Halloween Festivities

 We have gotten our money's worth of Halloween costumes this year!  1st we had Addy's birthday party, then the carnival in Jean and Tom's neighborhood, Zoo Boo and then the official night.  And fortunately everyone was super excited to put on their costume each time!

Pumpkin Carving Time - Both girls were willing to put their hands in the goo this year.  Now, we did most of the cleaning out, but their hands went on the inside the pumpkin so that is pretty impressive.

Carnival Time:  I actually got double booked thanks to poor calendar management, so I didn't get to go to the carnival this time, but I hear that it was a fun time again.  No Sesame Street booth, but both girls came home with candy, so they were happy.  And we learned that Whoppers are Ella's favorite candy.  Or they were that night at least.  I'm not sure what Addy is doing in this picture, but it is a fun one of Ella and Jean!

Zoo Boo:  There were not as many booths passing out candy, so Zoo Boo was a good time, but didn't seem to be the hit it was in the past.  The focus was on finding the pumpkin patch to decorate pumpkins. 

 We ran into one of Addy's friends and they had fun pumpkin decorating together.

 Can you tell Ella is saying "cheese"??  Because she loves to say cheese and not look at the camera.  She was rockin' her bumblebee fairy though!  She left the wings on the whole time which was super impressive.

Addy has officially decided that the train is no longer scary (no clue why it was scary to begin with) and we went on a family ride. 

Halloween Night: The big night finally arrived.  We ran home from work and school and grabbed some pizza for dinner then hit the street.  We went to about 5 houses on the block and then they were done.  Addy did a much better job this year when it came to ringing the door bell and saying "trick-or-treat".  Ella wasn't completely sure about the whole gig, but got into it more at the last couple of houses.  Both girls were super excited about candy and I think that they were done  going to different houses because they just wanted to come inside and eat candy! 

 The official Halloween picture of Cherry Jam and Ms. Bumblebee Fairy

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa's

Book Character Parade

Today was a dress up day at Addison's school and they got to dress like their favorite book character.  Addy was Pinkalicious - how perfect is that?  They had a parade around the school and Ella and I got to go watch.  Lots of good costumes.  The rule was that you couldn't just wear your Halloween costume, it had to be a book character.  Fortunately for the kids though, there is a book about pretty much everything, so I'm sure there were a number of Halloween costumes that got worn an extra time. 

 Pinkalicious before school

Addison's class after the parade

Good Dog

Yep, Star is Ella's new favorite spot to sit and watch tv.  Fortunately, Star seems to care less.  She was just chewing on her bone here in this pic, and Star will stand up and knock Ella off when she is tired of being a chair. 

A&M vs. LSU Weekend

Fun weekend in College Station at the game this weekend.  The Aggies didn't quite pull off a win, but still a great game and fun hanging out with old friends.

 We were going to go up to College Station to just hang out, with no tickets to the game, but landed on some tickets after all.  Great seats, we'd never been that close at an Aggie game before.  We are typically on the 3rd deck and it is quite a different game when you are so close.  

One of the main reasons for the trip, other than the game, was Michael's fraternity's alumni weekend.  They had an impressively big tailgate - the new Pikes are much more organized and motivated than the Pikes we knew in college.   

Costume Carnival

The birthday celebration was topped off with a super fun party on Saturday. Lots of kids, lots of fun and lots of silliness.

The theme was "costume carnival" and I just kind of made that name up, but the kids were encouraged to dress up.  Figured all the kids liked to dress up and it is a good excuse to reuse last years costume or break out the new one from this year.  We used this years costumes and Addy was Cherry Jam, a character from the Strawberry Shortcake story, and Ella was a bumble bee fairy.  

One of the activities was Just Dance Kids - here is Addy showing off her moves.  

Addy's costume came with a wig that was clearly quite different from her normal hair.  She didn't wear it too much b/c it got hot.

Ella with Granddad and Meme in the photo booth.

Addy and her friends hamming it up for the camera.

Our little bumble bee fairy/doctor (Addy has named her Doc McBumbleBee) really enjoyed getting her face and arms painted

Honey Dew the clown was a the party doing face painting and a fabulous magic show that all the kids LOVED. 

Here is Addy's cake.  Designed by Addy, made by Mommy.  Don't look too close, I have yet to perfect the art of applying buttercream icing, but this is way better than past attempts.   Turns out You Tube is a great source for videos on cake icing techniques!

Addy enjoying her cake and a great shot of her arm decor and crown from Honey Dew.

 

Family pic.  Somehow we always think about it at the end of the event and there were 2 tired kiddos (and parents!) but an entertaining pic nonetheless.

Birthday Lunch at School

Addy's birthday celebration continued on Friday with a visit at lunch from me and Ella. 

