Hurricane Sandy in West Virginia

So, with Hurricane Sandy bearing down on the east coast and threatening the inland areas as well, we made sure to have a few extra provisions in place.  All went well at our house.  Just some snow...  But about the third deepest snow storm we've seen in 3 winters here.

We didn't lose power... Didn't lose water...  Didn't lose internet...  Didn't lose TV... Just lost a day of work...  

The kids LOVE the fact the school is out.  Tuesday because of snow and Wednesday because of "wide spread power outages"... There are folks that I work with that lost power, still don't have it.  Friends from church without, school friends, even our old community were we used to live is out.  But not us... Pretty stinkin' lucky...

It rained all day on Sunday and Monday... Turned to snow at about 2am Tuesday (so I read), I was up at 5:30am and there was about 1.5 inches... The school called and put classes on a 2 hour delay, by 8am there was 4-5 inches and school was canceled.  It snowed until about 5pm when it turned to rain.  It rained on the snow most of the night and there is little of it left.  But we took advantage of it while it was here.  Word has it that just an hour to the south and 2,000 elevation in Beckley, WV they got 27 inches.  We didn't get any of the wind that was anticipated either.

This is my "Hurricane weather at our house" picture.

A little snow on the vehicles.

Here's a picture of Isaac and Lexy riding out the storm.  With no school they needed to find something worth while to do. ;)

Here's Lexy all bundled up in her snow playing close.  With two coats on she couldn't zip up the second one. Ha.

Isaac, always the dare devil, was looking at jumping from the railing to the snowy hill below.  About 4 feet below his feet.  What fun.

Here's Lexy later in the day dressed in FASHION cold weather clothes.

She is all about style and fashion these days.

Jack-O-Lanterns 2012

Here are the Jack-O-Lanterns that we carved at our house.

Lexy wanted a kitty cat...

Isaac wanted to carve the ol' Jack Skeleton, a standby tradition at our house.  I was super proud of him, he carved nearly all of it himself.

I tried some different stuff this year and was quite happy with the outcome. 

Here's a family of Jack-O-Lanterns.

I kind of like this one unlit too...

Carving Pumpkins

We did the fun version of gathering pumpkins and went to Capitol Street Market to pick them out.  Not quite as fun as going to the pumpkin patch, but much better that the grocery store.  Isaac was after a big one, Lexy was after a cute one, and they made me get one too.

Lexy and her gourd.

Isaac gutting his gourd.

Lexy was scooping out as much as she could but still wanted to have gloves.

Isaac was all about no gloves, just reach in a grab a hand full.

Lexy and her kitty pumpkin.

Honeybees Fall 2012

The South Hills Soccer Club season is over.  The Honeybees did great again.  They learned a lot about spreading out, passing the ball, being in position, etc.  We had goalies for the first time this season.  That was a treat to let them learn how to play with their hands and not just kick the ball like another player.

We didn't do pictures this season, but one of the moms wanted a group picture at the last game.

We were only short one player.

Good season Honeybees...!!!

Haunted Corn Maze

Isaac has been itching to go to a haunted house this year.  We almost went to the Haunted Barn in Charleston last weekend, but the boys chickened out...  This weekend he and his buddy Timmy W made the plans and after soccer practice on Friday we drove over to Milton to the Haunted Corn Maze.  We got there just before they opened, but the line was still 2 hours long.

So Lexy and I sat by the fire.  She read her book and I watched people.  She's always looking cute.

I kind of like this picture that I took of the fire.

Lexy got too tired and fell asleep on the bench by the fire.  She had a good little nap resting her head on her book.

So after two hours of standing in line the boys made it into the corn maze.  Lots of screaming, banging, and motors running.  After about 20 mins, out they came.  Isaac came running out the the maze with a masked chainsaw man chasing him.  He ran all the way up the line of people waiting to go in and back down to the exit of the maze with the guy chasing him.

Isaac contends that he was putting on a show for the crowd.  I'm 50/50 on that, Timmy doesn't believe him at all.  Either way it was a good show.

Isaac was more that happy to have his picture taken with the guy afterward.  In fact that is a pretty darn nice big smile on his face.

Evening well spent.

Pre-Halloween Parties

It seems that the Halloween parties are great chances to fine tune your costume before the Trick-or-Treat events.  Lexy had two parties this last weekend.  Luck for us they were on the same day.  Lexy is a black cat this year.  Look how cute she is...!!!

One of the parties was her BFF's birthday party.  Madeline was was a Twitch (Teen Age Witch) and Lexy was her Black Cat.  Fun, fun for both of them.

I sure like the close up face shots.

The other party was at Lexy's school.  It's a big event there each year.  The have started having a spook alley in one of the buildings at the school each year.  This is the second year that Isaac has 'worked' in the spook alley.  I am pretty sure that 50% of the goblins and spooks were 6th grade boys that used to goto the school.  Anyway, this is a picture of Lexy waiting in line with her friends from her class to get into the spook alley.

