I ended last week with a fun night of Bingo and then topped it off with a case of pink eye. Scott's high school had a fundraiser Bingo event. I have attended with the neighbor ladies for the last 5 years and usually come away with some type of win. Not so this year. But I had a great time. I just wish I had felt better.

Instead, I had to head over to the doctor's office on Saturday morning for eye drops. I was still busy filling up my days off with lots of activities. Again I had some financial issues to deal with for my mom on Friday(phone calls and office visits). I did manage to get to my water aerobics class though on Friday morning, even though my eye started burning.  On Saturday I was busy shopping for Thanksgiving Day dinner as well as buying new tires for my mini van. I left the van at Costco all day while I did some shopping. Tom picked me up and we had lunch together. We then spent the afternoon shopping until the car was ready. We started to pick up a few new Christmas decorations too. The Christmas Holiday decorations have sure gone up a lot earlier than in the past. I am still trying to enjoy the Thanksgiving Holiday! And Scott and I just got the Halloween decorations put away in the attic!

Scott was very busy with tests and projects since this was the last full week of school before the Holiday break. He is really looking forward to a break from school. He did get a small break last Tuesday when he participated in a field trip to a local computer company, Ciena, with his Robotics team. The group was treated to a tour of the company by the CEO, free lunch(designer pizza) and computer tote bags with polo shirts and pens.  He also managed to run another successful boy scout meeting. This week the theme revolved around music. He had the badge counselor for the Music badge and the Bugler. It made for an interesting meeting. He also attended a a planning meeting on Monday and volunteered on Thursday evening for their blood drive. I was busy making cookies to donate to their bake sale. Scott was also busy working this past weekend at the roller rink.

On Sunday I went in to work for a few hours to get caught up before the Holiday week. In the afternoon I picked up my mom for a hair appointment. Afterwards we went to church and then headed home for dinner. I also managed to get a few bags of leaves out to the curb. Most of them have fallen off the trees onto our lawn, so it keeps me very busy!

A very busy week. Just wish I was feeling a bit better. We are looking forward to seeing Allison when she comes home for the Thanksgiving Holiday! We are looking forward to participating in the YMCA Turkey Trot this Thanksgiving morning!

Happy Birthday to Me! I celebrated my big day on Friday the 13th. Actually, it was 11/13/15. A date that does not pop up that often(3 consecutive odd numbers). So it was extra special! Our family enjoyed dinner out on Friday night along with my mom at Olive Garden. I especially enjoyed my free pumpkin cheesecake while opening up my gifts. I also decided to throw my own birthday party and invited all our neighbors to join us for dinner out on Saturday night. Afterwards, we girls headed over to enjoy an evening of painting, cake and wine. I have been to the Painting Wine Bar before(painted in the dark when the power went out!). This time we took on Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. (I think Tom enjoys the original better). But I really had a great time and enjoyed the company.   (And the presents!)

I was also looking forward to a bit of relaxation after spending the whole week with my mom in the hospital. She was admitted last Tuesday after throwing up(again). Looks like she has an issue with gall stones. She spent Tuesday night and most of Weds sleeping in the ER. Weds night she was admitted to the cardiac unit in the hospital for observation and then discharged Thursday night. It made for a very long week. Especially since I had two classes to attend on Thursday-one before work and one after. I had just returned home from a very long day and had to head out again to the ER. Fortunately she seems to be doing much better. Nothing really recommended for treatment. But now we know. I also spent most of Saturday at a class dealing with Alzheimers and dementia. It was a program put on for caregivers. Very nicely done. They served breakfast and lunch, I received a back massage and even won a gift basket! All in all, a wonderful (but tiring) day.

Mom was feeling well enough to join us for dinner on Friday night. On Sunday afternoon I picked her up after getting Scott from work. We went to church and came home for dinner(and more birthday cake).

