Happy Halloween

Tom and I thought about dressing up Saturday night for Halloween but we decided not to. But if we did, this is what we would have dressed up as! LOL a hotdog and a doggie bag.. We went to Gary and Erica's house for dinner. She invited us along with Chris and Kristi for taco soup and some adult game playing, loaded questions, but we didn't get to play, Kristi had a migraine so her and Chris stayed home :( Tom and I enjoyed ourselves, Gary and Erica's neighbor's came over and sat around and talked. We were home about 11:30. We drank some homemade wine and snacked on some good treats.

Today was a lazy day, didn't do much except some laundry and caught up on my soaps. It was a beautiful day, great for trick or treating, however we didn't have one trick or treater but then a gain we don't have any kids around anymore, the 4 neighbor kids moved a couple weeks ago but I kept my light on just in case. This is our first year in our new house that we stayed home. Last year we were up at mom and dad's and I took my nephews around up by mom and dad's house. It was so much fun. Mom did invite me up but she was going up to Grandma's for supper and I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere so I stayed home. I just saw my nephew's picture on Facebook, they all looked so adorable in their hawk gear. Wish I could have seen them!

Tom getting ready for work, we just got done eating homemade chicken noodle soup and now I'm going to watch the Giants beat the Rangers.

Heather's Hippies

Here's the gang I work with. We all dressed up today for Halloween, there was a costume contest, however we didn't win. 5 of the girls went to the judging as the others had to stay back to answer the phones. We heard a lot of hootin and hallowing. The contest was determined by the applause of each group/person. There were some good ones. I didn't get to see them all but there is a lady on our floor who was dressed as a dead bride or something to that affect. She had a wedding dress on, I sure wish I would have taken a picture, because it was awesome! There was a group dressed up as bee's and the boss in that department was the Queen Bee and everyone else was just a bee. I haven't seen that one yet but I will shortly.

Well, we are off to Gordman's tonight after work. They have a 50% sale on all their clearance stuff so I hope to find some good deals.

Oh and I mentioned to say our bosses name is Heather so we called ourselves "Heather's Hippies"

Fast week

This week has flown by! Maybe because it's been super windy that times just flying right along with it.

Work has been super busy lately, not sure why, it's supposed to be our "slow" time. I have some projects I have been working on and doing more supervisory work that my day's fly by, which I love! My boss, Heather, went on vacation this week and will be back next Tuesday so I have been busy. She's from New Jersey and she went home to visit her daughter who's birthday is Saturday. She said she's never missed one of her birthday's and wasn't going to start now. I think she's 23 or so. This is her only daughter, her husband stayed back here because he got a new job and couldn't take off. Heather's been with McGraw-Hill for 30+ years and she's ready to retire so I've been learning her job which will help in a couple years when she retires. She already told me that so when the time comes I would love her job. Heather is one who hates to fly she said that she didn't sleep all week. This was her first time flying by herself, yesterday she took off from DBQ and with the wind we've been having we weren't sure she was going to get out, well she called me yesterday while she was sitting in the plane at Chicago, I guess they had an hour delay once they got on the plane. I'm sure she made it since I didn't hear from her today. Poor thing.

Last night was my first night of volleyball out at courtside. I play with all women and we decided this year to move up so we are playing more competitively and last night let me tell you was competitive. It was so much fun, we were sweating! We only won one game but all 3 games were awesome.

Tonight, Thursday, I had Jazzercise then after that I got my hair cut and colored. I'm all ready for CA, blond highlights, that's what Val, my hairdresser, said. She's jealous!

Right now I'm watching the World Series game looking for Luke up in the seats, not much luck but he's at a good game. I'm so jealous!

Tomorrow I'm dressing up as a hippie, however, I don't have any "hippie" clothes. That really doesn't make any sense, but at work we are having a Halloween costume contest so it will be interesting to see who all dresses up and what they dress up as. The only hippie item I have is a tye-dye shirt I borrowed from my friend Linda.

