Trick or Treat at The Ridges

Boy we are Hallowen'ed out. We have been doing Halloween parties since last Saturday. Here are some pictures from Trick or Treating with Isaac and Lexy in our neighborhood, The Ridges.

Isaac was dressed as GoKu from Dragon Ball Z Kai. Lexy is a Fairy Princess. They sure had fun with their friends Trick or Treating.

All in all we went to 5 Halloween parties, 2 neighborhoods to Trick or Treat, and one Trunk or Treat event. This is what it is about. I hope that the kids ha buit some great memories.

Cookies

We are up to 3 batches of Sugar Cookies for Halloween this year.

We sure had fun making faces on them.

Fourteen Mile Waterline

I guess that I made the news...

That is me in the blue shirt off to the side when the Senator is speaking toward the beginning of the clip, about 10 seconds in.


http://wowktv.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=88358

It's kind of funny how the numbers are not quite right in the story. There were 229 homes that got water (new meters), even at 3 people per house that is just shy of 700. There were only 35 fire hydrants that were paid for, that included about 20 that were replace on a different leg of the project. Funny stuff. It sure is nice for those folks that have never had 'city' water at their house.
Now... on to the next project. We have one in the works that feeds off of this project and serves another 150 homes.

Sugar Cookies

We made some sugar cookies over the weekend. H A double L O double U double E N cookies are a must have. We have a new set of cookie cutters with 3 different pumpkins, a ghost, a witch's hat, and a bat. Lexy helped me mix them up, roll them out, cut, and bake them. One batch makes about 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

I whipped up some frosting, made several different colors and let her go. She frosted cookies for nearly an hour by herself.

Isaac has some fun frosting them as well, I just don't have a picture of it. We will be making more, I have a batch in the fridge ready to roll out.


Sugar Cookies

1 C Butter
2 C Sugar
2 Eggs
1 t Vanilla
1 C Sour Cream
5 C Flour (I use a little more to keep it from sticking when rolled out)
1/2 t Baking Soda
4 t Baking Power
1/2 t Salt

Mix the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and sour cream and mix into a smooth mixture. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda, baking power, and salt. Gradually stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Chill the dough overnight or for several hours. Roll out the dough on a cool, floured surface. Cut into desired shapes and bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for 12 minutes at 375 deg.

Halloween Phantom Ghost

The Phantom Ghost hit our house on Friday night. This is a fun tradition that has been going around. We did it in St. George and people in our neighborhood here do it as well. Except, the Phantom here goes WAY overboard. There must have been $50 worth of stuff in 2 buckets. Candy, chocolate, cookies, candles, pencils, glow sticks, Fabreeze, a picture frame, etc.

Somebody in our neighborhood has gone overboard, and the whole neighborhood got hit in the same night. So, we took it on the road. We hit up some of the kid's friends that don't live by us and some people from our church. Isaac and Lexy had SOOOOO much fun sneaking up to the door step with a bucket and letter, pounding on the door, and running close to the speed of sound back to the car where I dump the clutch and we pealed out of there. We then would quietly pass back by to watch them on the steps wondering were it came from. Isaac and Lexy would laugh so hard, they were on top of the world. It is a great game.

Here is a link to a great version of the letter. Enjoy.

Finally Some Uploaded Video

I finaly was able to upload Lexy's video from the Pittsburgh Figure Skating Club. She competed in the Basic 7 Program. She got 1st place.

Virginia 'Blackberry' Pudding

The other day we made the Virginia Apple Pudding that my parents used to make all the time. I remember eating it with apples and blueberries. I had some blackberries that we thawed out from when Trisha, the kids and I picked them this summer. I didn't want them to go bad, so I put them in the Virginia Apple Pudding. Pretty darn good. Looks good too.

Isaac and I really enjoyed it with a little bit of spray on whipped cream.

Amanda: Thanks for the berries...!!!

If you want to try it...

