Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween! During the day the girls and I were busy getting ready for our small party with Liz and her family and two families in our neighborhood that we had invited over for dinner, games, and fun before we took to the streets for tricks or treats.

During the day the girls and I went to meet Bill at work for lunch. Its not everyday a guy gets to eat with a lobster and wonder woman!
Here are the girls in the final moments before the party. In conjunction with Liz's family we went as the entire cast from Wizard of Oz! I think we were a big hit even if i do say so myself. Lilah was the scarecrow and AJ was Toto. Though we did have a few kids in the neighborhood think she was a bear and one kid asked me if she was Chubaka from Star Wars.

Here we are out hitting the neighborhood. And in our little cookie cutter neighborhood the kids were complaining their arms hurt because their pumpkins were so full of candy.... tough life isn't it!

Lizzy and I were the witches. How did we decide who was wicked and who was good, we based it on hair color.

Here's the kids playing musical chairs to thriller, you gotta love it! Go scarecrow, grab that chair! Lilah did really well keeping up with the big kids for the game!

Here's the crew! Bill and Jeff are the Lollipop kids in case you were wondering. Jeff was completely against being a lollipop kid, but being the good dad he is, he suffered along. We've promised him something with a little more dignity next year like a super hero or pirate...... we'll see.

Here's the 4 Moore's. I got my dress at good will. Aunt Vern fixed the sleeves before she left and the rest I accomplished with hot glue. You'd be amazed what you can do with hot glue and a little imagination!

Our Favorite Michigan Girls, Beth & Lily

For those of you who don't know my dear friend Beth, she was my roommate in Charleston, and is one of my dearest friends in the world. She was with me when I fell in love with Bill. Coming home and giving her all the details of our first date, big talks, and all that comes with finding Mr. Forever. And I was with her when she found her Mr. Forever, Peter. She and I were and still are family and I miss her very much and wish Michigan were much closer, or one of us had access to a private plane on a monthly basis. She has one of the best hearts in the world and I am thankful to call her my friend. She had not changed one bit, still beautiful and a breath of fresh air. The only difference was when we had our girl time there was now 5 of us, instead of just the two of us. It made catching up a little more challenging, but all the sweeter. Here we are the aquarium in downtown Seattle. We loaded all the kids up and were out the door everyday for a new adventure. Its a good thing our girls are like their moms and like to be out and about. Lilah needs to work on sharing a little bit more, but Rome wasn't built in a day!And Lily looks so much like her Dad that every time I looked at her I felt like saying, "Hello Peter." But Lily is sweet and full of life just like her Mom!

I don't know why but today when I post, the picture order keeps reversing. But here the girls and I are lying on the ground at the Seattle Space Needle. I was on the ground trying to take the perfect shot as perfected by my dear friend Jim Robertson on his visit. I couldn't get it as perfect as he did, but we had fun trying. The girls thought I was so hilarious laying on the ground that they had to try it too. Monkey see and monkey do, they monkey does the same as you! As you can see below, the picture I was trying to take!

Seattle is Beth's kind of town. She and Lily really soaked up the local vibe and seemed natural born Seattlelites. If only we could get that Peter McCreedy out of Michigan!

Here we are at South 47 farm. They have a tot on the farm program on friday mornings. The kids learn about a specific topic for the day like pumpkins, seeds, caterpillars, etc. Then they do a craft, get to see some animals, wander through an herb garden, ride on saddles on top of hay bales, hay ride, and wander through the pumpkin patch. We had a great time. The two kids between us are Rosie and Matty our neighbors, their Mom is taking the photo!

Aunt Laverne & Uncle Charlie in Seattle!!

We had a girl's afternoon at the Pacific Science Center while the boys stayed home and enjoyed an afternoon of football and Miss Lilah caught up on her nap. We had a really great time with Aunt Laverne and Uncle Charlie and they are already planning to come back next year.

They stayed with us for 2 weeks, which was a perfect amount of time. It gave us time to do lots of touristy stuff, but also just hang out at home with family time. Aunt Laverne is a great seamstress, so I made the most of time and got her working on Aubrey Jane's outfit for Halloween. Here's our model showing off her new hat.... can you tell what she's going to be? She's Toto from the Wizard of Oz! Oma and Opa took Aunt Laverne and Uncle Charlie on their first visit to Canada on Opa's boat the Lucky Lady. Bill had to work and couldn't join us and the weather was a little cool, but it was a great trip. We spent the night on the boat in the Victoria harbor and made our way back to San Juan the next day, We had rough seas on the way back with picture frames and vases falling everywhere. I was never nervous because I knew I was in good hands between God & Opa, but I was feeling a little green. Poor Lilah even started puking. But Aubrey Jane was quite the sailor, just laughing as she got rolled around all over the place. Here they are posing in front of the Parliament building.

Here we all are waiting for the ferry in Anacortes to take us to San Juan. Thanks Mom & Dad for taking us, we had a great time!

Aunt Laverne and Uncle Charlie were great sports with all the new foods they tried. Here they are eating dim sum for the first time at Oma's surprise birthday party. They seemed like they really liked it, just needed a little bit more practice with the chopsticks. Practice makes perfect!

Aunt Laverne & Uncle Charlie come for a visit!!

Please scroll to the bottom of this post and read up, i put the pictures in backwards order and i've not time to go back and re do it all. You understand, right? A day at the Seattle Aquarium.

Here we are enjoying a lunch at Pike's Market at the Chowder house. And yes, (its October or was October and we were eating outside). The October weather was really fabulous this year!

On our way home from the falls, we hit the Issaquah Salmon hatchery. Aunt Laverne & Uncle Charlie's visit timed perfectly with the salmon returning to their places of birth to spawn. We really enjoy watching the huge salmon run up stream. The Chinook and Coho salmon are what we were watching. Here they are strolling through a garden right next to the hatchery. And Lilah loves to be swung by her arms. And yes, yes, I know it can pull her arm out of the socket, but we don't sweat it as much when we know we've got Bill at home who can put it back together without a trip to the ER. Things to be grateful for!

The first day we took it easy on them and let them recover from the long flight from GA. So that afternoon we took our first sight seeing trip and headed to Snoqualmie Falls. The falls are taller than Niagara falls, but not as wide. This is a picture I shot in the park right next to the falls, I thought it turned out great!

Here is Aubrey Jane saying hello to Uncle Charlie the first morning after they arrived late the night before. I love this picture. Aubrey Jane is just looking at him so intently, almost as if she's saying, "And so we meet again." Uncle Charlie did lots of holding of Aubrey Jane while we were in GA for 3 weeks with Papa's passing, so these 2 old friends were getting reacquainted.