Tom's in a world series pool and whatever his numbers are well, they just passed them. If they Rangers didn't walk in a run he would have won another inning, oh well, it's only game 2 so our numbers might come back around. LOL

After work tomorrow we are heading down to Davenport to go to Gordman's shopping. Tom and Linda are coming with us. Its always great to go and find some good deals. They have 50% off there clearance stuff so I'm hoping to find some clothes. I need them!

Saturday is our Halloween class at jazzercise. We are team teaching and we are all dressing up to the songs we chose. My songs are Rock this Party, I'm wearing a dreadlock wig with some funky sunglasses, then I also have Mr. Bartender, go figure huh? This I'm going to wear my Bud Select shirt, not sure what else I'm going to wear for that, but then I also have Circus, I have a wig, clown nose and a pretty cool tie. Should be a good time, hopefully we can get some pictures. Saturday night, Tom and I are going to Gary and Erica's for dinner. Chris and Kristi are coming as well. Erica said we can dress up but I don't know yet. I did however get a couple costumes from a friend at work. I'm not going to tell, but I will take pictures whether we wear them or not, we will have to put them on and take a picture. LOL

Well, Tom's heading to work and I'm going to bed.

Hawkeyes!

Tom and I are sitting here relaxing watching the Iowa games, right now they are winning and it's a pretty good game. Mom, Dad and Grandma stopped out on there way to Andy and Bill's, they were going there for supper, so they stopped and had a drink. It's always nice to have company.

I haven't blogged in a while so I don't really know where to start. There is not much going on in our lives right now other than work and church, just kidding, but we are going to church tomorrow morning so I had to throw that in there.

Tom kind of had a stressful week, Micayla was in a car accident on Wednesday and Brandon was in trouble at school for riding his bike, after school hours, on the schools property. Since when is it a crime to ride bikes on school grounds, don't understand it, but I guess Brandon and his friends were asked to not ride and the boys, of course, mouthed back to the teacher that was confronting them. You know how their attitudes are. They really need to learn to respect adults! It drives me crazy how they talk to there Grandparents and even us as parents. I would never talk back like the way kids do now, we would get slapped or spanked. But I think that's what the problem is no one can do that to there kids now, they get away with a lot of things. It scares me since I'm trying to become a mother myself and I think to myself sometimes, do I want to bring a child into this world? Of course I do, but its something I've definitely thought of, but I can't think of my life without even trying. And trying we are doing!

Oh, back to Micayla's accidents, it was just a little fender bender, however it was her fault, failure to yield, and a $190 or so fine :( We're not sure if she's going to lose her license or not, this is now her 2nd violation in less than 2 months so I'm expecting something in the mail in the next couple of weeks. If she don't lose her license she may be on "probation" which means she can not have anyone in the car with her and she can not be driving past 10:00 at night. More to follow on that once we hear.

Today I took my first Fababs class at Jazzercise. One of our own was teaching it so I went to it, for free, thanks to being an Instructor, and my abs are getting tighter as I'm sitting here typing away and Tom's snoozin on the couch, LOL After class I picked up Brandon from the bowling alley and came home to get some house work done. I have been wanting to tackle our bedroom closet so I did and it's a good job done. I put all our summer stuff away, all except a few things because I might need some when I go to Disneyland. Not sure what the weather is going to be like but I know it will be nothing like Iowa, so I hope to get to wear some shorts in Cali.. I can't wait, only 1 month away.

Tom and I picked our last tomatoes out of our garden the other day and today they look perfect! Our tomatoes did not grow the best but the last few look delicious. So I said we have to use these tomatoes today so we are going to make Fresh Tomato Flatbread. Here's the link http://www.mrfood.com/Pizza/Fresh-Tomato-Flatbread# it looks super good. I will have to blog about it tomorrow. We are going to add a little cilantro since we have some from when Micayla needed it for her dinner she cooked us.

I have a cinnamon stick in hot water over the stove and it smells delicious. I'm having a glass of Stone Cliff Wine, Apple Spice, and I heated it up so it taste like hot apple cider with a kick. Yummy!

