"Halloween" AZ Style

Happy Halloween everyone!

Tonight was a great night for all the kids in the neighborhood. They managed to reap us of 3 HUGE bags of candy in about an hour and a half. Seemed tonight DH & DW saw more trick or treaters here in one night than DH had seen at the Truman address up north. DW even said it was crazy! We could have doubled our candy purchase and it still wouldn't have been enough!
Our neighbors across the street decided a haunted backyard was in order. From the sounds of it, success they did achieve. Kids were everywhere. It was fun. Family and friends sent pictures of everyone's costumes and we reflected on who had stopped by on a regular basis up'nordth! DW was even able to use our web cam to see her family's kids real time. Pretty awesome. Here are a few photos of how our house was decorated. DH was playing his own Halloween music "Recorded" and a strobe light flashing to add to the affect. He managed to scare a few little ones into not approaching our door. "EVIL GRIN"

Our wonderful "hosts" Munci & Phoebe even decided they would participate in this years spooktacular festivities by dressing up. You can see by the photo below they are to DIE for!

"TRICKED OUT TRUCK"

Today we took a quick ride to the local mall to wander around. We arrived at the mall and noticed a truck show was going on in one corner of the parking lot. It was mostly Hispanic owned "low-rider" vehicles with Hydraulics to raise and lower the car.
We came across this one and it was amazing. We thought we'd share it with you. The paint job on this truck was SMOKEN HOT!
DH wasn't impressed however that it was a Scion. Most of the trucks here were Scions???? Is there something I'm missing here???? We're not knocking the Scion because we've never personally driven one. I'm sure it has it's pros and cons like any vehicle, but a SCION?? C'mon! What happened to the old chebby's??? We guess this is a sub-culture here in the area. Still very impressive what they did with it......... (sigh!)

Pumpkins "BEWARE"

After the adventures of the swap meet and zoo, we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few essentials and couldn't resist buying pumpkins to carve for the up-coming holiday. Halloween is DH & DW's favorite holiday other than Christmas. This year we thought we could try our hand at carving pumpkins professional-like. We both thought that it couldn't be that hard. Little did we know.............

We had previously bought a "pumpkin carving kit" that included stencils to carve intricate designs. We gave it a go!!!!
Below is a photo of DW getting her hands full of the Orange guts of our newly slaughtered friends. "BOO" She looks like she is enjoying herself.

The photo below shows DH so focused he didn't even realize DW was taking a photo! The intricate designs made you take your time to ensure that each design would turn out perfectly. We had a great time "MASTERING" our pumpkin carving abilities.



After 2 hours of brow furrowing and little chatter between us, we ended up with the following designs.



The "Comedy-Tragedy" pumpkin is the work of DW. "NICE"
The "Pirate Ship" is the work of DH. "NICE"
We can't wait for Halloween to display our Artistic masterpieces for all the trick-or-treaters to see! DH & DW are still wondering how the hell we pulled that off? We are already searching for the next Pumpkin carving possibilities for next year. It was a blast!!

"WILDLIFE WORLD ZOO"

We went exploring today and found a swap meet in Goodyear, AZ. We walked around for a couple of hours looking at the things for sale. We didn't find anything we HAD to have so we called it a day there.
We were on our way home when DH punched in Local Attractions on the GPS unit and it pulled up a zoo. Of course we were only a few miles away and thought what the heck. Little did we know!!

More like "WILDLIFE WORLD POO"!
The price to get in was around $17.00 a person. We questioned spending that amount when DH noticed a small sign taped to the ticket office that read "Half Price Today Only". Well, we thought what the heck and started our "Poo", or we mean "Zoo" tour. The parking lot and the entire zoo walking area was dirt. It made for an interesting tour. We will try to be as nice as we can regarding this Zoo, but it had Bird poop on EVERYTHING! You had to be careful as you looked up at the animals because you never knew what bird was flying above you!
The first thing we ran across was a Duck Butt. "Duck Butts drive me Nuts" was a bumper sticker we had seen here in AZ. We HAD to get a photo. Too Funny!

DH laughed when he took the following picture and mentioned that this blog post was going to be about the birds and the bees of Poo, or ummmm, Zoo life. DH said that every time he goes to a Zoo, he seems to see things with the animals that just makes him question to visit another Zoo again.
Today was no exception. We happened across the Penguin exhibit and ahhhhh, YEP, penguin lovin'. They actually have penguins outside in AZ. We never would have thought.......... Aren't they cute little buggers? "Ya you betcha"! (Sorry for the bad Steve Irwin impression combined with "Minnesota slang".


We had to stop and say a quick hello to the family. Very typical reaction we received

The Zoo had a very nice display of local and non-local animals.
All of the buildings that we went into to view fish, snakes, bats etc all smelled a little "FUNKY"! With a little TLC this place could be a Gem in the desert. Below are a few more photos of the local inhabitants.

