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'.

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!

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!!!

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!

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!

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!



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!

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'.