VIRGINIA APPLE PUDDING

½ Cup Butter 1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Sugar 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 Cup Milk ½ Teaspoon Salt
2 Cup Fruit ¼ Teaspoon Cinnamon or Nutmeg

Melt butter in pan or 2 quart casserole. Combine dry ingredients and add butter and milk. Blend well. Pour batter into 2 qt casserole dish. Drain fruit, if canned. Pile in center of batter. Bake at 375 degree oven about 40 minutes or until batter covers fruit and crust browns. Serve warm. Add ¼ cup flour if using peaches or for high altitude.

Kids Reading

The kids got in to reading this last weekend. Both of them had books that they were enjoying. It was soooo nice to have them want to read in the car instead of wanting to play video games, watch movies, or just fight with each other. It makes driving much nicer.

Lexy was enjoying a Junie B Jones book.

Isaac read 7 chapters of Where the Red Fern Grows over the weekend.

Lexy Lost Her Tooth!

Lexy lost another tooth today. The one in the lower front. She has been playing with it for the last week and a half or so. Today it gave out. We think that she might have swallowed it in a bite of apple. :( I hope that the tooth fairy takes notes.

Misc Hockey Update

Isaac's hockey team started practice the first of the month. He practices on Tuesdays 6:15-7:30 and Wednesdays 7:45 - 9:00. I know Wednesday that is LATE... He loves it. He is learning when and were to be on the ice for the different positions. He is learning how much better it is to be the first or second in line instead of at the end of the line. I think he is starting to see how the coaches pay more attention to you when to are working hard on the drills. This has been a good experience so far. I hope the we can hold up through the season.

Here he is on the ice during practice. He is sporting his early, early birthday present, a Kris Letang (#58) jersey. He loves that jersey.

We got the preliminary schedule this last week. Isaac's team is in a league from Cincinnati. He has 7 home games and 7 road games at a minimum. Their first game is November 27 here in So Charleston. The November calender is here. You can select the months along the top to see the rest of the current schedule. There will be some changes and some additions. We will go to Morgantown and Wheeling and they will come here to play. That is four more games. I am excited to see how it all goes.

If you have been around hockey at all you know that the gear STINKS... No really, all the sweat, all the pads covering up the body... It stinks. One way to combat the smell is to have the equipment dry quickly. So, I built a drying rack for Isaac's gear.
A chunk of 2x6, a couple of 1" dowels, a 4" PVC cap, and a coat hook or two. This one is a bit of a prototype. I need to adjust a few thinks. But it works, it does the job, and I only spent about an hour total building it.

Here is a picture of it loaded up. If you look close to the right there on the couch you can see his early, early birthday present.

I am trying to get ustream.com figured out. I am going to try to broadcast a few of Isaac's games. I will post an address when it get it figured out and working. I did get a really, really bad video of myself to broadcast directly from Amy's Droid X the other night. But I need better quality for the hockey games.

Cool Corvette at the Rod Run

This ride was cool to see. Especially after our trip this summer. It's a 2003 Corvette that has be outfitted with a front end and rear end to look like a 1953 Corvette. Kind of a 50th Anniversary Edition. Check out the license plate.
They even had a cool little logo on the side of the car.

New River Gorge Trip - Again

On Sunday afternoon we drove up through Fayetteville, Beckley, and on to Grandview to show Amy's parents the New River Gorge. It is a pretty cool place. We had hopped that the leaves would be in full fall colors, but they were not quite there. There were some pretty spots, but it wasn't as colorful as last year.

This is a picture of us all at the overlook at Grandview. This is most of the crew just coming out of the caves on the cave hike at Grandview.

Isaac and Rickey decided that they wanted to act like Mountain Goats. Amy was screaming at them both the whole time. She wanted them to, "GET DOWN FROM THERE!!!"
This was kind of a cool shot of Rickey looking at the leaves.On the way back through Beckley we stopped at the Tamarack. It is a big 'Made in West Virginia' consignment shop. A little bit of everything, kind of artsy. But it is fun to browse. It was just getting dark as we were leaving. If you look close you can see the moon in the center of the picture.

