Tis the season...

Alright, so I caved. So what? Those of you who know me well enough know that I am not a Christmas person. BUT even though we are heading down to Florida for the holidays, I couldn't accept the thought of not making a bit of an effort to decorate the house. I'll be enjoying our sparkly tree for the next 18 days thank you very much!

Since I don't have any ornaments of my own (and I'm too scared to go into the attic to get some Calder relics) I decided make an easy garland with some Christmas stamps. Making bunting turned out to be a pretty long project but it came out great!

I found some cute reindeer friends for Patapouf in the closet but he wasn't being too friendly.


On another note, here is my first sewing project without mother dearest. I've noticed that now I just whine and abuse the machine instead of yelling "MOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!" But eventually I gather myself and look up the answers to my problems online. Oh how the internet is a useful tool!

Here is my stocking:


And Tom's (which already has treats inside! Lucky guy!):


Tom says they need our names on them so I think I'll go buy some puff paint instead of sewing on each letter. I also found this Santa dog hat in the Christmas tree box! No clue where it came from (maybe my second favorite dog in the whole world Tres? But I don't think Dee would dress up his dog)

Anyways, he wasn't having it.


So I leave you with this

Cleaning up after Autumn

Autumn has proven to be a lot of work! We spent our Sunday afternoon raking up the yard thinking it would be enough time to get it all clean and lookin' good but we only managed to rake and bag about 1/4 of it!
Poof likes to go through the leaves. He tends to dive in and do his business in the piles on the side of the road. Note to self: Never jump in those. Ever.


We managed to get a little bit more than this done by dark after a friendly neighbor walking by with his dog and pet goat told us we didn't have to bag the leaves because the vacuum truck comes and clears your piles if you have them by the road! So 15+ bags later we turned into raking superheros in order to get as much of the mess as we could down to the street in time for the truck the next day. I intended on snapping a photo of the humongous pile the next morning but the vacuum beat me to it!

The process begins again in a week or two since the intense winds have nearly rid the trees of the rest of their leaves. At least we're getting some great exercise!

Autumn Photos

Our big pile of leaves. It was more mountainous until our neighbors started playing in it.

Florida Weekend Birthday Surprise!

Operation Florida Birthday Surprise was a total success! A HUGE thank you to all of our friends and family who kept the big secret! Here's the father and son hippie duo!


We began our trip with a very excited dog since he now loves car rides. Except once he realized he was in it for the log haul he looked completely depressed and held his up in the air as if to ask "why me!?" like this.

Here's one of the very few pictures I have of Autumn. My excuse for this is that growing up in South Florida has conditioned me to be absolutely clueless when it comes to seasons. For whatever reason, I thought that when the leaves change colors they last and stay all beautiful for a whole month before falling in preparation for winter. WRONG! They fell within nearly 4 days and I just never thought to use my camera in those moments. This is on the border of South Carolina where some color still remained.

We arrived in Florida at 4am after a long 12 hours on the road. We napped for 3 hours and then crashed the Calder family photo shoot. I will never forget Bob's expression since he was in perfect view of the door when we walked in. Shocked and confused! Just what we had hoped for! The photo shoot was great! I can't wait to see the pictures!

Here's the Calder house all decked out and ready for the big bash!

Margarita Machines. Aren't they beautiful??

This guy is ready to party

By far the strangest picture of the night. Just to clarify, Robert Cernuda was indeed given the memo that it was a HIPPIE party. Don't ask me why this boy STILL came as a Mime and proceeded to not talk for the first hour of the party!

The Birthday Boy!


Even Madden was decked out. I didn't get to snap a picture of both of the little ladies in their tie-dye
Friends!!

Me chattin' with Hippies

Halloween was a quiet night for us. Tom was recovering from the party with football and lots of water while I got my very necessary dose of Samantha. Yet somehow I got NO pictures of the two of us! Talk about an epic fail on my part! Also necessary was Zona Fresca and the mall (sad I know, but our mall is pretty much empty here and I just had to update myself on what the heck is in style since this town is filled with authentic and very unfashionable hippies).

Trick or Treating with Madden and the gang followed but it was raining and I wasn't daring enough to take my camera out of the car. After that we went to Rachel & Jessica's!

Somehow this is the only picture of Rachel I managed to get. She was a wild thing!

And I found this adorable Gnome family :)

Treats for Chloe!
Back at home, Mom totally one upped me in the gardening skills department. Check out her perfectly groomed healthy and organic veggies!

In other news, Although Poof is always happy to see her: Ginger still hates Poof...and life.

I can't even fully express how amazing it was to feel HEAT!

Dear Dania Beach,
We will meet again in 6 weeks.
I love you.