Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!

My husband had a conference at Coronado Springs Resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando. We decided to take a few extra days after his conference to enjoy the Disney parks!

We planned a little bit in advance so we could attend the ever so popular, "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party" at Magic Kingdom. It was AWESOME!
The entire park is decorated for Halloween!

Mickey 'grew' some really HUGE special pumpkins for Fall!

They put on a special fire works display and there's a special Halloween parade as well. There are trick-or-treat stations all over the park and they gave us FISTS full of candy at each station. The girls were in AWE the entire evening! We loved that the characters also donned their favourite Halloween costumes and took part in the festivities!
Here's Mickey dressed up as a scarecrow!

And Minnie as a Sorceress!

This creepy guy was on the steamboat..... Needless to say, my girls were NOT amused!

The Halloween Parade was soooo fun! They had the villians, the haunted mansion and other creepy characters all represented! The best part was the start of the parade with the headless horseman riding down the street! It gave me goosebumps!!I wish I got a picture of him.. but he rode through soooo fast that by the time I got my camera out he was long gone.
It was an awesome night of spooktacular fun!

Scrapdragon!

My dear friend, Laura and I decided back in July to start our own challenge blog! We've been up and running since August 1st, running contests every 2 weeks with some FABULOUS sponsors awarding some wicked-awesome prizes!! Go check out our latest contest! You'll want to enter... the prize is yummy, yummy, yummy!!!

Turtle Back Zoo!

What a fun zoo! We'd never been there before though it's only 40 minutes from us! When I was a kid my parents would never want to go there because it was a run down, icky place. That was BEFORE the state bought it from the owner I guess. Now it's a County Zoological Park and it's undergone LOTS of renovations and upgrades! The zoo is mostly made up of local NJ wildlife. Bears, deer, cougars, porcupines, ground hogs and some farm animals, lots of birds of prey and local reptiles and such. They also have a few llamas and penguins and a assorted foreign animals but not many.
It's a nice place to spend a few hours of the day.

The highlight of the visit for the girls was the pony rides!!

A great day!!

October!

*Sigh* alas... it's here. OCTOBER! My favourite month of the year. I love the bright blue October skies, the warm days and crisp nights and the onset of LOW HUMIDITY again!! YES!! It's true.... NJ does have a few months of LOW humidity! (Believe it, it's true! I promise!!)








What I love most about October is the temperatures, the position of the sun and, of course PUMPKINS! I LOVE PUMPKINS! I decorate like mad around here. It's SO MUCH FUN and my whole family gets into it as well. We have the absolute BEST 'dressed' house for Halloween!! I will upload photos when we're done. It's a month long process ;)

I can't believe how fast September went by... I still can't believe it's October 1st!!

FINALLY!

Our Patio is FINISHED!
YAY! Jason finished the patio! Yeah.... it's a little late in the season but it's sooooo gorgeous and we've still got a lot of warm days and nights ahead. No matter how many photos I have taken, I can't seem to get a good one that shows the whole thing at a decent angle.
Here's Ellie coming down the steps on the side of the patio. There's a nice walkway that goes to the driveway that starts at the bottom of the steps.
I LOVE the lights that he built into the steps. There are 3 sets of steps. One set here where Ellie is heading, the one behind her that takes you into the house and then on the right in the front of the patio (facing the back yard) is the 3rd set. All have built in lighting with a timer. They go on at 5PM and off at 11PM. They give such a gorgeous glow and it's really so cozy to sit out under the night sky.
I'm just SOOOO glad it's done! We've been waiting for 6 months!!

It's a 1944 Willy's MB

And there she is in all her glory! We purchased this beauty from a WW2 veteran who just wasn't able to drive her as often anymore. He didn't want the jeep to fall to neglect. We found out about it from a mutual acquaintance before he even listed it for sale!
We've done some research on the jeep and have found that it served in France during WW2. We don't know any details of who had it or who it drove around. We're still digging for more info. Often the information like that is lost, never to be found.
So now we have the Wc54 1942 Ambulance and the 1944 Willys MB. The next vehicle we would like to purchase is a Staff Car! Every day we get a little closer to getting the museum organized, ready to get into a building and on display! It's a lot of work to organize and catalog everything but will be soooooo worth it in the long run!

I've been scrappin' a little...........

Did this one for Scrapbooking Moments in Time . I'm currently a Design Team member there and enjoying SOOOO MUCH each kit I've gotten! There's SO MUCH stuff in the kits that you can do several pages along with cards and altered items as well! In this kit I received S.E.I. papers and decided to take on a Halloween Feel. (The embellishments are Prima and My Minds Eye)

(Mackie age 21 months - Oct 2003!!)

This little thing is an altered Rolodex Card. What a fun way to dress up the mundane Rolodex! The information of the person pictured on the front (in this case, it's me! ) is on the back side of the card. Again, I used all S.E.I. papers for this with an Iron-on transfer ( white vine on my photo). The flowers are by Prima.

Claws N Paws Animal Park

Last week we had a great opportunity to visit Claws N Paws animal park in Pennsylvania! It was a 2.5 hour drive but was well worth it. It's a smallish zoological park with a lot of wonderful animals. Most of the animals are rescue animals that could not be rehabilitated and released back into the wild.

