Potwin Halloween

A week before Halloween, our neighbor Tom decided to replace all of his landscape lights with ORANGE glow light bulbs.  Holy Moly ... night time around here has been really ORANGE.

Tommy donned some shades to protect himself.

The neighborhood party was kid-happy.  There were tons of kids ...

playing fun games like donut-dangle.

Halloween night was amazing.  Beautiful weather brought out record numbers of kids.  According to Tom (who counts by the candy bags) we had over 2,100 Trick or Treaters.   There were some really fun kids ...

and some fun grown-ups too.

Happy Halloween 2011.  Hope yours was Happy.

Hope is here!

Today is Hope Elizabeth Crow's birthday!  

6 pounds, 1 once ... not counting the cool hat.

Mother and daughter are doing fine.

Congratulations Andy, Donna and Anthony.

Surprise in Menlo Park

Displaying excellent organizational skills, Jake was able to orchestrate a fun and colorful surprise Birthday Party for Samantha.   With Mayumi as an accomplice, the party was a great success.  Below is the aftermath of "SURPRISE" after Samantha walked into her apartment.

There were balloons ....

lots of fun party-goers ...

pizza, Choco-Tacos, a beautiful dessert by Ryo ...

and lots of smiles.

The next day Jake gave us the Zillabyte presentation ...

and we got to see where Samantha hangs.

Throw in some fun times with Beth, a yummy milk shake from the Palo Alto Creamery and my own Zillabyte t-shirt

and you've got a Zilla-teriffic 48 hours.

Thanks, Jake for including us in all the fun.  

Happy (early) Birthday Samantha.

SRQ visit, Hope Shower, Sailing into the sunset

After attending Robin's wedding in Washington DC, SRQ came home for a visit.  She was mostly here to help her mother organize and host a baby shower for Hope Crow at SACII and Cheryl's house in Springfield.   It was fun to see lots of people we love.

Based on the photos, they apparently had a good party for Hope.   Sam, Andy and I helped set up for the party then bailed out to do some male bonding.  We started with a juicy burger at Galloway Station and then off to Saddlebrooke to view the building site Sam and Cheryl bought at auction the week before.  Nice view.

Except for Sam's LBC (little blue car) getting damaged ($2,338.68) by the neighbor's bad driving ...

it was a great trip.  Unfortunately, SRQ went home the next day.  

To fulfill one of Helen's life-long dreams, Friday night we joined fun friends Bill and Julie on Lake Perry for a sunset cruise on their 30 foot sail boat.    

  It was wonderful.  The weather was perfect.  Only 30 minutes from Topeka in time but worlds away in relaxation.  Thanks Bill and Julie ... it was a blast!

We waved goodbye to September as we sailed into the beautiful Kansas sunset.

It's not that boring!

OK, so maybe it is.

Yawn.

Huff 'n Puff Balloon Rally

Yesterday we had a date.  Yep, I took Helen to Lake Shawnee to spoil her with a paddle boat ride.  As luck would have it, the 16 year old girl in charge of paddle boat rental said her mother told her to close early as a really bad storm was coming.  Wrong!  Even so, our paddle boat adventure was quashed by some unknown mother who wanted her daughter to come home early.  

So, our date transformed into a quiet picnic on the shore.  Well ... not exactly quiet.  Our peaceful picnic table was surrounded by two shelter houses.  In one was a wedding shower.  In the other, a biker wedding.  The bride wore a traditional white wedding gown while the groom wore jeans and a Harley t-shirt.  My guess is that the groom selected the music.


From across the lake came the Huff 'n Puff Balloon Rally.  The view was amazing.  Multiple balloons gracefully floated toward us.  Some of them played "skip the basket on the lake" before they floated by. 

We enjoyed watching them float overhead.

Our paddle boat date transformed again.  Off to the Sports Center for some serious go-cart racing.  Helen and  I shared the almost empty track with a 7 year old girl riding tandem with her father.  The little girl waved to Helen every time she lapped her.  Helen (a/k/a the lead foot) was both amused and insulted.  

Life doesn't always follow your plans.  And sometimes that's a good thing.

Labor Day Weekend

After 30+ years, Helen and I decided to purge some (not all) of the stuff we've saved in one of our basement storage rooms.  It was a mess.

So was my work bench.

We spent 12 hours Sunday cleaning and trashing.  We took tons of stuff to the alley where the "alley pixies" whisked it all away.  Broken computers and old VCRs were gone in minutes.  Wicker baskets and old lamps took a couple of hours.  We found 30 years of old paint ...

  and tax records dating back to 1974.

Geesh ... why did we save all that stuff?  

On Labor Day we washed the convertible ...

had a quiet picnic in the park and drove to Crow Mountain Farm where Helen ignored the corn

and picked a flower.

So there you have it ... the exciting Labor Day Weekend with the Crows.

PS.  I almost didn't mention the discovery of my childhood bottle cap collection as I wasn't sure you could handle the additional excitement.