November Monday

Did you have a fabulous Halloween weekend?  
Here's wishing you a wonderful week! 
Remember to vote early and vote often:) tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!
More pictures from the CK Autumn Fest - today there were quite a few things going on!
For a complete activity list, check here.
We took in the car show and the Fire-Ambulance-Helicopter display.
Our decorations have been taken down, and we have one more trip planned to the Pumpkin House (hopefully it will be much less crowded today!)

The Cat Choir - just the most delightful section of pumpkins!

A portion of our Halloween decor:)

Health Net Medflight

at the car show - over 100 cars entered!

Have fun today!

The Pumpkin House

What a crowd!  We parked and walked two blocks to the Pumpkin House this evening.  Not knowing that there was a line that extended forever the other way, we walked right into the yard and looked and looked at the pumpkins.
We were able to see the Headless Horseman ride his horse down the street.  Fun!
The Music Wall is spectacular, each pumpkin with an instrument carved into it lights up as that instrument is played in the symphony.
The Cat Choir was in its best voice, and the animal pumpkins were aboard Noah's Ark.  A special section was reserved for the birds.  Just amazing!
It was so crowded, it was hard to see anything very well.  I would estimate there were at least 2000 people either looking or waiting in line.  30,000 people are estimated to view the Pumpkin House this weekend. 
That is a huge crowd for this area!

The Cat Choir

Welcome to CK Autumn Fest and the Music Wall

Some of the Pumpkin lovers:)

Thank you, Aaron and Melissa, we had a great time!

Trick-or-Treat!

I'm exhausted. 
We worked all morning to finish the final decorations, then make-up for our cast of Zombies, and Trick-or-Treat started at 5 pm.  Over 1000 children came to our house to be both scared a little and be treated to candy.
I'm exhausted.  oops, I've already said that!
We then walked to the City Street Party for a few minutes of festivities including free food,  fantastic door prizes and meeting  friends and family. All in all, a fun day!

The cast of zombies - Brandon, Brad, Aaron and Melissa

(Unfortunately:), we ran out of time and didn't have time for my make-up.)

Brandon

Notice the face in the wall of plastic?

Dudley, the graveyard manikin

A lull in the crowd of Trick-or-Treat'ers

We are already starting to plan for next year, we've decided that an 'adult' party must follow the children's candy time!

It will take me that long to recover from this, I think!

Halloween Decorations

My husband's best pal , Aaron, came over today and started decorating our tiny house for Trick-or-Treat!  He built most of the props, even the coffin has a lid that moves up and down.  He and my sons enveloped our porch with black plastic, making our house look even smaller and very spooky at night

All of this for 2 hours of Trick-or-Treat! It is worth all of the work , we do get a big kick out of watching the children's faces when they see everything.  We generally have from 500 to 700 children walk by!

Lights, fog, smoke machines, creepy music and moving figures will complete all of this later - and, we are all going to dress or do what ever people do to look like Zombies?  No rain or high winds, please:)

Trick-or-Treat  5 pm to 7 pm
City Street Party 8 pm

Stormy Day

Before the torrential rain and high winds - the trees were beautiful, the colors so bright and vibrant.

the sky just before the rain

The Parade was canceled and the giant inflatable pumpkin was taken down.  

Still no decorations here - here's hoping tomorrow's weather is much better!

Pumpkin Tuesday~

It started raining here during the night and rained all day.  No pumpkin carving for me - it was a cold rain!
I did get a few pictures of the Pumpkin House this evening, but they aren't so good...
There were a lot of people braving the rain, diligently working on the pumpkins!   Still thousands to go-

News around town - the bowling alley caught fire in the early hours, quite a bit of damage, but the owners have already had contractors in to assess the damage.


In preparation for the Autumn Fest Parade tomorrow night, MacDonald's has put a HUGE inflated pumpkin on their roof.  The parade goes by at the end of my street, my family is in the parade, so I'll be watching and taking pictures.  Of course, rain is expected.

Behind the scenes at the Pumpkin House

 The CK Autumn Fest runs October 28 - October 30!
 Click to read more about it!

a few more pics of the work and decorations behind the big fence!

And pictures of the house as its being decorated - there is even a pumpkin on the top of the turret roof!

They were working on the Symphony of Pumpkins today - hopefully I can figure out how to get a video of it on here!  He has these very tall cases lined with shelves, and each shelf holds pumpkins carved like a musical instrument .  As each musical section plays, the different sections of pumpkins light up to the music.  Genius, pure genius!
A new addition this year is the Women's Choir - can't wait to see it.

3030 Pumpkins!

                       Work on the pumpkins started today- and do they ever have pumpkins!          

                                            Ric was drawing the faces to be carved - this is the first step-                                  

 People are cutting the bottoms-

There are people scooping-

and carving!

 The man who makes it all happen - Ric Griffith

And finished pumpkins on display - just a start:)

the beautiful Victorian House, with just a few pumpkins on the porch roof-

Stay tuned, this is a week long Festival, and I hope to capture the sights all week!

In order to have all of the pumpkins displayed by Halloween, 600 pumpkins must be scooped and carved each day.  How many pies would that make?!?
 
Linking up with 'Sundays in my City' 

Saturday This and a little of That

Chilupa, my father-in-law's Chihuahua. 

He may be small, but he is top dog around here! 

Other dogs are welcome in his yard as long as they recognize him as the Boss-

Tomorrow begins the Great Pumpkin Carving  at the Griffith's Victorian House

.First, volunteers will scoop out the 'guts' of over 3000 pumpkins.

Hoping I feel well enough to help for a few hours. The weather is perfect -cool and crisp

There may even be frost on the pumpkins!

Our friend, who lives on a secluded country lane, always decorates our front yard for Halloween. Today, he brought 4 large coffins he built and 2 huge containers of other spooky stuff.

Monday, we will work all day to transform the yard, which will include fog machines, spooky music and various creepy characters.  Last year, over 700 children came to our house for candy!

We are all dressing up as Zombies, which should be interesting, since I'm not sure what one looks like:)

Saffron Crocus

Lovely Saffron Crocus growing  in my neighbor's yard.

I noticed these during my short walk today, so dainty and looking so out of place at this time of year!

See the three red styles?  Those are collected and dried for the Saffron spice.  I guess the gathering of those tiny styles is what makes Saffron the most expensive spice (by weight) in the world. 

This crocus only blooms in the fall, making for a bright spot amid the grass and falling leaves.

Just another totally useless factoid - can hardly remember my address, but have a vast library of this kind of crap tucked away in my head:)

If anyone needs Hosta seeds, please let me know!  

The Hostas are large leafed, flower in early Summer with purple flowers, and grow fairly quickly from seed.   

Thursday

 

Frost is forecast for tomorrow night.   I'm going to go looking for those last blooms of Summer today!

Wednesday

One more Town of Ceredo Fall Display - this one is put together by the city workers, and their creativity is obvious.  A bit Strange?  a touch unusual, but one can tell that quite a bit of thought went into this display. 

I still don't know who "Crazzy" Tom was or is - but at least he's not smoking a cigarette as he did last year.  I guess people's sense of humor doesn't stretch that far here, because the cigarette was removed shortly after the display was set up:)

Removal of  Pumpkin 'guts' from the 4000 pumpkins starts Saturday.  I'll be there with my spoon:))

Slowly working on my To-Do list, only 2 days behind now