This is the only zoological park we've ever been to where the zookeepers host feeding time and the public actually gets to FEED a GIRAFFE! (Ignore the "DO NOT FEED" sign. That's there for when the zookeeper isn't present) Look at the TONGUE on this guy!!!

Mackie posing on an alligator sculpture

Look at this cute, cute little ape named Siam. She was so friendly and curious. She's 12 months old and was part of the zookeeper's lecture series. We were in the 1st row so we got up close to the animals.

Camel..oh so funny!!

Ellie became 'best friends' with this goat...

And this one....!!
Mackie and Ellie 'hatching' from dinosaur eggs!
Totally cute tortoises!
The park is mostly shaded which made for a VERY nice walking experience. We all know how it is in August in this area....HOT HOT HOT and HUMID! The shade made for a comfortable day!

Insectropolis

Both of my girls LOVE BUGS! I decided to do a search on-line for a bug museum and there just happens to be one about an hour and 1/2 from us. We put the girls in the car and headed south to:

INSECTROPOLIS!

What a great place for that bug-lover in your life! It's full of displays of real and well, not so real anymore, bugs! Everything is displayed so perfectly. The girls had a blast playing in the ant tunnel!

There were a few art-inspiring moments......... I found these displays of colorful butterflies. I'm sure I'll find a way to incorporate these photos into scrapbooking art!!

Yes.. these ARE alive and yes they are really HOLDING them. *Gasp*!!!

Mackie and the giant Millipede.

Ellie and the Hissing Cockroach

Mackie with a 'walking stick' on her elbow

Ellie holding a tarantula.

The girls loved interacting with these live critters. I was very happy to be occupied with a camera so I didn't 'get a chance' to hold one. Hahahah!!!

Scrapdragons Challenge #3 ~ "Mix It Up!"

I am excited to announce that Scrapdragons has just posted Challenge #3!!
Be sure to check it out so you have a shot at the really awesome prize!!

A Visit to the Aquarium

Summer has been a whirlwind of activities. I haven't had even a chance to blog about even 1/2 of them! I need to catch up!! Back on August 6th, we took a trip to the NJ State Aquarium.

We love this place. It's full of lots of exibits and there are a lot of interactive things here as well.

The girls had a blast in the 'touch pools'. The water is FREEZING cold. They were able to touch starfish, shrimp and a few other critters. Ellie wanted, sooo badly, to pick up the starfish and give them a kiss. I was cracking up!!

Below we see Mackie here with her frozen hands in the touch pool.

I caught a rare moment of Sisterly Love here on film!

Ahh.. the giftshop. Of course, the girls wanted one of each thing they saw! This is just silliness!

Everyone needs an octopus to wear on their head, right??

Yeah.. there's this plexiglass TUNNEL that you walk through to get from one part of the aquarium to the next. You walk in and you're being transported under the sea. Imagine this thing coming at you as you scuba dive..........
NO THANK YOU!!

Overall it was a great day. A little crowded but a great day just the same!!!

Send in the Marines!!

We went to the Trenton/Mercer Airport to see a WW2 Bomber Display. They had 3 gorgeous planes that we were able to view and tour. Alongside the planes was a small display of military vehicles. There were 2 WW2 Era Jeeps, our WW2 Dodge Ambulance and a modern Marine Corp Truck, complete with it's crew.

It was a gorgeous day, the high reaching only about 75 degrees! I loved seeing the planes and reading the poster boards about them and their crews and missions during WW2. The planes look so big and bulky that you can hardly imagine them being graceful and stealthy!
What I love most about the planes is their nose art. Some of them have some really detailed artwork on them. This one is one of my favorites. It doesn't have all that much artwork on it but it lists the names of all the crew who ever worked with this particular plane. It's amazing that so many people are connected with just this one plane.

The names cover almost the entire side of the aircraft. Here you can see only a small area. It's amazing!
After the display closed at 5PM they sold rides on the bombers. The money goes to the upkeep and fuel for these flying fortresses. It's a pretty penny for a flight at $425.00 for just 30 minutes! Most of those who flew that day were Vets who had actually been crew members on a B17, B25 or B24 Bombers during WW2.
For my girls, the highlight of the day was hangin' with the Marines. We were set up next to their huge truck and the girls befriended one Marine in particular. PFC Wolf. He was fantastic with the girls, showing them the truck and equipment. He was so nice to them that they just wanted to hug him all day long! Thanks PFC Wolf!

My friend recently posted this on a scrapbooking site we are on together. I wanted to give it a little more exposure so I decided to post it here in my blog.
Thanks for your support!
~Gabi

My mother is terminally ill with congestive heart failure, copd, and emphasema

and is on oxygen 24/7. My mother lives in MN and I am in WV. I am not able to give her the support that she needs due to how far apart we live. My mom's birthday is August 25th. I wonder if anyone is interested and has the time, could make my mother a birthday card and send to her with well wishes.
This would be so uplifting for her during this very hard time.
She also spends 5 days a week alone because her husband is in construction and is gone the whole week. I've seen other communities doing this for others and I think this would be so wonderful.

Many thanks and hugs,
Denise

If you are interested I'd be very happy to give you my moms mailing

address, please email me - emersyn_mom@yahoo.com
thank you!