Chick-fil-A lunch makes for 2 happy kids.

Addy Turns 6!!!

She turns 6 and she wears jeans - big day!

 Birthday cake #1

Lip gloss!

Sweet & Sassy

Addy went to her first dress-up, make-up birthday party.  The place was called Sweet & Sassy and I think that the pics tell the story themselves. 

 At the make-up station

 Fashion model smile!

A party isn't a party unless it ends with a pink limo ride!

Zoo Trip

Last weekend we went to the zoo - it had been a while and the weather had been great during the week, so I was thinking it would be a nice cool visit.  Well, it was not so cool, but was a nice visit.  Biggest accomplishment was that we went through the special dinosaur exhibit and neither of the girls ran out in fear of the dinosaurs!  There were some that were "scary" and there was a request or 2 to hurry past, but I was very proud. 

 We had to ride the carousel of course.  And as in the past, Ella was SO excited until we got on the thing and then she wouldn't sit on the ride, so Michael held her the whole time.  I have yet to figure out what exactly she is afraid of!

 So, I'm finally getting natural smiles out of Addy, as evidenced in the pic above.  Getting Ella to sit still and look at the camera is still a challenge - she is still super cute though!

 Probably my favorite pic of the day.  Addy did a good job of getting Ella to crawl through the tunnel.  

 And here are the dinosaurs!  We were mostly able to casually stroll through.  The only part that did not get rave reviews from Ella was the dinosaur at the very end that would randomly spit water on you.  You don't realize what it is going to do until you get squirted and I think that it hit Ella right in the face.  The rest of us kind of enjoyed it considering how hot it was, it was kind of refreshing.  

The t-rex was not the most popular, but I made Addy take a pic with me to show how brave she was - you can kind of see the skepticism in her face though!

Labor Day Beach Weekend

The official last beach weekend of the summer for us, and what a fun weekend it was!  Quite a memorable weekend, with a great visit from Granny, Jean and Tom to celebrate a few things...1) the 40th anniversary of the beach house being in the Pfluger/Kelly/Denson/Wolf family, 2) Jean's birthday, and 3) what would have been Gramps' 100th birthday.   The weather was great, beach was clean, no chores, just relaxing and fun. 

 Addy helping Aunt Jean blow out her candles.  We looked at the pics on the wall of past beach birthday celebrations and determined that Jean had the same cake in front of her in pretty much all of the pictures.  Granny's chocolate cake is legendary!  And still as tasty as ever I might add!

 4 generations of beach girls

 The water looks really brown in this pic, but it was really nice.  Not as hot as you'd expect, seeing as it was end of August.  No seaweed.  I think that the surf was a bit rough because of the hurricane that was going on over in Louisiana, but Ella probably spent more time in the water this trip than any other.  We had a fun time just sitting in water.  

This pic represents what was likely the highlight of the trip for Addison.  We wake up Saturday AM and Addy goes to put her suit on and we realize that someone (me) forgot to pack a swimsuit for her.  Feeling like a terrible mom at that point, she was guaranteed to get whatever swimsuit she wanted from the Big Store.  So, that is how the bikini came about.  I have zero objections to bikinis, but they always are so big on her or generally don't fit well that I tend to steer her away from them.  This was literally the only swimsuit at the store that fit her though, so bikini it is! She is lookin' pretty cute I might add.  She actually asked me to take this pic so that her grandparents could see it! 

Certainly hoping to make it to the beach over the fall/winter, but the way the weekends are filling up with birthday parties and other activities, not sure when it will be!

Kindergarten

Off to a great start! It was an early morning for all (which will unfortunately be the case for a while since school starts at 7:45!), but Addy hopped out of bed and came into the kitchen all dressed and ready to go.  Had breakfast here at home and then off to school.  I'll update the post with a report from school when she gets home. 

Big Girl Bed!

Bye, bye crib!  Ella moved to a big girl bed last night.  It was quite the furniture putting together, taking apart day yesterday - Addy got a new double bed, Ella got Addy's bed, and everyone got new bedding.  Ella seems to really like her new bed, she went straight to sleep last night and this morning I had to wake her up early to take Addy to school and she keep telling me she wanted to go back to bed.  Michael usually wakes her up on school days, so he has maybe heard this one before, but I certainly have never heard Ella request to go back to bed!

You Know Your Baby Is Growing Up When...

1.  She can paint her own nails (the left hand at least).
2.  She showers instead of taking a bath.
3.  She can tie shoe laces into a bow and no longer wants shoes with velcro on them.

