And Just Like That, it's November

Are you kidding me - how is it November? Also, is the time change messing with y'all? Don't get me wrong, I love the "extra" hour of sleep and all that jazz but I will think it's midnight when it is not even 6 PM for the next six months. I'm serious - I'm fretting about getting to bed at a decent time (yes, I'm an old grandma stuck in the body of a thirty-something) for the next six months. I'll adjust to all this right about the time Spring arrives...and then what?

A completely lazy bum on Monday morning - what a life!

This picture of the fog was really supposed to be much more dramatic...

I can't for the life of me remember much worth remembering happening on Monday and Tuesday. There was some walking and eating supper and watching episodes of Scandal on DVD...but as you can see, it really isn't much to write home about. It doesn't make for riveting blog material. I joined my Mom on Wednesday night for her ladies' Bible study group's fellowship night; we stuffed bags with Halloween candy for the neighborhood kids, made sandwiches for a local homeless outreach program and had some good snacks. My friend Jen's little girl discovered what a Twix was - I helped her open and eat it; her first candy bar, and she decided that a chocolate coma was just about the best thing ever. I'd have to agree with her.

Experiencing her first chocolate coma...

Isn't this a pretty tree? With a less pretty stormy sky behind it...

The best package arrived in the mail on Thursday - London & Hogwarts, here we come!

The rest of the week was pretty unmemorable as well - just life, you know? We did get quite the exciting package in the mail on Thursday. The packet was marked "Royal Mail" and well, that certainly lets you know that package came straight from good ol London Town! We will be ringing in the New Year at the Making of Harry Potter Tour in London and our tickets had arrived, looking appropriately fancy and magical. The HP Tour is one of my Christmas "gifts" to my family this year, so the mail was addressed to me and I get perhaps a wee bit too excited about getting "post" from London, ha-ha!

Call me Winifred...these are my sisters.

I made faces at my camera all day long...oh me.

Friday - y'all, what a day! A little backstory on this Halloween costume: When I interviewed for my job way back in February of this year, on my second interview our HR girl (who is now also my friend) Danielle mentioned that she and Meridith had been hoping to hire someone who would dress up in costume with them at Halloween...and they'd always wanted to be the Sanderson Sisters! I said I'd definitely be down for that and well, I'm sure that's just one of the many reasons I was hired, right? We worked on piecing together our costumes for almost three months in advance of the Friday before Halloween and we were pretty impressed with our efforts. I will say, I couldn't believe how many people mentioned that I might look like Bette Midler - it kind of cracked me up! I guess I did a pretty good job portraying my character, right?

Ha-ha! Halloween hijinks at Hunter's Head Tavern.

Just some sights & sounds from around the tavern....

We had some rocky luck as far as costume contests go - we were sure we'd find one we could win! We noticed early on Friday morning that an office down the sidewalk from us was holding a Halloween costume contest until 5 PM and so around 4:30 we made our way down to the office with all our props in tow. We just knew we'd be the clear winners...but all the people in the office did was make small talk with us and give us each a piece of candy - what a letdown! We thought maybe we'd win our prize today...but it's closing in on 5 PM and no such luck!

We ended the work day by going (still in costume) to Hunter's Head Tavern - they'd advertised a People and Pets Costume Contest(s) and we assumed that meant they'd award prizes for best costume on a pet and on people. Boy were we wrong; they only awarded prizes for costumes that coordinated with pets - you had to have your animal and you had to match them! We thought since the advertisement mentioned the give aways would be t-shirts and gift cards, surely that meant a human would be winning a prize...but not so much. The food was good, as always but the costume contest was a letdown for sure...we felt a little silly being there without an animal and we certainly didn't win anything, giving our efforts an 0/2 score. While one woman had a fit when we arrived and asked to photograph us because she loved "the Sanderson Sisters" as we left another woman told us to come back next year because our "little witchy girl" costumes were precious. Hmph! Yea right lady!

I think we might have gotten just a few groceries on Saturday...

Harper's Ferry on Halloween as we cruised across the Potomac!

Na na na na na na na - BAT DOG!

A "frappula" frappucino with my little vampire bat!

Saturday was fairly low key as far as our normal weekends go - we just drove over to Fort Detrick to get groceries, I made a Starbucks run for their vampire inspired frappucino and we waited for trick or treaters (we only had 6...) while watching Halloween movies. The trip to Fort Detrick was nice enough; I got to have Red Robin for lunch and that's always a huge plus, I love a good hamburger! Watson wore his bat costume all over the house and for a ride in the car and everyone who saw him thought he was adorable (of course, ha-ha). As I said, we only had six trick or treaters and three of the six were our family friends...oh well, maybe next year the whole neighborhood will come...

Wonder Woman & a little Pumpkin...too cute.

So excited about Halloween - I mean, who wouldn't be? Candy!

Equally cute - if a little menacing...

Oh Great Pumpkin - where are you?

Sunday started out looking like it might be a crummy day - the skies were overcast and I woke up with a headache but things turned around just fine. My Mom joined me for church and then we loaded into the car and headed for DC to tour Nationals Park. By the time we'd made it into DC, the sun was out, there was a gorgeous blue sky and a gentle breeze was blowing - it was so lovely you could hardly believe it was the 1st of November! I thoroughly enjoyed my tour of the ballpark but I won't go into too much detail here...because of course that's getting it's own post, you had to know that. Ha-ha! It really was a lovely afternoon and capped off the weekend just perfectly.

My foot is on the field at Nationals Park...

Touring Nationals Park! 

Mom - he's a dog, stop feeding him with a spoon! 

So - here we are in November - I can't believe we have less than two months left in 2015. And I've got no end of awesome things happening over the next eight weeks. So, until next time...Happy Monday!