Family Night at the SAFD Fire Academy 2009B

Last night we went to Family Night at the Fire Academy. With every graduating class they have a night like this where the cadets get to show off some of their newly learned skills to their family and the community. We enjoy going because it's fun to watch, the girls get excited about it and seeing a little of what their daddy does, and they provide free burgers, hot dogs, chips, drinks and dessert!




Here is cadet class 2009-B lined up and ready to go!













The first demo they did was a vehicle extraction. They used the jaws of life and various other tools to tear this car apart and extract the 'victim'.










Here comes the EMS crew to the rescue in their brand new ambulance!
And now the car has no roof...pretty cool tools!


Logan and Mckayla really do get such a big kick out of this sort of thing! They watch and pay attention to the details so carefully because they hear Casey talking about the different things. Our proud little Firefighter Daughters. =)

Here the cadets are about to set a Cadillac on fire.




It is now up in flames! The girls thought this was VERY cool!






It is definitely cool to see a car up in flames that is supposed to be on fire.






At one point in this fire the flames were the orange and yellow and there were also blue and purple ones...so the girls wanted to know why. We had a quick discussion on hot flames and hotter flames.







They set the car on fire twice, to everyone's delight!









Mckayla made herself quite comfortable on Casey's lap...meanwhile Casey was fairly uncomfortable sitting on the very hard, very cold bleacher bench!








The next demo was a liquid fire.










They ignited this large pool and let me tell ya, that flame was COOKIN'! It was no longer a cool, crisp evening watching the cadets while this flame was roaring.












This fire was of course the crowd favorite because it was the largest. My girls for sure were pretty thrilled with it!










We thought the cadets did a great job and wish them the best of luck in the future careers with the San Antonio Fire Department!







Today's Walk

Today was another beautiful Texas fall day! Casey and I thought it might be nice to go to a local park and walk along the hiking trails for some fresh air and a good stretch of the legs. Mckayla was pretty excited to go on this little adventure...sadly Logan didn't get to join us since she was in school.


Casey and I were amused at Mckayla's nearly constant talking throughout most of the walk. She loved that there were butterflies fluttering all about, this rock and that rock, a squirrel running here, a lizard scurrying there, etc etc...she just kept talking. Haha.

It was a beautiful walk. I love Texas! Keeping in mind it's November it was about 77 degrees, green everywhere, flowers everywhere, butterflies...it was like it's spring!

















Mckayla got a kick out of blowing on the giant dandelion and she thought 'petting' the soft green moss was pretty fun! We love sharing nature with our kiddos and watching them appreciate it.














Mckayla looooves her daddy!



I thought this rock was awesome! It has what I am sure is petrified wood in it. How cool is that?!













Mckayla thought she was doing quite the trick by walking along this 'balance beam'. She is so cute!




















Mckayla observed that this tree looks like a leopard tree. Therefore, there must be leopards in these woods...and so at certain times on our way she had to hold a hand in case leopards were near. She commented to me and Casey that parents are supposed to protect their children from leopards. Later in the walk we heard some kids screaming and yelling on their hike on a different trail. Her comment was 'the leopard must be getting those children'...haha!













Another Mckayla trick...hanging inches off the ground...hehe





















Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! Those of you in San Antonio, if you're looking for a nice casual walk one afternoon amongst nature...check out Cathedral Park over on Grissom Rd.






Happy Halloween!!!

I love Halloween! I think it can be such a fun holiday. When I was growing up it was always a pretty big deal around our house. My parents always went full out decorating for trick or treaters and my mom always made or created the greatest costumes for me and my sister. I am not into the blood and horror that some Halloween decor is, we always had the spooky 'haunted mansion' side to things...a foggy cemetery, ghosts, a skeleton or two, etc. It was always fun, it was always spooky and it always created great memories!

Seeing as nowadays the big thing is to do Trunk-Or-Treating...this is my only chance for Halloween decorating and I try my best to live up to the Darnall standard. Haha.

