Happy Halloween!

This year my costume is:

A Triceratops

I made it with an apron that I kept painting with starch and styrofoam cones. 

Halloween decor

For the first time ever, I tried to use that fake web stuff. 

And it might be the last as well. That stuff is hard to work with. 

And man it's hard to find a baby when you need one. 

Still more pumpkins!

I have three more to carve tomorrow. But so far I've also carved these.

This one had really gnarly bumps all over it. So I knew I wanted to carve a face on it. But damn that was the hardest carve I ever did. The skin was so thick I broke two pumpkin knives. I was sweating like crazy and my arms were sore when I finally finished. 

This one was an experiment in carving a pumpkin in reverse. Where you look through the shell. It reminded me of those dioramas we used to make in school.

li'l pumps

Tonight we carved baby pumpkins. These are great. Super easy to scoop out. 

(Just one or two passes with an ice cream scooper.)

But I do recommend that if you carve them, you light them without their lids. 

Because they will burn. 

But then again, burnt pumpkin smells pretty good. 

Due to Overwhelming Demand...

Here is Nunu. In pumpkin.

Ew!

I found a dead bird in the yard this morning. It reminded me that the week before I found a dead rat on the lawn. I get the feeling that the neighbors cat watches LOST. Why else would it be trying to impress me?

The scariest part about picking up a dead animal is NOT the hand you're picking it up with.

It's the hand holding the grocery bag. For one thing you know you'll have a glove on the picking up hand, but not necessarily the bag hand. 

Furthermore, once rigor mortis sets in, the bird is frozen in the odd shape he was left in. And that shape does not smoothly go into the plastic bag you are holding with one hand. Even if you're wearing a glove on that hand (which I believe most don't, after all these are times of conservation).  Your forearm is totally at risk.

And after disposing of the animal, gloved or not, you still wash both of your hands clear to the elbow. 

Well I do anyway. 

(I was going to take a picture of it. But I thought it best not to. But I was also able to clear some mushrooms, and pick up Nunu's poop all with the same bag. Talk about "two birds." [That was awful.])

Pumpkin Crazy!!!

So last night we had a Pumpkin Carving Party. 

And it was awesome. 

I cooked chili and mac and cheese. 

We also made caramel apples. 

The one on the left: Emerson, the right: Holloway.

And in case you were wondering, this one was mine.

And here's Beth's

 

Freddie!

Tonight's pumpkin:

Freddie.

Here he is with the lights out.

I screwed up the mouth which is why it looks like his lips are sewn shut.

P.S. Good news I know what I'm going to be for Halloween. 

Now I have to figure out how to make the costume. 

Consumer Test: Topsy Turvy

With my tomato plants I thought I'd try out the Topsy Turvy tomato planter.

It hangs them upside down. So they start to bend around. 

So far it seems to work. But we won't know until the fruit starts to show up.

Still 9 Days Away!

But we continue to carve early.Here's Beth's other one with my alien (minus the green light)

And I have yet to be inspired to make a costume.

We Just Can't Wait

We know they won't even last three days. And Halloween is more than two weeks away. But we have already carved three pumpkins at the house. And I believe there will be more carved in the days leading up to our carving party on the 26th. 

Here are this season's pumpkins so far.

Beth did a velociraptor.

I did a Space Alien.

And Beth. 

This is from her old MySpace picture.

Sorry Noon

But it's that time of month again.

Vancouver Picture Closeout

At last our trip has come to an end.

And my material can finally catch up to the present, more or less.

Woah!!!

Gassy Jack. (Too easy.)

Dolphins

So cool. A couple of days ago I was working on a boat. And a pod of dolphins came swimming up to it. (I'm thinking they were spinners.) It was cool but hard to concentrate because during the take we could here them coming up for air and one of them kept slapping his tail on the water. It was as if he knew. He's all, "look at me I want to be on TV! Give me some fish!"

Speaking of... (nice segue huh?)

Here are the pictures from our dolphin interaction at the Vancouver Aquarium

Hey dolphin, smell my finger.

And now for the group shot...

Take 1

Get that tail up dummy!

...and Take 2

That's more like it.

I want to thank everyone at the aquarium. We had an awesome time.

Vanaqua: Behind the Glass

Then we got to go behind the scenes at the aquarium.

We saw some baby clown fish. There were smaller ones than these. But these actually show up better (and look like clown fish). I'm holding a penny up to the glass to give a sense of size. 

There once was a time when someone owned a clown fish and named it something cute and original like "Puddles" but nowadays all clown fish are "Nemo." These two little fellas on the left are Nemo and Nemo. The other two are their reflection. 

 

We saw a snake that they were apparently training to "go" on the paper.

Here I am holding little turtle.

Here I am finding out that the turtle has an eye infection. 

Not pictured, me going to buy some Purell.

In the rain forest room we got to hold a butterfly. 

And we watched a sloth eat tofu.

Hmm... a sloth, reptiles... I have a sneaking suspicion this aquarium is a zoo. 

"There's a spurt going"

At the aquarium there was a beluga whale that gave birth to a calf. 

However this video mostly focuses on something ELSE that came out of the mother.

We asked the lady what that was and she kind of beat around the bush. I mean we figured it was some kind of toilet item, we just wanted specifics. You know like a number. One or two. 

Or maybe it was swimming so fast it started smoking.

Vancouver Aquarium

I love visiting Vanaqua. The last time I was here I got to go behind the scenes and play with some sea lions. This time we got to play with dolphins. I'm waiting on pictures from that but they haven't arrived yet. So I'm proceeding without.

My favorite animals are always the sea otters. They're just so damn adorable that I could watch them the whole day. Here they feed them shellfish that is frozen in ice cubes and rings. 

Um... excuse me... it appears someone installed your jelly fish tank upside down. 

No worries I'll just flip the picture around.

I've seen puffer fish in private aquariums. 

They are a cool looking fish but I think I'd only want to own one if I could train it to do this on command.

Science World

Then we spent an afternoon at Science World.I'm not sure what day it was but it was full of kids. And it's hard to have fun when you're playing with something and there's a kid breathing over your shoulder to take a turn. Because the fact of the matter is this is THEIR playground. Not yours. 

Some kids even have no qualms about stepping right in front of us in line. 

By the way the parents don't stop them. They grunt or say there name quietly as if to pretend they care that their child is being inconsiderate. And then give a little smile as if to say, "What can you do? He's adorable." But then they just let them do whatever they were doing.

But I don't let these kids bother me. They'll get theirs. Later on the playground. Where the justice of their peers is harsh. 

Whistler

We took a day trip to Whistler, and really Whistler in the summer is pretty dead. It's a ski lodge town mostly. Though there is rafting to do there. It really wasn't something to do on a day trip; we ended up just having hot chocolate at a hotel. 

But the trip was totally worth it because on the way we discovered an awesome waterfall 

with a restaurant across the street.

It's worth it to eat there for the view alone but the food was really good. I think it was the best meal we had this trip. We were big fans of the poached pear. 

By the way this sign is no joke. 

After returning to Vancouver we learned the next morning that this happened:

We were on this road only hours before. And I thought driving in Ireland was scary.