The fun part of this picture for me is that they are all named Lexy (with its various spellings) and all in the same 4th grade class.  How fun for the teacher, right...??

Soccer Winding Down

Fall soccer season is about over.  Just one more weekend of games.  Lexy might do an indoor league for a few month too, but we'll see.

As I was putting cat makeup on Lexy for a Halloween party, Isaac wanted to have his face painted for his soccer game.  This is the result.

The poor kid can't have #75 as the soccer uniforms are pre-printed and no one has a choice.  This fall season he has played for the Mustangs.  He got to be a team captain for the game and as the ref asked the team name at the coin flip Isaac turned his head and said, "It's right here."

Sad Concert...

I'm pretty bummed...

We drove to Morgantown, WV last night to see Mountain Stage featuring Brandi Carlile (She is one of my favorites)...  Nope, she was sick.  There really wasn't a way to find out until we were there.  I am sad that we didn't get to see her.  I saw her 9 years ago in Seattle at Pioneer Square and wanted the kids to get that chance to see her live as well.  I guess that we'll have to try again another day...

This a sample of what we missed...

On an up note, we did get to eat at Texas Road House while we were in Morgantown, YEP...

Mid October Random

So again with the random happenings from the Walbeck house...

Isaac got a new morph suit.  This one is red.  In fact he wore it to school for Spirit Day.  He sure enjoys goofing with them.

Lexy has her Halloween costume ready to go.  We just need to get her makeup together.  She makes a pretty cute Black Cat...

Isaac wore this to school for Super Hero Day.  We found him a little kid's cape to wear that only went half way down his back.  This shirt is one that he wears from time to time.  Nothing special. :)

Butch lined up some more college hockey games at our ice rink. The first was WVU vs Ohio University.  What fun, what fun.  We had a blast.  We ended up sitting with his soccer buddy Jack (who is a huge Pens fan).  They had a blast even though the 'home team' lost 3-5 to OU.

Charleston Rod Run and Doo Wop 2012

We never miss this one.  The Charleston Rod Run and Doo Wop is one of the best events that Charleston puts on.  Someone said that there were 1,000 cars entered this year.  Isaac always loves to go look at the cars. He was pretty excited to find this DeLorean this year.

And there was finally a Ferrari this year.  It was a little older 1996, but fun just the same.

The guys with the Ferrari were super nice.  They let the kids sit in it for pictures.

  Even Lexy got in the game.

Napa Auto Parts had a big booth, in the booth was a giant folding lawn chair.  The kids had a bunch of fun sitting in it.  Isaac's buddy, Trent D, from last year's soccer and school this year spent the evening with us.

Lexy was about to have a nap in the chair.  It was the size of a hammock for her.

One of the other highlights for us now is the Rick K and The All Nighters band that plays.  They are SOOO fun.  They have a drummer that is off the hook.  Defiantly worth a few minutes of internet video watching.

Pittsburgh Pirates Game

With the NHL locked out there was no Pittsburgh Penguins game to keep our tradition of attending when Lexy skated the Pittsburgh Competition.  So, we made it to a Pirates game.  It was a blast.  We bought tickets after the game had just started, but still got amazing seats.  We were just beyond first base.  Both kids had a blast.  The Pirates even won with a bottom of the ninth homer.  The beat the Cincinnati Reds.  Isaac found out, via Instagram, that one of his class mates was at the game as well.

There was a concert and fireworks after the game.  They know how to put on a show.  There were fireworks inside the stadium, outside the stadium on a bridge, off a barge in the river, and off the roof tops of buildings down town.  Amazing....!!

I kind of like this picture of the fireworks on the bridge.

Pittsburgh Skating Competetion

Lexy skated in the Pittsburgh Figure Skating Club Competition. She skated in both the program and the interpretative. She didn't score well in either one, but she did skate beautifully. Here is the video of her program.

 

I got a few still shots of her in action as well.

Her Teeth are Falling Out

Lexy lost a tooth.  One on the bottom.  She has been messing with that loose tooth for like two months.  It was great for her to have it fall out finally.

Early October Random

Boy have I sucked at blogging lately.  I guess I've been kind of busy or something.  Just as an update, school is in full swing for both kids, soccer has two weeks of games left, hockey just started, syncho has another month to go, piano lessons are going well, etc...

Isaac wanted to make some pumpkin cookies the other day.  So, we busted out the simple recipe that we have, he mixed them up, we baked them and then.... We ATE them..!!  Yummy, great idea Isaac.

Lexy and I seem to battle over her hair every week now.  She wants to not do anything with her hair.  I want to make cute hair do's.  One night I talked her into a bangs french braid.  I was pretty proud of myself.  It was super cute.

 Isaac got a recipe to make home made play dough from a teacher at school.  He has really enjoyed playing with it around the house.  I have to admit, I was not too thrilled when I came home to find it stuck to the wall like this.  But, it did come off without a hitch.