter into the oil while making a circular motion. Fry until golden brown. Use tongs and wide spatula to turn the cake over carefully. Fry the second side one minute. Drain on paper towels, and sprinkle with sifted confectioners' sugar or cinnamon sugar.

Frog Update

This morning Barrett went out in the garage first, just like he promised, to make sure that the frog was still in it's bucket where we left it. Barrett was peeking in the bucket, and after several seconds of him looking in the bucket I figured the coast was clear. I soon followed behind and took a look inside to see the frog. One problem though...the frog was missing! Quickly I ran into the house while saying, "Barrett, why didn't you tell me it was gone!" His reply, "I never said it was still in the bucket!" Thankfully within a few second, which seemed like forever, Barrett spotted the frog right behind his jeep ready to escape from the garage door once it opened. Barrett moved fast though and caught it again. Now it is safe and sound in a new contraption of a house in our garage...for yet another night. The proud frog catcher holding his new friend.
All stretched out it measures about 16 inches.

That is one gigantic frog! Look at the size of its toes!!!

Barrett, being the wonderful frog catcher that he is, caught another frog this evening (sitting on the big frogs back). This one is a more normal size frog. I guess he thought the big one would like a little friend (or maybe a nice meal.)

GIANT Frog

Tonight on a rainy ride home from choir, while driving by the pond in Savannah, a creature crawled across the street in front of us. We slowed down to get a closer look. It turned out to be what I think is the worlds largest frog!!! There was a car directly behind us so we couldn't slow down too much to get a good look at it. We made a u-turn and went back for a second glance, just to see if what we were seeing was real. Sure enough it really was a GIANT frog! Barrett went home, picked up a bucket, went back in the rain, and caught this amazing frog (all while trying to stay dry under the umbrella.) We brought it into the garage to spend some time looking at it - along with calling all the family in the neighborhood to come and see the prize winning frog.
Not a joke, this frog is about 8 inches long.

We looked it up online and it appears to be a bullfrog.

It is hard to grasp in a picture the enormity of this thing!

As of right now, this frog is still in a bucket out in our garage. Barrett plans on keeping it there until at least tomorrow. I just have one wish - for Barrett to walk out into the garage in the morning, first, before I go out to get in my car, to make sure that "Prince the Bullfrog" is still in his bucket and not hiding somewhere else in the garage to greet me good morning.

The Great State Fair of Texas

Today was a fantastic day to spend outdoors at the Texas State Fair! I took a day off of work and we took the dart train to fair park and spent the day together enjoying all the sights! Big Tex
Barrett eating a turkey leg. We also enjoyed an order of Chicken Fried Bacon - the winner of last years favorite fried food. This years favorite was fried butter, but we didn't try that...not brave enough.

Barrett in his new car - a Viper!!! We always love going to the car shows and dreaming...

A few sights at the petting zoo:

A baby camel drinking milk from its mother.

I had never seen this before - a 'Jacob 4 Horned Sheep'.

Cute pink little piglets.

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*** I will say that we did go to the Vita-Mix demonstration once again, and walked away without buying that wonderful machine once again. I guess Barrett will have to use his ear plugs for the next few months since I will continue to talk about how wonderful it would be to have one. I'll just have to keep dreaming. :-)

Java - All Cuddled Up

Well, Java has fallen in love with sleeping in our master bedroom closet. Every morning when I wake up, there she is, all cuddled up, sleeping. I find her snuggled up against an old shirt or two of Barrett's left by the laundry basket. Barrett says that she spends a majority of her day, once again, sleeping in the closet. Her big pillow bed was in her cage (which she doesn't sleep in anymore.) We decided it was time to break out the fluffy pillow and set it in her "bedroom" to snuggle up and enjoy while she takes all of her much needed naps - all night (and day) long...what it must be like to sleep all day!!!

She loves her new pillow in the closet! Look how cozy Java is.

Tossing and turning during her nap.

All rested and happy now!

Looking out the window enjoying the rain.

Tired...once again.

Fall Is Here!!!

I love fall! I love the colors of fall, the tastes of fall, the feel of fall, just everything about it. Right now I am snuggled up on the couch by the fire, enjoying a nice cold evening outside, but a nice warm cozy evening inside. The cool weather seems to have started a little earlier this year which is quite alright with me. Cold weather is the best! I was excited to be able to put out our fall decorations last week. We also went and got our pumpkin today. Let the season begin! Welcome to our home!

This morning, like many Saturday mornings, we took a bike ride over to the donut shop in front of Savannah. It was extra special today because we got to put on our warm jackets (and if you are extra excited about the coolness like I am - a scarf and gloves) and ride through the cold weather to get to our donuts. Ooo, we love these donuts!

One of my projects for the day was to make this 'Haunted House' pillow. We were talking this morning that most of our decorations right now are for fall, nothing really specified for Halloween or Thanksgiving. I had found this idea online earlier this week and decided to go for it. Now we have an actual Halloween decoration in our house. I am not very big on decorations for Halloween, but I figured this was cute enough. I am pleased with how it turned out.

Next on the list today was cooking a fall treat - Candy Apples. I had never done this before but thought it would be fun to try. It was a fun, sugar filled project. Ingredients - 16 apples, 6 CUPS OF SUGAR, 1 cup light corn syrup, 2 cups water, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp red food coloring, wooden sticks.

My personal chef, Barrett, helped me make the candy apples and did a fabulous job. We even got to use our new candy thermometer.

Boiling SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR!!!

The finished product - 16 red delicious candy apples! Yum! Yum!

Another Fall project completed, and a tasty treat to enjoy!

We got together at the Benkers house this evening and brought the apples with us to share with everyone.

Madi, taking in all the sugar.

Dad, who made a puppet out of his apple core.

Korbin - it looks like the sugar already kicked in!

Chandler, all set and ready to eat.