"Santa Ana winds Devastation"

We were rattled awake this morning @ (2:00 a.m.) by devastating winds. We looked out our upstairs window to the backyard below in total disbelief.
We ran downstairs and proceeded out our patio door and were just AMAZED at what was happening! The winds must have been blowing 60 miles an hour or better! You couldn't stand in one place without being jostled about by the wind.
Our backyard retreat was all but destroyed. We have experienced wind like this with a thunderstorm back home, but never with clear skies and no storms anywhere in the area. The street lights had an Erie effect to them because the dust was thick in the night air. It was totally bizarre!
The gazebo was destroyed, the patio chairs were tossed around like matchsticks and the glass patio table had been tipped over and pushed off the patio.
Here are some photos of what we awoke to this morning 8:00 a.m.

We have experienced some gusty winds here and thought to keep the gazebo from shifting, we had hung our 70 lb wind chime from the inside center hook. You can see it in the picture above. We've never heard the wind chime as loud as it was last night. Even after the gazebo tipped, the wind chime hung on!

The patio table had tipped even more but amazingly, the glass top did not break! The leg supports had completely come apart from the glass so the only thing keeping the table from breaking was the umbrella stand.

The winds were still blowing very hard this morning. Here is a photo showing Phoebe and Munci. You can see by the looks of them, it is windy!

Guess we have some clean-up to take care of this afternoon. It's a shame, we loved that gazebo.

Johnny Rockets

Well, this weekend we have relaxed.
Today (Sunday) we went to R.T. O'Sullivans for the Vikings/Bears game and met our friend Tony. He is a big Bears fan and of course DH & DW bleed purple and gold.
We placed a dollar wager on the game with Tony. It was pretty much a typical game with the Vikes until two minutes left; Tony signed his dollar and slid it our way. Pretty sure all of you know the rest of the story!!
Thank god we won, because we were surrounded by twelve Chicago (DIE HARD) fans wearing jerseys & it was quite the spectacle! Needless to say, the Vikes prevailed and we left with Tony's dollar. (Heeeeeee) : )
We proceeded to the mall for a look around & found a neat little place for dinner called "Johnny Rockets".

It's a west coast thing as far as we know. Coming from car and racing familys, we have always liked the old soda fountain places. We started with a basket of fries and onion rings and a couple of old fashioned strawberry malts and shakes.
We laughed hysterically when they served our basket with smiley faces of ketchup. Too funny!

White sitting waiting for our burgers, we noticed a sign that reads "sharri eats here" behind the counter and knew this would be a great meal! We know the spelling isn't quite right, but it made us think that Sheri and Dale WOULD like this place.

They were fast and prompt with our food and the burgers were excellent. They had 50's-60's music playing while we ate. It was fun. From the looks of the food waiting to go to the customers, you can tell the locals frequent the place.

We'll go back again to enjoy what it has to offer.
It was a great weekend and we miss you all.

***** FREE SNOW ****

Tonight we got home from work and DH was on a mission. A few things needed to be done "ELECTRONICALLY" paying bills, etc. He took care of everything in a flash & mentioned to DW that we haven't posted a blog in a while.
DH took the digital camera and proceeded to go through all the photos on there and ran across a few we had taken last winter in MN.
DH thought it would be funny to make a sign that read FREE SNOW and tape it on a post and shove it in one of the many piles of snow in what used to be our front yard. Now, someone else has to deal with that massive driveway!
Well tonight we looked at the WCCO.COM website from MN and noticed it had snowed in Bemidji. How fitting to post a few photos of SNOW and reflect on what (had we stayed in MN) we would have to look forward to in the coming months. Now, bare in mind, we are not posting this blog to offend anyone up nordth. Here are a few to remind you of whats up and coming.
"EVIL GRINS" : )

Tonight here in AZ was a beautiful evening to watch the sun set. Most nights are average for sunsets, but tonight was an exception. The colors seemed to jump out at you for some reason. Perhaps it's because the sun is setting differently than it did a few months ago as the fall season is setting in. It was incredible to see.

We started getting ready for the Halloween season by purchasing yet another blow-up creation that sets the holiday mood.

As most of you know, our friend Rodney purchased a blow-up Grinch which he skillfully placed in front of our house in MN on Thanksgiving night a few years back. We came home and we laughed hysterically. Well, it wasn't more than an hour after we were home when some vandals came and assassinated our Grinch. DH was quick and wise! He caught the hit men. With that said, we have had a fetish with blow up lawn decorations ever since!
"THANKS RODNEY"
It will be fun to see how the Grinch likes the desert oasis he will soon see.