It's the Great Pumpkin(s)

Copious innards await us when we carve these next week.
Pumpkin seeds, anyone?

A bonfire and a kidless weekend

We had some friends over on Friday for our first bonfire and backyard movie night. The event wasn't nearly as blurry as this picture suggests. Our friend Nick the eagle scout kept the anemic wet-wood fire going until my parents came over with some dry wood that ignited a welcome blaze on such a chilly & drizzly night. We watched Monsters vs. Aliens on Nate's homemade screen while my parents went back home with all 4 of our monkeys. We had been planning a kid-free weekend for quite some time, and it was niiice.

We did a little Christmas shopping on Saturday afternoon and then went to the Ordway in St. Paul to see Little House on the Prairie: The Musical which was not as good as I hoped it would be. I'm not a big fan of musicals, what with the whole bursting into song every 25 seconds. I think this one might have worked better as a play imbued with Pa's fiddle music. Picture taking was forbidden inside the theater, so Nate snapped this one in a waiting area with the twinkly tree lights behind us. I know...I've spent an inordinate amount of time lately writing of Little House related things, but it just so happens the musical was in town again and we didn't go last year and I wished we had.

Sunday we attended the feast for the senses that is Latin High Mass at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul. More Christmas shopping for the kids in the afternoon, and then we went to see Bright Star, a movie about the poet John Keats and his relationship with a certain Fanny Brawne. Most people would see this as a chick flick, so I was a bit surprised that the only other people in the theater were two separate guys who wandered in after us.

The house is still in order as the kids have today off of school and won't return home till later this afternoon. My batteries are recharged and ready to tackle this week's laundry and homework and hopefully we can avoid the H1N1 bug that's wandering through the area.

In search of fall color, sort of

We made our annual 45 minute trek east to Red Wing on Saturday, a tradition we established about 5 years ago to see the colorful autumn bluffs and do a little shopping. The previous weekend was cold and rainy, and this one was chilly too, but we decided to bundle up and brave the elements.Mother nature has been an uncooperative wench lately. The trees seem late to change color this year, so we took in a lot of green and a bit of yellow. There was some sort of art fair going on downtown, so we parked and checked out some of the vendors' goodies. Traipsing around in the cold gives you an appetite, so we bought some cookies for the kids, and this concoction - an "ultimate caramel apple" for Nate & me.
Here I am, everything right with the world when I'm ready to sink my teeth into a caramel apple dipped in pecans and slathered in milk chocolate. This bad boy deserves a close-up.
We poked around in some shops during the afternoon, then headed to our usual dinner destination, Godfather's Pizza. Nicky whined and moaned and didn't want to sit still for a picture, then came up with some bizarre googly eyes for this shot. Now, the Red Wing Godfather's is unique. They've secured our business every year by piling on the crumbly topping of their dessert pizza so amazingly thick that it sticks to your teef and the roof of your mouf like peanub bubber. Mmmm. This photo doesn't do it justice. And there you have it. We pigged out and went home.

Speaking of mother nature again, we woke up to this very early snowfall today:

Crazy. Crayziee, even. It seems especially wrong given that we haven't even reached peak fall color yet. The weather dude said our average first 1 inch snowfall is Nov. 18, so we beat that by over a month.
And just for fun, I'm throwing in this pic of the kids that Nate took last week. They don't generally worship the t.v. at such close range, but something must have piqued their interest in this mii's eyeball selection.

Pro Sports and Women's Health

I watched some of the Vikes/Packers game yesterday and saw their pink (or magenta as it looked on our tv) wrist bands, shoes, hats etc. in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Any kind of cancer awareness campaign is good, but it bugs me a little that breast cancer seems to get the lion's share of attention. This article says that heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined. Heart health awareness seems to have picked up recently, though, and they have their month, too - February. Lung cancer kills more women than breast cancer; smoking being the obvious cause of most cases. So, we don't see sports guys run around wearing a certain obnoxious color of wristband that supports lung cancer awareness, because most people know the risks of smoking. Which brings me back to breast cancer - we aren't frequently made aware of all the risk factors. Breast cancer awareness usually focuses on promotion of screenings/early detection and such, while the fact that the birth control pill is listed as a carcinogen according to the World Health Organization and can increase a woman's risk of contracting breast cancer is largely ignored by the popular media.

Now to the most disturbing pro sports trend. The long goofy Milli Vanilli hair on some of those dudes. I don't approve. What's next, will they wire up their dreads Pippi Longstocking style?

And this whole thing with Favre - it's still so odd seeing him in purple (especially purple + hot pink).

And I never thought I'd type the word 'breast' this often in a post.

'Cuz I needed an excuse to eat more s'mores

Our new backyard fixture

September shenanigans

After dealing with our insurance company and two different contractors this past spring & summer, we finally got a new roof last week. We switched from black to grayish/brownish shingles. Supposedly they can sustain 110 mph winds, but I'll believe that when a mild tornado blows by and leaves them intact.It's just now starting to feel like fall. The kids were up to some new tricks this September. We always knew they had some monkey DNA in them (not from my side, of course) and they confirmed it by climbing our maple tree repeatedly.

Nicky learned how to bike sans training wheels, but the stinker always forgets to wear his helmet.

The minigolfer.

Michael, the phantom of the 5th grade. We had to make this plaster mask at home for him to take to school and paint in art class. Pretty creepy, no? Adrienne saw it and asked, "Mom, can I skip 5th grade?".

Zach turned two

Time flew again. Our youngest monkey is officially not a baby. 'Course, being the youngest, I can call him that forever if I wish. He didn't wait for the happy birthday song before blowing out his candles, and then wouldn't take an interest in opening his presents. Leave it to a two year old not to follow the script. He was more intent on torturing Bruiser until he realized there was some good stuff hiding inside all that wrapping paper.

God Bless Baby Sam

...in his new home in heaven. And bless and comfort his parents, Tricia & Nathan, and his 1 month old twin brother Will.

Amen.

Jimmy Carter hoopla

Jimmy Carter is in the news again. Near as I can tell, it seems he was attacked by a ferocious killer rabbit. Some people have all the luck. What a gripping tale for the grandkids.

Er, wait. I guess this story is a few years old. According to the link I just posted, a book was even written about this incident. Having been in diapers at the time and not having investigated this further since, I can't tell if the author intended his book to be a work of serious journalism or a fantastic parody.“The animal was clearly in distress, or perhaps berserk. The President confessed to having had limited experience with enraged rabbits. He was unable to reach a definite conclusion about its state of mind. What was obvious, however, was that this large, wet animal, making strange hissing noises and gnashing its teeth, was intent upon climbing into the Presidential boat.” - Press Secretary Powell

The Germans Invaded

Pass the sauerkraut, Leif. Minnesota is known to be dripping with Scandinavians. However, though we have more Norksies and Swedes around here than in other areas of the country, that doesn't mean the majority of us identify as such.

Minnesota 2000 population of Minnesota: 4,919,479 (2000 census)

Rank	Ancestry	% of Population
1.	German	36.7
2.	Norwegian	17.3
3.	Irish	11.2
4.	Swedish	9.9
5.	English	6.3

This data found here