When I travel I try to find a gloriously tacky souvenir to bring home for my parents. In Sanibel, that means finding something made of seashells. As it turns out, I had to spend quite some time deciding amongst the bountiful options of Christmas tree ornaments. I very nearly picked out this starfish scuba diver, who looks to me like Beaker (the muppet) on a beach adventure:
But in the end, I opted for Santa with his little bag of tiny colorful shells: 
They loved it.
I’m the designated deviled egg maker for our family and since it’s nearly Christmas that means I have to get moving on this. One of the worst parts is generally peeling the shells off the eggs, so when I saw one of those “life-hack” links about peeling an egg I watched. Basically the instructions were to boil the eggs as normal, then with the egg in a small amount of water in a pot, put the lid on and shake hard. I watched the video (sorry I don’t have a link) and it looked magical. So I tried it. Here’s the egg in the water:
And here’s the egg post-shaking, with the shell next to it. It worked wonderfully.
Until the 7th egg. When I opened the top on that I found an explosion of egg parts, It was disgusting and I didn’t take a picture. Since I only had one spare egg (or I did before that disaster) I did the rest the normal way (for me that’s tap all around on all sides and slide the shell off, which worked pretty well this time frankly.)
I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather here to take a nice walk before heading to the family gathering. Along my route I saw a little girl in her front yard. She yelled to me:
“Have a great Thanksgiving Day today!”
Which was really nice, so I said back “Thank you – you too!”
After a moment she yelled: “I’m just peeling the tomato!”
I didn’t quite know what to say to that. After a beat I said “Good job!”
I walked away wondering why she was peeling a tomato. Or maybe she meant potato? Either way, just one? And why in the front yard alone?
It will remain a mystery.
One final Halloween moment… At my parents’ house there are a lot of trick-or-treaters (more than 220 as I recall this year). I get zero, so I go over there to help them hand out candy. This year my sister and niece (who also get zero kids visiting) headed over as well though it’s a lot more distance for them. I enjoyed this because they took over the candy duties entirely, and also put on a show (niece had a straightjacket and masked face and sat in a chair randomly screaming while my sister posed as her doctor… it was very entertaining).
That’s not what this post is about. This year there was a group of boys who were dressed in full body suits running around the neighborhood and randomly stopping and freezing into poses. Early in the evening they literally ran (one of them straight into a tree! ouch!), later they clearly got tired and walked – and the early poses were more elaborate. However, this was the only time I got a decent picture of them – when they plopped right in front of my parents’ house. They sat without moving or speaking for several minutes, then silently got up and moved along again.
For Halloween my mom tried out a new decoration during trick-or-treat time. It was toilet paper rolls with eyes cut out (and the occasional mouth) with a glow stick inside. These were tucked into the bushes and we so much fun!
I have a couple of bins of pumpkin decorations – some are specific to Halloween and some can stick around through Thanksgiving. These witchy frogs are usually on the mantle but this year I decided to put them on my leaf-candle-plates as though they were on lily pads. I really liked it! They’ll be going back to this spot next year.
Each year my mom and I carve multiple pumpkins. Our ambitions sometimes exceed our skill – and we generally use patterns from the easily available books. But this year I decided to make my own and carve a pumpkin for my favorite team. Risky business because most people around where we are do not root for the Broncos. In fact, one kid was almost denied candy for insulting my pumpkin (by my sister, who joined in the fun this year). He decided he liked the pumpkin.
I got to visit a friend of mine in Orlando the week before Halloween. On a walk around her neighborhood I spotted this. Quite the display! Wish I’d seen it at night to see if it was lit appropriately….
Regardless. Cool neighbors.
Actually of course for the next few posts it will be things I saw in October before Halloween. I’ve been remiss in posting. Work has been busy, getting photos to airdrop from phone to iPad was not working, and basically I let minor hurdles stop me. But I’ve got a TON of stuff now to go through and a little time.
I saw my beary good friend in the Salt Lake City airport again. Last time he was heading on a scuba vacation, but this time he was ready for Halloween!
In early December my husband gave me and my dad an awesome early Christmas gift – tickets to see the Denver Broncos play in Denver. Dad grew up in Denver and I was born there and we’re both massive fans. It’s unfortunate the temperature was soooooo cold that day (the title is stolen from one of the signs we saw at the stadium) but at least we were in the sun while it was still up. Honestly, if our feet hadn’t been so cold we’d’ve done fine – I had my warmest hat on and we were bundled up. It was spectacular (except for the 45 minute standing-in-line outside part waiting for a cab afterwards, and even that was fun in its own way).
I couldn’t believe it when my husband handed me these!
After we landed I told the cab driver the hotel and my dad kinda flipped out. All I knew was it was a Marriott affiliated property – but it turns out the Brown Palace is really really famous and it’s where my dad’s senior prom was held. It’s very fancy.
The Brown Palace was all dressed up for the holidays.
Here’s the view from our seats – we arrived quite early because we had access to an indoor club level. These photos are all with my phone (because let’s face it, I was there to watch the game, not to haul a camera around) and they make it seem like stuff is farther away than it really feels. It was a spectacular day (though cold. did I mention it was cold? It was really cold.)
Here’s my adorable Bronco hand-stamp that (along with my stamped ticket) got me into the indoor club area.
90 minutes before the game no one wanted to be outside if they could avoid it…
The festivities you don’t see when you’re watching on tv are a lot of fun! That giant Bronco head was being rotated constantly. There’s an adorable little kid that runs out and grabs the kickoff tee each time, and he stopped and saluted all four sides of the stadium each time. SO CUTE. And every time the opposing team had a pass not caught, the announcer would prompt the fans and we’d all yell IN-COM-PLETE! together.
Here come the players!
Great view of the Bronco!
This is a seriously big Bronco!
And I don’t know how my husband managed it, but this was the game in which a new NFL record was set – we saw a 64 yard field goal kicked and it cleared the goalpost right in front of us just barely (in fact we didn’t realize it was good at first). SO EXCITING!
Denver lining up for an extra point after scoring a touchdown – this is the goalpost the record-setting field goal *just* cleared.
It helped that we won the game by a lot, too (though we were down by 1 at halftime, because of the record-setting field goal it felt like we were already way ahead).
slightly dark, but here I am at the game!
Me and dad, happy at the end of the victory!
Denver is gearing up for its first playoff game later today – I’m already nervous! GO BRONCOS!
@KellyOSullivan 