Vacation Wrap Up

Monday, the day after the wedding, we had breakfast at Amy and David's place and hung around until it was time to hop on the train back to Madrid.  It was a nice low key day and we had our last traditional Spanish dinner back in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid.  Well, traditional in the sense that we sat in the plaza, but we had pizza for dinner.  We enjoyed the food in Spain, I got hooked on serrano ham and cheese, whether it was in a sandwich or just plain.  I especially liked the olive appetizer you got every time you ordered a beer (Michael wasn't so giddy about that part).  He did like the beer at nearly every meal part though, seriously in some cases it was cheaper than water or soda, so why not!

Our last adventure was a day trip to Toledo on Tuesday.  We were a bit vacationed out at this point, so maybe weren't able to enjoy it as much as if we'd been earlier in the trip, but it was a nice day.  It was a quick 30 minute train ride from Madrid and we visited our final cathedral for the trip and went on a nice tram ride around the outside of the city.  The tram went on the outside of the city center because the "roads" inside the city were more like alleyways.

Side note, with the exception of Madrid, all of the cities we visited had streets that were ridiculously small.  So in Sevilla, we learned that there were marble column type things that were put on the corners of a lot of buildings to protect the brick buildings from cars running into them.  The columns were all scratched up and were clearly needed.  In Granada, at one point our taxi had to pull in the driver's side mirror and squeezed by with maybe an inch between the car and the buildings on each side.  Amy had buses to take guests to the wedding site and the bus in front of us swiped a car parked on the side of the road.  Bus just kept on going.  I'm guessing it wasn't the 1st time he'd done something like that!  My Expedition was wider than 90% of the streets we went on.

Back to Toledo...visited an El Greco museum, that was supposed to be a recreation of his house and workshop there in Toledo.  Saw the cathedral and spent some time walking up and down the very hilly streets.   Here we are sitting at an overlook of the city with the cathedral bell tower right in the center of the pic between us and then the Alcazar on the far right.  The Alcazar being the castle or fort of the city.

We wrapped up our trip to Spain with the most amazing dinner - nachos and taquitos from the Hard Rock Cafe in Madrid.   As I mentioned, we enjoyed all of our meals in Spain, nothing too weird, but none of them had any spice.  Even the garlic shrimp were mild! Thanks for the jalapenos and salsa Hard Rock.

After a bit more plane drama in Philly, we made it home late Wed night.  Fortunately no missed flights, just delays.  Thursday morning we picked up the girls from Dad and Mary's and we were back in the real world.

Wedding Day!

The day of the main event finally came.  We had a casual day walking around Granada a bit and doing a little shopping, then a nice siesta to rest up for the wedding. 

The wedding was gorgeous.  It was at La Chumbera which is a restaurant/special events place that clearly specializes in weddings.  It is located up on the side of a mountain with a gorgeous view into Granada and of the Alhambra.  The ceremony was what I'd call an untraditional Jewish ceremony.  It was officiated by one of Amy's friends from work that happened to speak English, Spanish and French, which represented the main languages spoken by the guests.  There were probably about 70ish people there, with a lot being friends from all over and a good number of David's relatives from Spain. 

Michael got to be part of the ceremony, as one of 4 sides of the chuppah.  Amy wanted a chuppah, which is a traditional part of a Jewish wedding that represents the home that the couple will build together.  It is a canopy like thing that is usually a solid structure that is decorated for the ceremony.  Well, in untraditional style, Amy didn't order a chuppah to assemble for the ceremony, she had a "living" chuppah.

Amy looked gorgeous, she is not the white princess dress type, but the black lace dress was perfect!

After the ceremony and the sun went down a bit, there was a lot of picture taking with the great view as the backdrop.  

 Michael and me with the parents of the bride, Andee and Murray.  It was great catching up with Mom and Dad Klein.  Not only did we see them at the wedding festivities, but we got a chance to have dinner with them when we were both in Sevilla earlier in the week.  

After dinner, the party moved into the cave.  Literally.  As the restaurant was built on the side of the mountain, the inner parts of the facility were dug into the side of the mountain.  It was pretty neat, not something you can experience here in Houston.  They had a DJ and his lights were causing the purple color.  We left around 3:30 in the morning, but I think that a number of folks stayed even later than that. Congrats Amy and David and thanks for a great excuse to splurge on our summer vacation!

Granada

Granada is hot. Think it may be in the 100's. Fortunately we are here for a few days, so there isn't a huge rush to be out all day and see it all. That also means time for siesta!

We went to the Alhambra today. Due to computer issues and general inefficiencies with their processes, took us a while to actually get in the place but once we got in it was nice.

Couple of pics of the views from yet another bell tower, with a much shorter walk up than the last bell tower, which was nice. The third pic is of me in the middle of Charles V palace courtyard.