FRIDAY:





















Mckayla dressed up as a Tinkerbell Fairy-of sorts. She was so excited about her costume and just could not wait to wear it. I thought she looked adorable in it! (Of course, I am biased...hehe) Logan has wanted to be a skeleton since last Halloween and was really excited about this 'glow in the dark' costume. Now this is my kind of Halloween costume...spooky! And I thought she looked pretty fantastic...especially when it was dark. (Ignore the grumpy look on her face though...apparently she wasn't in a picture taking mood)


This is our trunk for Trunk or Treat. Every year our church throws a Halloween party and this is part of the festivities. The two cauldrons up front that are glowing blue and green were also billowing dry ice fog. We had haunted, spooky sounds booming from the speakers, pumpkins glowing, ghosts waving in the breeze, skeletons dangling in the darkness, eyes blinking and spying on passerbys... Casey said he thought this was my best trunk yet. I was pretty happy with how it turned out and was excited when we won a 'Best Trunk' award again.

The girls had a good time walking around trick or treating for candy. Casey took them around while I passed out candy at our trunk. He said Mckayla was trying to hit up every single person she saw. They both were quite happy to then plop down next to me and start digging into their stash!


SATURDAY:

On Saturday I was prepping for our Halloween festivities with my parents, my sister and her family, and a couple friends. It has become a tradition for my parents to decorate for Halloween and my sister and I provide the dinner. I made a turkey (YUM!) and various other fixin's, along with a homemade apple pie!


















Here is my pie! (on right) Well, here's the pie before I baked it, I forgot to take an 'after baked' picture--though I should have because this picture isn't very good. Haha. The picture on the left is my inspiration, what I was trying to copy. This is a scene from a big time favorite Halloween tradition from when I was a small kid, up until even now and for the foreseeable future. It is a scene from Disney's 'The Haunted Mansion: Song and Story'. Growing up my mom had a vinyl record of 'The Haunted Mansion' and in the album cover is also a storybooklet with these great pictures to look at while listening. My sister and I used to love to sit next in the living room and listen, and we certainly did every Halloween...and any other time we felt like it. (It is a very different story from the Disney movie with Eddie Murphy...but that does feature some of the characters) I was SO excited, really you have no idea, when I discovered that finally this year they released 'The Haunted Mansion: Song and Story' on CD! I bought a copy immediately and my girls and I listened to it several times this Halloween season. Aaanyway, so this is where my idea came from and it was a big hit with my mom and sister when they saw it. I was pretty pleased with how it came out seeing as it was a last minute idea, fairly rushed (had to hurry to get the pie in the oven so I could get it back out and get the turkey to cookin'!), and I'd never done something to this degree before.

Ok, now on to San Marcos we went to my parents house and the family Halloween festivities!


Here are the kids in their costumes and so excited to see each other and be together! Mckayla "Fairy" (front), Logan "Skeleton" (back left), Lorelle "Mariposa Barbie" (my 6 yr old niece - back middle) and Tyler "Batman" (back right). All of course with their treat bags and ready to see what they get!

My parents really out-do themselves with Halloween and I have literally been counting down the days to see this year's creation! It's really supposed to be for the kids...grandkids that is, but it is totally for me and my sister too...and a whole lotta for my folks too! They really do have as much fun creating it as we all do oohing and aahing at it. I am grateful for the time and effort they put into it because it's so much fun! I know it is hours and hours and hours of time and hard work and they're too cool for doing it! I wish I could have gotten a good 'all around picture' of the scene but with the darkness and glowing lights it is a picture that doesn't turn out with my non-fancy camera.

Here we go!

This years theme was 'Pumpkins of the Caribbean'...so fun!!!

My mom created a treasure map and had a script to go along with it as she began leading the kids on their 'treasure hunt for pirate booty'!
When we arrived at my parents house they were still working to finish things up so Casey went out back to help. Some of these pictures are daytime shots and some are the nighttime shots.










There were eyes watching us from everywhere! It's all the little details like this that I just adore! The eyeballs on the left were just set in the tree knot and were in various other places too. And then the eyeballs set inside the large empty turtle shell...just simple, creative spookiness. Hehe.












The Pumpkin Balloon Head Pirate sitting down to his bar table...I didn't get a great picture of this when it was dark...but the lantern was lit, there were glowsticks, beer steins, etc. Like a pirate at his bar table...and the effect of the balloon head bobbing in the nighttime breeze was pretty great! (The large pumpkin head balloon as a decoration is a 20 year old tradition...stemming from when I was about 9 years old, won a costume contest, won a large pumpkin balloon attached to a bucket of candy, and we then used the pumpkin for a decoration on Halloween night) I loved the octopus riding along in the kayak with the Pumpkin-head Sword Wielding Pirate! Again, the nighttime scene of this feature glowing pumpkins.