Scott continues to stay busy at work on the weekends at the roller rink. He also is busy running the weekly boy scout meetings. And he had an added bonus of running a Video game tournament at his school on Friday night. The Business Club president asked Scott if he would help organize an event at the school. 60 kids showed up! Looks like it was a success. They are looking forward to working together in the future and running more tournaments. And then there is always school. He also squeezed in a dentist appointment and has been meeting with his robotics team. They are planning a Field Trip next week to a company that makes circuit boards.

I tried talking Allison into coming home and joining me in my painting class. But she was busy with another day of Ultimate Frisbee. I was surprised she could play since we had a very windy weekend. Scott even went out driving with Tom (on the freeway this time!). Scott was amazed how difficult it can be to keep control of the car in high wind.

And Tom headed out to Chicago on Sunday morning to work. At least his trip went smoothly. With all the chaos in Paris, the airports have been especially on high alert. Just glad he had a safe trip.

This was certainly an action packed week. I started Monday off with a phone call at work  from my mom's apartment complex letting me know that she was in the hospital. She had gone down to lunch and was throwing up. They were checking her out to see if she'd had a heart attack or stroke or was dehydrated. After spending the entire day with her in the ER and waiting for them to run lots of tests, they decided she had a stomach virus. They pumped her up with IV fluids just in case. I took her home, helped her get a shower, a sandwich and sent her to bed. They kept her locked up in her apt for a few days just in case.

As soon as I got home Monday night,  the phone was ringing. The boy scouts were looking for Scott for their Sr Patrol meeting. Back in the car. Scott has been running around about as much as I have. He did a terrific job running the Halloween boy scout meeting last week, and this week it was an Open House for the cub scouts with lots of work stations. I have been busy collecting permission slips and checks for the boys upcoming rappelling and zipline camping trip(which we are all skipping this year). Too many other activities. He also has to make phone calls and set up guest speakers for each meeting to present scout badges. It is keeping him on his toes. Plus his video club is participating in a county wide tournament at his high school this coming week. So he needs to send out fliers. And robotics is kicking it up a notch, planning each week in the evening for this year's upcoming tournament. He has also been working at the roller rink consistently every weekend and is really enjoying it. Oh yes, and in his spare time he does his homework. He is so happy to have survived his first semester which ended last week.

I also spent all day Friday assisting my mom with her finances. Pretty much every financial disaster that could occur did. I started the morning off with the IRA account for my dad from Charles Schwab. Mom and I had spent over an hour filling out paperwork two weeks ago to switch the account to her name. Guess it did not work. They screwed up the whole transaction and still wanted more ID on mom. After multiple phone calls(and advice from our broker), we straightened it out. Then it was on to their Huntington account. They just now switched the address(I requested the switch over a year ago). No one answered their phone. Next disaster. They have been overcharging my parent's account at the Sunrise apt complex. So much for automatic deduction. I was on the phone over an hour with their billing office. Needless to say, they owe mom quite a bit of money. And last but not least, we spent another hour at Bank of America, still trying to close out my Dad's account and switch it over to my mom only. Unfortunately most of these offices don't have the authority to do anything and the large corporation offices(mostly in Texas I found out) can't keep track of all the data. So you spend the entire day on the phone and pushing papers. Only a year and a half and I have not yet gotten my parent's business finished. Guess I never really will.

I was also busy making family dentist appointments and a PT appointment for my mom's arthritic knee.  At least I got in a water exercise class Friday morning. And I ended the day on a high note playing BUNCO with the neighborhood girls. On Saturday, Tom and I dropped Scott off at work and picked up my mom to go see the new James Bond movie Spectre. It is a full 2.5hrs long. Mom seemed to really enjoy it-it was loud and full of action. So it did not matter that she chatted away the entire movie. I don't think anyone could hear her! After picking up Scott from work, we all headed out for dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. It was a great day to spend at the movies since it rained.

