Halloween!!

Ok, November 5th, not too bad for a Halloween post. Oh yah, and I just realized that today IS November 5th...

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gun powder treason and plot
I see no reason the gun powder treason
Should ever be forgot...

And that's it for my nerdiness today, although I am not a Guy Fawkes buff, I really love V for Vendetta.

So I have lots of Halloween photos from our Witches, Wizards, and Familiars party, pumpkin carving, and Halloween night. I'm going to do my best to pare them down best I can, but no promises.

The Holmes family

I have to say this is the first time I've seen a wizard make out with a cowboy

If you're wondering, that's Harry Potter's uncle on the right, Larry Potter, from Jersey

Just the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda, we made peace that night in order to cook up some awesome soups and goodies

A familiar and a wizard, they go so well together

A big thank you to my buddy Meghan for taking these pics!

Pinterest, what would I do without your guidance and wonderful ideas like this?

Pepper's amazing cupcakes

Cute little dinosaur

And an adorable flower

Meghan and Jen

Oh that flying monkey

Witch hat cheese ball! Not as cool as my Cheshire Cat cheese ball from last year, but not bad

Me and Debbie

Pumpkin carving time!

We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas while we got our hands dirty

So scary...

These are my super awesome and creepy ghost dancers that were blown down by the horrible winds the week before Halloween and were way too tangled to put back up

Halloween tradition, sitting outside in the cold and giving out candy. I am definitely my father's daughter

Do you see that super awesome hour glass?! Bruce (aka my Wizard of Oz supplier, if you've seen my kitchen, you understand) gave it to me the night of the Halloween party! I had an urge to hurl it from the top of my stairs to the first floor, but I really didn't want to break its loveliness

I like this shot, makes our house look a little creepy:)

So Halloween was awesome, as always, and now my mission is to come up with next year's theme and costumes...

Catch Up

Oh wow, it's been almost two months since my last post, how lame, especially when I promised Balloon Race pictures! Super lame...anyway, here's some more of the balloon race pics from last month!

Glow Show

Me and Meghan attempting to keep warm

Iayla liked Yoda's feet

Chris looks mean here but I swear he's not!

Pics of the two of us in front of balloons will never get old:)

The Holms Family

Spider Pig!

I love seeing all the balloons in the air

So obviously we had a good time at the Balloon Races and were able to enjoy the experience with some buddies. Later we went to Lilybelle's 1st birthday party which was so much fun and that night we met up with Meghan and her husband Brian and saw Bye Bye Birdie. It was fun and was the first time we'd seen a play at Bartley Ranch. Busy, and exhausting, day, especially due to the fact that we woke up at 3 am...

A couple weekends ago we went to Apple Hill in Camino, CA. We hadn't been in two years, and we'd never gone without Jen and her family, so it was interesting trying to find our way around. We managed though and found some great ranches.

We were starving when we arrived and ended up at Jack Russell Brewing Co. where we just sat on the grass, ate, and people watched.

Gorgeous pumpkins at Rainbow Orchard, which was, by far, our favorite

We loved sitting on the hay bales, surrounded by scarecrows and children hopping from hay bale to hay bale, all while enjoying some cider

Apple Pie a la mode at High Hill

Chris never misses an opportunity to climb aboard an old piece of machinery

Soooo, most everyone knows that I love Halloween, it's my favorite (and if you don't know this then we must not be that close, as in, we've never had a conversation). And of course we had our annual Halloween party last Friday, and I have pics, but I'm for my friend to give me some of hers, and I'm going to take more pics on Halloween, so that post is going to wait. Hopefully it won't appear two months from now;)

And I figured I could do an update on my book challenge, and I have to say it's not looking incredibly promising. I've only read 6 books out of the 20 I wanted to read, which isn't bad, but it means that I've got 14 more to go by the end of the year! And it's so easy for me to blame Halloween preparations for my lack of reading, but now I have to realize that we're entering into the Thanksgiving/Christmas/birthday season (I'm adding birthday season because I'm throwing Chris a 30th birthday party and people are coming up from Vegas for it and it's going to be kind of a big to-do). Anyway, I just got four more books from the library, so hopefully I'll knock those out fast and I'll only have 10 more to go! 

Rib Cook Off, A Great Reno Ballon Race Teaser and a Book Challenge!

So last week we had the pleasure of hosting Chris' cousin Sam and her boyfriend Mike. They stayed during the labor day weekend and Chris took them to Virginia City (I worked all weekend), we went to the Nugget Diner so Sam could get her Awful Awful fix, and we went to the Nugget Rib Cook Off last Monday. Being a veggie at a rib cook off is not super awesome, but we had a good time, even if our mac and cheese and cole slaw were sub-par;)

Not a bad day to go, the smoke wasn't as bad (did ya hear about the Yosemite fire? Horrible!) and we got there early so we weren't elbow to elbow with rib munchers (does that sound weird?)

Gotta love $5 lemonades

Sam and Mike at their first rib cook off, awwww, cause Reno's awesome and they're gonna move here

Random photo, but you can see that there are more rib vendors

So our fun didn't end with the rib cook off, oh no, we went to the Great Reno Balloon Races this morning! What time do you ask? Um, yah, we woke up at 2:30, picked up friends by 3:30 and were at the park by 4:00...too early? I don't care, we got a parking spot and decent place to sit! I only offer a smattering of photos here due to the fact that I rely on Chris' fancy photo skills with his camera for the balloon races, so as soon as they're uploaded, and edited (a million times), they'll be on the blog!

Ah Dawn Patrol

Spider Pig's backside! Yes, Spider Pig! Unfortunately he was taking forever to inflate so we didn't get to see him ascend

Wells Fargo and Spider Pig "kissing"

Gorgeous balloons! I love the fishies

So pretty

I can go to the balloon races every year, see (almost) the same balloons, listen to the same cheesy music as the balloons ascend and take the same photos every year and still be happy.

Now onto my reading challenge! I ran across an article about a woman who read a book from every country in a year and I was so inspired! I'm so not going to take on that amazing challenge, but it made me stop and think about how many books I've read this year. I totaled it up and it only came out to 14 (however, I did read the complete Sherlock Holmes, that's gotta count as more than one book, but for my purposes I only included it as 1 just cause I can't figure out how many to break it up into). I say only because I feel I can do better, and when I told Chris what my number was, he thought it was awesome, but this is the man who's been reading Moby Dick since high school...Ha! I love him and he did make me feel better. I also have to remember that I was still in school for the first 4 1/2 months this year, and no, I did not count school books.

Anyway, so the point is that I want to read more books and have decided to read 20 more by the end of the year. It's not a huge challenge, 20 books gives me about 5.6 days to read each book, but I also didn't want to push it. If I go over 20, that's great! I have a list of 92 books currently in my "to read" section on Goodreads, so I have plenty to choose from. I don't want to spend a lot, or any, money on the books so I'll be hitting the library, borrowing and buying from a second hand store as a last resort. Thanks to my buddy Mindi for lending me What the Dickens, it's the first of the 20 books!

I'm excited about the challenge, I feel it'll get me off of my phone (damn you Candy Crush and Plants vs. Zombies 2!, but not Pinterest, never Pinterest...) and I'll knock out a good chunk of my reading wish list. Wish me luck!