Tomorrow is Lexi's birthday so we are going over to her house for a little birthday party. I have to find something yet for her. But I'm not too worried, girls are so easy to buy for.

Whitetail Bluff - Halloween

This was our last weekend camping:( and we went out with a bang. It was a beautiful weekend, we couldn't have asked for a better weekend. Saturday the temperature got up to 87 degrees and I hear it was DBQ record for this time of year.

Friday I took my last 1/2 floating holiday so I got to leave work at 11:30, I came home, woke Tom up and we were on the road about 12:30, we got the camper and off we went. I had the camera in hand, the leaves are turning so beautifully so I had to take a few pics.



Once we got up there, we set everything up, with a cold beer in hand of course, and started decorating for the Halloween weekend, we didn't decorate a whole lot but we did have a few things to put out. Here's are couple of pics with our decorations.



After we got all done setting up and relaxed for a bit, we decided to take a walk down the trails to the Gazebo overlooking the Mighty Mississippi. We grabbed a couple of beers, Patches and of course our camera. It was a really neat walk.


Patches even turned for a quick pose



Here we are at the Gazebo, it was about a mile walk or so, not too bad, but well worth it. It had a beautiful view of the Mississippi.

Picture of the Gazebo



These 2 pictures probably took us a half an hour to take, we couldn't figure out the timer on our camera and once we did, we would start the timer and run back to sit and we would wait for the picture to take. It was quite comical but we got a couple of good ones.



Friday night for dinner, we went up to the bar for dinner, Tom and I packed pretty light this weekend because we didn't want to have to bring a whole lot back with us since we were cleaning out the camper and storing it for the rest of the year. I had a steak dinner with hashbrowns and Tom had the bluegill fish dinner. Both were excellent and it really hit the spot. After dinner we went back to start a fire and enjoyed it with our neighbors, they were from Cuba City,WI, about a 1/2 hour away from DBQ. Tom and I put a good dent in the cooler, that's for sure.

Saturday morning, we slept in and it felt great. We got up about 10:00 or so and made breakfast and got ready for Tom's parents to come up, they spent the night with us. They got up there about noon and we sat around and talked for awhile then decided to head up to the bar to get a bloody mary, they have one of the best ones around. After that we decided to go to the pool, Tom and I had our suits, however Linda and Tom did not but they were happy just sitting up at the pool and watching everyone. There was a pool party going on so they were playing some good music and it was just nice hanging out and enjoying the weather. We never thought in a million years that we would be swimming in October.

After swimming we went back to get ready for the trick or treaters. There was a lot of kids, we brought about 4 bags of candy and we would have ran out if the neighbor lady hadn't come over and asked if we would pass out her candy for them so it worked out pretty good. Here are a few pics of some trick or treaters.

Tom handing out candy or waiting for the kiddos.


Our neighbors, Robin and Brian, they were handing out treats as well.



These next two guys are Brandon and Micayla's brothers. There mother's ex was up at the campgrounds visiting some friends so they stayed for trick or treat. They are such cute kids.


after all the trick or treaters had gone by we starting cooking our steaks. Yeah I had steak 2 nights in a row but I don't regret it at all. I love steak! With our steaks we had twice baked potatoes, macaroni salad and coleslaw. It was a great meal.

Sunday morning we loaded up pretty early because we didn't bring any breakfast food because we thought we were going to up to the bar for breakfast but they didn't have breakfast so we loaded up the camper by 10 and we ate at Daniels in Kieler, after we dropped off the camper, and we all had a ham and cheese omlets and they hit the spot.

Tom's all ready for work tonight, I just got done listening to my Jazzercise music and I'm ready to hit the hay.

Mines of Spain walk

It was a beautiful night, first, Tom and I made dinner, we made Creamy Parmesan Tilapia, it was a recipe I found off of www.sparkpeople.com I swear it was the fastest meal I have ever cooked and we weren't even in a hurry. All I had to do was make the "sauce" put it on the fish, broil it for about 5 minutes and that was it. For the veggies, I used my awesome Tupperware steamer and that was it a nice quick healthy meal.

