Halloween!

Today was a lazy day for us. I slept in, did some laundry, paid some bills and cleaned up a bit, The boys took a nap. Will must have really needed one because he slept for three hours! At 6 p.m., the boys were dressed up for Trick-or-Treating. This year, Xan is a ninja and Will is a werewolf, but hated the hairy mask.

After about a half an hour of Trick-or-Treating, the boys were done, and wanted to hand out candy to other kids.

There were no shortage of kids... our neighborhood is one where people are imported from other neighborhoods. Take a look at the traffic in front of our house!

Our first Ice Flyers game of the season!

The boys and I went to the second home game of the Ice Flyers' hockey season. It was Halloween night, so the kids could dress up. Only Xan chose to dress up and I entered him in the costume contest. He lost to a princess, but still managed to have a good time.

Xan on the ice for the costume contest.

This blimp drops ping pong balls, and Will got one, He redeemed it for a free buffet dinner, a tshirt at a local restaurant and two free icees at Circle K.

Someone got married during intermission during the game.

Ripley is not feeling very well today. He's moping around and has a runny nose. If he doesn;t feel better soon, I may have to take him to the vet...

Caro Carnival

After the Mall-to-Mall Walk, the boys and I had a late breakfast at Waffle House while my camera battery charged and then we headed off to the Hellen Caro Elementary School Carnival.

Will's big achievement was winning this 2-liter bottle of fruit punch in a ring toss. It took him three tries, but he did it!

Of course, he had to get painted up. Xan had no interest...

Xan did an excellent job with the foam javelin toss.

"Fishing" for treats.

Rolling pig race. The water bottles were decorated like pigs and you pushed them with a stick.

An extreme week, among other things....

With Rodney having been gone this week, I was a single parent or one of the most busy weeks of the year. Somehow, the three of us managed to survive, although we spent a lot of this weekend sleeping and napping! Here are some of the highlights:

I got to meet the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition family on Monday. I'm pictured here with the Gaston family, Pen Air CEO Ron Fields and my friend and fellow Marketeer Raeanne. We were able to tour the home, ad while I could not take pictures of it, and I am sworn to secrecy about the design, let's just suffice it to say that it is beautiful.

Fellow marketeer Brad and his wife, Christy, were kind enough to entertain the kiddo while I went to class this week. I currently have A's in both of my classes and I hope I do well enough on my end-of-the-semester projects and tests to keep those. Tjiursday night, Xan left his backpack with his lunch box and homework at my office, so he did not have them Friday morning, which started the day off well for him. He then did not want to wear his costume to school for his Halloween party. I managed to get it on him, but here are some photos of the fit that followed. Of course, he was thrilled to get photographed.

Just FYI: I really want an iPad. Raeanne and I went to Best Buy to get walkie talkies for work and she, being the marketer that she is, changed the wallpaper on all of the demos.

Saturday was a busy day for us. First, we had to get up early and go for the Making Strides against breast cancer Mall-to-Mall Walk. Will was the only one of us who actually walked, because I needed to set up a tent and hand out goodies to walkers who had finished. Here's a photo of me and the boys. I'm not sure we are really awake yet.

An EXTREME weekend...

Basically, I did not have much of a weekend this weekend, because Pen Air became a major sponsor of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Pensacola family show and I have been involved getting our top brass organized and where they needed to be for filming. Of course, I cannot release many of the photos I took until the show airs, but here are a few:

Will and Xan had some goodies tossed to them today during the "move the bus" reveal filming.


Will and Xan cheering.

Pen Air served the cast and crew dinner Friday night. Here are some of the pictures from that:

Pen Air COO Carroll, Tina from Accounting and me.


Me in my hardhat. You had to have one on if you were in the build area.


The group of employees who served dinner Friday night.


Ron announcing that we are major sponsors (with Michael and Tracy from the cast)



But it wasn't just all about a house this weekend. We went to a cupcake bakery everyone around here has just been raving about, Oh Snap! They were very good. I recommend the Almond Wedding Cake one...



Will was recognized as the Most Positive boy in his class last week. But does that surprise any of us?

Bon Jovi, Halloween goodies and Bus Driver Appreciation

On Friday, a friend of mine from work, Crystal, got VIP tickets to the Bon Jovi concert in Gulf Shores, Ala. With 35,000 people in attendance on the beach, VIP meant we got to close enough to actually see the band, but that was about it. But since we only paid $10.50 for each ticket, it was well worth it!

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is in Pensacola this week, creating a whole new house for a local family. Pen Air will be a meal sponsor on Friday evening, barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers for the 300+ volunteer crew. This is a photo from the kickoff event held at the University of West Florida on Tuesday.

The boys got some Halloween surprises this weekend: cards socks and goodies from Grandma Nancy and G.G.

This week is Hellen Caro's Bus Driver Appreciation Week and a few suggestions were sent home for each day. A flower, a sweet treat, a thank you note, a smile, etc., so Will and I created a paper flower (they last longer) and he wrote a thank you note. He's looking forward to giving Mrs. Pat a different thing each day.

Netflakes, Navy ball and beach...

The kids are thrilled - Netflakes is here! And our Wii is burning up with use!

The sign it's time for a haircut - Xan's Einstein impersonation.

So, haircuts, it is. Each boy chose the cut for himself. The hairdressers were very complimentary of the boys' behavior.

Rodney and I had free tickets to this year's Navy Ball, held at the Aviation Museum on base, compliments of Pen Air. We had not been to a Navy ball before, and the ceremony wasn't very different from the Marine Corps' although it was obvious they had a bigger budget.'

Today, the boys and I headed to the beach to enjoy the gorgeous weather.