This is Halloween...

This is Halloween...



I've been researching my family history for over 25 years now and can find no Puritan ancestors, so how in the world I inherited my Puritan work ethic I don't know. What a drag! Work before fun, which means I can't put out my Halloween decorations until I've cleaned the house.

How stupid is that?

So, I got out my goodies and just cleaned the areas they dress.

How FUN is that?

Anyway, this is a quilt I pieced by hand over the course of three years (or was it four?) of vacations at my parents trailer at Bass Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains, about an hour from Yosemite. Those were great times! For the first few years I spent a lot of time down at the pool and clubhouse supervising the boys, but they eventually got into that age where they could be free to roam and hang without me. Mom and I would sequester ourselves in the trailer with a view of the pines through the windows and handwork in hand. Years passed and the boys grew out of the lake and into their own affairs, but Mom and I try every couple of years to go up to the mountains for a week or so. Haven't made it there in the last couple of years (took her to see her sister year before last, then to Utah with me last summer). Maybe we'll get there next summer. There are some great quilt shops on the way up, and an unbelievable gift shop in Oakhurst on the way up, too.

Guess we better plan that.

We had our "crop" day yesterday. Mom, sis and I spend the day over our scrapbooking, but it's really just an excuse to gab. I think I did only one thing - added the year to an already completed page. But, I got some stuff sorted out. I've been working for a couple of years on some Disneyland scrapbooks. One of them (using Creative Memories' vintage Mickey book) has all the Disneyland pictures I could get my hands on from 1955-2005 and ends with all the visits we did to celebrate The Happiest Homecoming celebration of the 50th anniversary of the park. My parents took us there at least once a year starting in 1955, and DH and I tried to keep the tradition going with our kids (although we couldn't always afford once a year). The folks weren't really into photography, although I was able to find a whole roll of pictures from that first visit.
Yes, we used to dress up to go to Disneyland. They still have a dress code, but certainly you don't have to dress up anymore.

This is my favorite picture from one of our early trips with our boys.

Of course, it soon became very apparent that one book was not going to be big enough for all of my pictures, especially since I fell in love with the place all over again during the Homecoming. I've already filled another book that starts in 2006. And during the homecoming I bought one of the souvenir scrapbooks and am filling it with all my pictures of Homecoming "stuff." Icons, souvenirs, events, and the Parade of Dreams.

Mom and sis are plotting an intervention for me about this parade. I can't stop taking pictures of it. I redid the pages in the Homecoming album several times because every time I'd declare it "done," I'd go back to the park and get better pictures. Now it's become a joke. In fact, I finished another spread in the newest album that included two pages of POD pictures (labeled, "again") and I told sis that the next spread is going to be titled, "Oh, look! A parade! " It makes me very sad that it's only planned to run for another year or so. After that, I will have to go to Disney World to see it.

Not much other news. Sis has been working part time for a construction company for a while and they've decided to hire her full time. She has mixed feelings about that. DS1 is having a much nicer year this year. Instead of a 4/5 combo he is teaching second grade and says "They're pretty adorable." DS2 is still thrashing. He got more hours this week but was discouraged to learn that the post office is facing the same economic fallout as the rest of the country and may be looking at layoffs.

Santa Ana winds are arriving. Thank goodness they seem to be cold winds. When they're hot they're even more miserable. Keeping fingers crossed the new fences hold (they all blew down in the winds this time last year.)