This is the Pirate Queen! She is keeping the fort while the pirates battle below! The 'coat hangar skeleton bride' is another long, long tradition. My favorite was one Halloween about 13-14 years ago when we had a bay window near our driveway so we put her in the window with glowing red eyes and a "beating heart (a.k.a. flashing red light)" underneath her dress...it was SPOOKY! I love the Pirate Queen! Too cool!















Anyone recognize this couple? Have you seen the first 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie? How cool is this?!? I was sad though that my nighttime shot does not show off the glowing lights/glowsticks very well.
















This is a fun scene! The Pumpkin-head Canoe Captain Pirate! See the cannon on the left? Hehe...and guess what the ammo was...little pumpkins!!! Again, imagine this with glowsticks geniusly placed to add a haunting spook factor to it.

Another fun feature, and just one more 'how cool are my parents?' is this spot where you get caught in the slime! It is dangling sticky hands that are sorta slimey and gooey...you know the ones you get from those quarter machines at the grocery store? I love this shot of Lorelle getting caught in it!



Here are the genius Pirates! As you can see from the grins on their faces and their fun costumes, they love this just as much as the rest of us!













The kids also loved the Pirate Queen so they made sure to get pictures with her! Logan and Lorelle (left), Mckayla (right).

















It was also very exciting to have our wonderful friends Jodi and Didi Torrez join us! My girls ADORE them as do I!
Me and my sister! I was pretty amused that she also had a pumpkin t-shirt! I love getting to spend Halloween with my sister...it makes us feel like kids again and I love my sister and the childhood we had!
My girls wanted me to dress up as a pumpkin this year. I choose not to look to much into it. Haha. I don't know if it was a Halloween idea or a "mommy's belly is getting really round" sorta thing...either way, I went with it wearing the shirt, orange scrub pants and a green stem.



Me and Casey...Casey likes this picture, thinking the pumpkin pirate looks like he's checking me out. Haha! I love that Casey amuses me and plays along with my Halloween adventures!







Pumpkins to Jack O' Lanterns

Today was our Pumpkin Day! Casey found a pumpkin patch that had some kid activities and so we went to check it out thinking it would be a lot of fun for the girls and we'd get a couple pumpkins out of it too!





The first thing the girls did when we got there was check out the hay maze that was set up. Both Logan and Mckayla thought it was really fun and were so excited to make it to the end!







They both thought this "tunnel" was especially fun to come crawling out of!



I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture!!! My Pumpkin Princess!


My favorite part of the pumpkin patch was this rock maze. It was very long and round about and it was so neat watching the girls work their way through it without 'cheating' and stepping over the rocks. It probably took them 10-15 minutes to make their way through.



It was cute the way they worked together holding hands...I love how close they are and how well they get along.








Like I said, it was a pretty long maze and eventually Mckayla was done...so Logan kept going and decided to run the rest of the way.


VICTORY!!! She made it to the end!




Mckayla was really excited to take a picture here...these things are always silly.










There was also a big metal feeder full of this deer corn that kids could climb in and play in. I think these pictures of the girls are so fun.



It was also funny after they got out and Logan was picking corn out of her pants, and both had shoes full of corn.









In the end we picked out two pumpkins that we were really happy with and got good prices on! We saved several dollars versus if we'd just bought the pumpkins at the grocery store...and the girls got to do all the fun activities to top it off! Totally worth it!


Logan's job was to dig out the pumpkins. Mckayla was NOT about to do that! I asked her if she was going to participate too and she was very adamant that she was NOT going to get her hands dirty and gooey! "No, no, no, no, no mommy! I will not be getting my hands dirty!"





Logan did a great job digging the pumpkins out. She was only slightly grossed out by the slimey gooey-ness but she kept going! We bought this cheap little electric pumpkin carver...cheap being the significant part of that statement. It sorta kinda worked. But we also found out right away that we couldn't turn it off...so we had to snap the bottom off to turn it on and off if we used it.




With our various pumpkin carving tools I think we did a great job! I carved the one on the left and Casey carved the one on the right! I love the shapes and stems on these pumpkins!









The girls were both pretty excited about the end result...though Mckayla does not approve of the one I carved, apparently the mouth is not right. She likes Casey's the best.




SPOOOOOOKY!!! I think they look great!
I think this is such a fun Halloween activity! I remember carving jack o' lanterns with my family when I was kid and I really enjoy now doing it with my own kids. I hope they come away with the same fun memories that I have.

