Happy Halloween

.....and the rest of the weekend's activities.  Be prepared we were busy this past weekend.  Lots of pics.

Halloween 2011 - Rapunzel and Minecraft Creeper (it's a video game thing)

Saturday, the youth praise band, Reality 3:16 participated in "Battle of the Bands" to benefit Sheltering Wings.  The kids rocked it out and took 2nd place

Sunday evening was a costume party at the Bohrer's with EVERYONE participating.  Dusty was a little more than excited to go as one of his heroes....Walker, Texas Ranger!  Meanwhile, I tried to channel a bit of my inner rock star.  Complete with some blue hair.

We also squeezed in some pumpkin carving

Then today it was off for our yearly run through the subdivision.  Fueled by Papa Murphy's pizza the kids were ready to go.  We sent the big kids off and then trailed the little kids as they set out to get to as many houses in the shortest amount of time possible.

This year's motley crew included:  Darth Vader, Goth Girl, a whoopie cushion, a pioneer girl, firefighter, ninja, witch, minecraft creeper, Rapunzel, and a musketeer.

There was plenty of candy for all....and to all a good night!

Fall Break in St. Louis

We spent part of our fall break from school in St. Louis with friends.  We made a return visit to City Museum.  The kids had a blast climbing, sliding, and in general running wild. :)  The whole gang (although I just realized that Josiah was hiding behind someone)

Saturday morning was spent running around the St. Louis zoo

Superhero!

What to do when it's superhero night at Awana and your costume stash skews along the princess and ballerina lines?  Make your own costumes!

In this corner is Super Sparky!  She's a bible verse learning wonder.  Equipped with red super cape and matching mask she racks up Awana bucks with blazing speed!

And in this corner, Captain Colts!  Even if the team isn't faring too well, Captain Colts will continue to cheer on the boys in blue!  Down to her blue nail polish she's a fan - True Blue! :)

Buddy Walkin', drummin', and the "Best Day Ever!"

Saturday was a gorgeous day here in Indy.  We started off our day with the Indianapolis Buddy Walk.  This is our 3rd year at the walk with the Alli's Pals team.  We had a great time walking to support Down Syndrome Indiana and our #1 Pal, Allison Schmidt.

After the walk and lunch in the park we headed back up the canal to look at the newly dedicated Sept. 11th Memorial.  The memorial is a new addition to the canal walk with the centerpiece being 2 steel beams from the World Trade Center.

Next stop:  the NCAA Hall of Champions.  It's not a huge place, but it was a fun stop.  There was a small gym are where we shot some hoops.

They had displays and exhibits about all of the collegiate sports.  Aaron took on the machine that simulated skiing.

Then we headed downtown to the Rhythm Discovery Center.  This was right up Aaron's alley.  There were displays of drums and rhythm instruments from around the world.  Then there were a ton of instruments to play on.  We beat on all kinds of drums and played xylophones.  Aaron loved the drum set in the sound dampening room...and so did I!  We got there about an hour before closing and had the place to ourselves.

After that, we headed back to the parking garage through Circle Center Mall.  The 1st thing that hit us was the smell of Cinnabon and Auntie Anne's pretzels.  We split a pretzel 4 ways and made a pit stop at the Colts Pro shop where we found this.

Bonus!  Pressed penny machine. If you know our family, then you know that we never pass on of these machines without adding to our collection.  We finished up the day some Chick-fil-a.

Rachel declared it the "Best Day Ever!"  She has the tendency to do that with any fun family day, but at any rate it was a fun day! :)

Weekend in Review

Tons of stuff going on this weekend:  parade, relatives, parties, church, photos, cake, fun!  We started off the weekend by going to the Brownsburg homecoming parade.  Rachel and I check out the candy haul.

A meager stash, but a lot of fun.  We didn't go to the game, but B'burg crushed the opponents 61-6!  Instead we thought a pizza sounded great.  We headed to So Italian....no seating.  Off to Sal's....a 30 min. wait.  Over to Pizza Hut...no seats and 3 people waiting for a worker to tell them how long of a wait!!!  Off to Avon;  ended up at Randelli's finally with a pizza!

Mom and Dad got here Friday evening.  Put Dad to work putting up a new ceiling fan in Aaron's room.  Took Mom to the kitchen and started working on angel food cake!  Saturday was Aaron's 14th birthday.  More relatives were headed in.  Lots of fun with cousins ensued.

 

Aaron with one of his more fitting gifts! :)

Then there was some of this type of silliness

...and this man is a school superintendent!!  Around here he's just silly Uncle Joel!

Sunday morning was a great time at church and then off to the park in the afternoon for some family photos.  Can't get too many of Carson, my little cutie of a nephew.

Finally ready for some relaxation this evening, when this was discovered...

Which led to this...

Have a great week....I'm off to Big O Tire in the morning! :(

Carmina Burana, Polka, & Picasso

What do these things have in common?  I experienced them all on Friday with my mom.  Dad spent last week in Iowa with disaster relief, so Mom decided to come for a visit.  We decided to take in some activities that Dad would have vetoed if he had been here. 

We started off with a trip to the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  For the evening we had tickets to the Indianapolis Symphony performing Carmina Burana.  We stopped by Au Bon Pain for dinner and ate outside on Monument Circle. 

Just down the street from us was a choir performing praise and worship songs.  However the other side of Monument Circle was hosting Oktoberfest.  Eventually the polka music kicked up and unfortunately drowned out the choir.

We also had a little beggar join us while we ate.  And we happily obliged.

Then off to the Hilbert Circle Theater for the symphony.  This was the 2nd performance under the new music director at the ISO, Kryzstof Urbanski.  The first half of the performance was 2 pieces just for strings.  After the intermission the full orchestra backed by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and the Indianpolis Childrens Choir performed Carmina Burana.  The most impressive thing to me was the fact that Urbanski conducted not only the orchestra but the choir for the entire performance without any music in front of him.  For close to an hour he conducted perfectly.  The performance even had some elements of humor to it.  I throughly enjoyed it and I know Mom had a great time for her 1st trip to the symphony.

The only photo I could grab....right at the conclusion of the performance.   The standing ovation went on and on! :)

Mabel the House Fairy

Mabel the house fairy decided to make a house call today.  On the docket for this day was the Bohrer home where 6 fabulous people live.  Mabel arrived at the Bohrer's to much confusion.  The kids were not sure why this person who greatly resembled Miss Heidi was in their living room wearing silver high heels, a blue metallic cape, name badge, pink scarf, black bandanna, and more blue eyeshadow than should be allowed by law!  Also they were not sure why Mabel spoke with an accent that was a cross between Martin Short's character, Franck, from "Father of the Bride" and Mr. Miyagi!

House fairies should always carry proper credentials.  Also Mabel the house fairy is not to be confused with Wilma the Cleaning Fairy.  Wilma is OCD about clean and somewhat annoying.  Mabel is more concerned with the entire state of the house and those who live there...an unmade bed doesn't cause her to twitch like it does Wilma.  :)

Mabel spent some time in each kid's room asking them how they felt about it and what they liked most about their room.  Together Mabel and each kid came up with a plan of one goal to work on for the next week.  Remember Mabel is not there to make anyone feel ashamed, but to encourage!  Mabel wrote each goal on a card and topped it off with a bible verse for each kid.

Mabel also addressed some issues that the adults in the household had and gave some sound advice.  (Although she's sure that one of the adults is in severe denial about a particular clothing issue!) 

 So be ready!  You never know when you might get a visit from Mabel!