After dinner we decided to go for a walk and wow was it a long one. We took Patches with us too, she's such a good dog, we didn't even have to have her leach on she was so good. So from home we walk to the Mines of Spain, there they have a ton of hiking trails and we decided instead of walking up the Julien Dubuque Grave that we would take on of the 2 mile trails. This took us all a long catfish creek, which was pretty high, but we only ran into one spot where their was water on the trail and we just walked around it. Patches loved it because she got to get a drink, yuck, but it's better than nothing I guess. Now he paws are all dirty, but it was all worth it. So once we finished the trail we got back onto the road and up a hill we went. The hardest part I think is the thought of where we were and how far away from home we were, but it was such a great night, the weather has been absolutely beautiful so we have to take advantage of the great nights we still have left.

Well, that's all I have for now, tomorrow we are making Steph's zucchini spaghetti, can't wait. Fresh zucchini right out of our garden, probably our last one.

Long Saturday

Saturday was a looong day! I was up at 5:30am to get ready for the drive into Schaumberg, IL for a Jazzercise District meeting. We left Hy-Vee parking lot at 6:30, we got to Schaumberg right at 9:30, just in time to do some "tog" shopping. Jazzercise has a sale on all there merchandise and the only thing that's good about it is they don't charge for shipping at these things, but if you don't get there early, you won't get much. It gets crazy. Although I have to say this one was not as crazy as my first District Meeting. Of course, I got a few things.

The meeting started about 11:00 and the first part of the meeting was pretty boring, they talk a lot about owner things and since I'm not an owner it was pretty boring. Then about 2:00, the 2nd half of the meeting, they cleared out all the tables for us to go through an intensity training and let me tell you, it was intense. The one thing that really sucked is I didn't wear a sports bra! I was expecting to just do the "fab abs" class that was on the schedule, but anyway, I was front and center. It was really good and they had a lot of great tips and let me tell you, we were sweating! After the intensity training, they gave us a taste of the Fababs class that is starting next week. We are offering it at out class as well on Thursday's at 10am, wow, my abs kill today. Their were a lot of planks and crunches. It was all done pilates style. Mom is planning on taking this class and I just told her how much my abs are sore today, but it's a good thing because then we know we really worked the abs. We did a lot planks as well and I was just showing Tom what a plank was and my abs are screaming. I think it's something I'm going to have to work on. I would like to be able to hold a plank for at least 1 minute. They are so good for your abs.

So after the meeting we all, there was 7 of us, went to Chili's in Schaumberg. We didn't have much to eat at the meeting, all they had were snacks, such as fruit, granola bars, string cheese, all fuel food because we needed it. After Chili's we headed home and go back to DBQ about 8:00 so it was an all day affair.

I met Tom at Hammerheads to watch the Hawkeye game and hoping to see the Tech game as well, but they didn't have that game on at the bar. The Hawks won, however Tech didn't, but I got to see a beautiful picture of little Leah that Luke sent Tom. I can't believe how big and tall she's getting. I can't wait to see her in December! After Hammerheads, Tom and I went to Salsa's for a late dinner and like always it was super good. I had a quesadilla and Tom had the Matalan, one of our favorites. I didn't eat too much since I ate at Chili's but the chips and salsa were awesome.

Micayla had Homecoming last night and I was so upset that I didn't get to see her, but Tom took some pictures. She looked so beautiful and I hope she had fun. She spent the night at her friends and she's not home yet. She been gone a lot now that she can drive. It seems like we don't get to see her as much but that's what happens when they grow up.

Here are a few pics of Micayla - I love her dress!

Of course, we have to get one with her on her phone.




Well, it's football Sunday, the Bears play tonight, so I'm going to relax here on the couch and I later, I hope to get some energy to go learn a new Jazzercise song, we got our new set so I want to get at least one or two in for tomorrow morning.