A Date Night

Last night a friend of mine offered to watch the girls--I almost think more for her enjoyment than ours. Haha. She spoiled them with fun and they had a great time! But since we were kid-less Casey and I had the opportunity to go out. A little while ago another friend of ours had given us a gift card to Maggiano's Little Italy so we thought we'd go there for dinner.



This restaurant is very nice. There is an elegance to it but also a somewhat casual factor. We enjoyed the ambiance quite a bit.








For an appetizer Casey enjoyed this Bruschetta with gorgonzola cheese, prosciutto, honey roasted pears and a sweet balsamic glaze. It looked great, smelled great and Casey thought it tasted great!









I thoroughly enjoyed this Mom's Lasagna. It was HUGE! The flavors were abundant and so, so good! I was only able to eat about a third of this...so guess what I will be enjoying for lunch today!!!








Casey ordered the Lobster Ravioli with lobster sauce and it was yummy! He loved that as he took bites he was taking bites of significant pieces of lobster inside the ravioli's. He polished off his plate!









I had to make sure to leave some room for dessert since I saw that they had a strawberry sauce cheesecake on the menu! My favorite! This picture does not do justice for how big this slice was or how unbelievably good that strawberry sauce was! Guess what I am having for lunch dessert? Yum!







Casey also polished off this toasted Pound Cake with caramelized bananas and vanilla bean ice cream and a chocolate sauce. It looked fabulous and he really liked it!


Aside from the really terrific food, the best part of the evening was sitting and talking to each other, enjoying the one-on-one time! He is my best friend and I love him so very much!

Baby #3's Ultrasound

We had an ultrasound at our baby doctor appointment this week. We're having another girl! We were so thrilled to see that she is strong and healthy and growing right on track! She was moving and wriggling all over the place, making it very difficult for the ultrasound specialist to get good pictures...but I was thrilled to see her moving about!

Here is a picture of her...she's looking right at you, and if you turn your sound on and push play you can hear her strong little heartbeat too!

video

The ultrasound is a really cool experience. We saw the baby's heart beating, her kidneys, her eye lenses, her spine, her arms, legs, brain, brain stem, etc etc! I thought it was extra special having my dad there with me and Casey to see it all too. We are grateful that she is doing well and look forward to the day we get to really see her and hold her!

P.S. The girls are SOOOO excited that they are going to have a baby sister!!! When we told them Logan was bouncing up and down whooping and hollering in excitement and Mckayla just threw her arms straight up in the air in a victory style! I think they will both be amazing big sisters and big helpers for mommy!

Sea World Hallo-Scream 2009

Last weekend we finally got to get over to Sea World for Hallow-Scream. If you live nearby this is an event we highly recommend! If you have Sea World passes like we do, DEFINITELY take advantage of them and go! The various Halloween events are just so fun! And it sure helps that regardless, we just love Sea World!





This is Jack! He is a rock n roller, creepy sorta character...but also very fun! There are some fun performances that involve him and my girls think he's pretty cool.


There is a trick or treat trail for the kids and they collect little goodies along the way from costumed employees. The funnest thing the girls got were these little finger LED lights. During one of the shows we attended they had a good time shining them into Casey's mouth and 'making his tongue turn different colors'.


Here are a couple of the costumed employees...a cowgirl and a pumpkin princess of sorts. As you can see the girls were pretty excited to sit with the princess.





One of many favorites at Sea World is the shark tank. I think they could stand and watch for hours if there wasn't more to see.


Haha...I thought this Dallas Cowboys skeleton display was too fun! Too bad that's pretty much how they're playing this year!


And of course the highlight and must see of nearly every Sea World visit is Shamu! The Halloween show is THE BEST! It doesn't get any better when the killer whales perform to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'!!! They are leaping and flipping and speeding through the water in a spook-tacular way! Now Mckayla LOOOVES Shamu! She is a fairly even keeled kiddo...likes things but rarely gets REALLY, REALLY excited about something...but when Shamu is doing his thing she has the biggest grin on her face and is clapping up a storm! It is so much fun! It is always the #1 highlight of my Sea World visits to take Mckayla (and Logan too) to see Shamu.
I don't know that we'll get a chance to get back again before the end of Hallow-Scream but we are looking forward to the Sea World Christmas events! No doubt, we'll post that later on.