Charleston Rod Run and Doo Wop - 2010

We slipped down to the Charleston Rod Run and Doo Wop again this year. It was a bit bigger this year that last. We included some different folks, Myself, Isaac, Lexy, David, Kristen, Lucy, and Peter. Three families represented there. If you know your downtown Charleston. We parked near the Holiday Inn and walk up river past the Downtown Bridge to the start of the show. Then we walk down to Magic Island to the end of the show. And back.

Here are Lexy, Isaac, and David in front of a cool bus. Here are Lexy and Lucy enjoying the wooden car. Turns out it belongs to some folks that go to our church. It used to be a Plymouth van.

Lexy found a PINK Camero, she was hanging around it practically drooling on it and the nice lady that owned it said, "Come here little one. I won't do this for just anybody, but I can tell that you love pink." She let Lexy sit in the driver's seat for a while. Fun, fun.

This year the hearse section had a spook alley by it. They had some pretty crazy ghouls hanging around.
Isaac found the rock climbing wall and waited his turn for a climb. He is getting good at them. He got up there pretty quick.We sure had a good time, hope everyone that came with us did too. See ya there next year.

Skate the Rust Off

Isaac got to skate in the 'Skate the Rust Off Camp' at the SCMIA over the weekend. It ran 7-9pm Friday, 7-9pm Saturday, and 9-noon Sunday. Boy was he tired. Seven hours of hockey over the weekend, especially that late at night and back in the morning will make both boy and parents tired. Isaac is in the white jersey with the blue and red stripe at the waist and wrists.

He got a lot of time on the ice. Most of the time there were no breaks, just a few, "Go get a drink of water!" For nearly 1.5 hours on Sunday morning they played 2 on 2 on one side of the ice. It was boys Isaac's age, but smaller. Tired, tired, tired...

This is a quick picture of that last huddle of the camp.

New Skates

Lexy got new skates for her birthday last month. We were in Utah when we gave her a paper that showed her what they looked like. When we got back to West Virginia they were at the house waiting for her. Then they had to be sharpened and it's not good to switch skates right before competition. So, we took the skates to the rink to be sharpened 2 days after we got back. Two weeks later she got to try them out... She was a bit shakey at first and said that stopping was "scary", Ms Mischa was there and looked them over. She told Lexy that freash sharpened skates should be scary to stop on. About 20 minutes into the new skates she was good to go and back in the groove. She even wore them for Syncro this week.

The new skates are Riedell 133 TS (J33 TS). They sould be great skates for the next year or so, the boot is a bit stiffer that her last skates and there is a bunch more padding on these new ones.
Here is a camara-phone picture of Lexy trying out her new skates. It's kinda dark and hard to see but that is a great big smile on her face.

Isaac and a HOT Car

On Saturday we were driving near Alum Creek on Corridor G and a Ferrari drove by... and Isaac wasn't with us.... Aagghhh!!!A little later, we drove back to the ice rink to pick up Isaac and the Ferrari was parked and the Range Rover dealership. Amy and I had a short discussion about what type of car it was. She was pretty sure that it was a Mazda... I said, "Well if it is a Mazda some one has put a yellow sticker on the front fender to make it look like a Ferrari."

We drove over to the dealership after we had Isaac in the car, and sure enough it was a Ferrari California, right there in the South Hills area of Charleston.

This HOT little car has a 4.3L V8 front mid mounted engine that puts 450 Hp to the rear wheels. They claim that it can do 0-60 mph in under 4 seconds.

MSRP $192,000. Isaac sure has expensive taste in cars. ;)

Huntington VA Hospital

Amy started at a new hospital this morning. She is working at the Huntington VA Hospital now. We drove over there Sunday afternoon to find the hospital, parking areas, the OR, etc.

It was very different that the other hospitals that she has worked in. It looks a lot like a college campus. Brick buildings with nice architecture. It was also very cool to see the American Flags that line the big driveway up the hill.

Wish her luck... 9 months to go...!!