Friday the temp jumped up to 80! Tom was able to get outside and cut the grass and mulch the leaves. On Sunday I spent some time shoveling up the leaves while Scott was at work. It was a bit chilly, but very sunny. A good day to take Cookie for a walk too. Only after I did all my shopping errands. I am getting a head start on Christmas shopping! And I still have some Halloween decorations to put away and finish putting up the Thanksgiving knick knacks(before the Christmas decorations come out!). And our Girl Scout choir has started up another season of singing. I did not make the Monday night performance with the Pride of Baltimore Sweet Adeline singers. Fortunately they had lots of girl scouts singing. I have been too busy to make all the practice sessions too. I should be ok on the Christmas songs at least.

Another exciting Halloween has come and gone. I was busy running around last Friday and Saturday getting food ready for our neighborhood party as well as cleaning and decorating. I mainly spent Friday running errands for my mom(as usual). In the morning I had to meet with the estate planning lawyer to rewrite my Dad's trust. Afterwards I met with the broker to discuss the finances under the upcoming new trust. I finally made it over to my mom's apartment to pick her up for a hair appointment. When I arrived, I found all the residents sitting in the front lobby waiting for trick or treaters. There is a Goddard Day care program next door and the kids came over after their naps for trick or treating. There must have been about 50 or more kids! I think the parents picked up the older kids from school and added them to the toddler bunch. But the kids were so adorable! And the residents seemed to really enjoy passing out the candy and getting dressed up themselves. Mom was sporting Mickey Mouse ears. She had a lot of visits from Minnie Mouses!  After two hours of passing out candy, we were out the door for both of our hair appointments.

I decided to get my hair cut too. While mom was busy at the salon I finished running my errands. I picked her up and we headed home for dinner. I even put her to work helping me make chili for the party as well as an apple pie from the apples we had picked ourselves. Then I dropped her back home, only to pick her up on Saturday evening for our Halloween party. What a beautiful evening it turned out to be. We were running around the neighborhood in tshirts. I sent two small groups of guests out on a scavenger hunt. It was a great excuse to get out and see all the decorations and kids and dogs in their costumes. Our neighbors down the street had a bonfire in their driveway and were hosting a cook out. I was sporting my Walking Dead costume(the neighborhood kids thought I was Jack Sparrow the pirate). What do kids know. I was Michonne from the Walking Dead(she kills zombies with a ninja sword and has dreadlocks). I bought a wig. Everyone came to our party dressed in some type of costume. It was terrific. We ate tons of food and played Pictionary afterwards. Mom kept score. She said she just enjoyed watching all of us make fools of ourselves. We also had two cavachon puppies running around under our feet-Cookie dressed as a Ton Ton with Luke Skywalker riding her and Ripley borrowed our pumpkin outfit. They were adorable. Or as one guest pointed out, Cookie came dressed as Ripley and Ripley as Cookie(they really do look exactly alike). Anyhow, the extra hour came in handy on Saturday night. I dropped mom off around 11pm(10pm daylight savings time). And it was nice to sleep in on Sunday morning.

We were especially happy to have Allison home for the party. She spent the entire day playing Field Hockey at Uof Maryland. They were in the playoffs, but lost their 1st two games. So they were eliminated. But they were asked to play a 3rd game. Allison played incredibly well and they won. By the way, she was the only goalie playing for her team that day and each game is 1 hour long. They were asked to play a 4th game at 6pm and that is when the girls called it quits. They may have played all night and then would have had to play again on Sunday. The girls were exhausted and just wanted to go home.

It was so fun having kids at our Halloween party. It is nice that the different generations can hang out together and have a lot of fun doing so. Scott had tried to organize his friends in order to have another scary moviethon but last minute planning did not work out. They are rescheduling this coming weekend.

Scott was also busy working this past weekend at the roller rink, although he said it was surprisingly slow. Guess all the kids were off doing other activities. He finished his 1st semester of school on Friday and was so relieved to have a little break(very little). He still had lots of assignments to catch up on Sunday afternoon after work. He has also been busy running the boy scout meetings. Last week the boys enjoyed themselves with a costume contest and pumpkin carving contest. I picked up a few prizes for the boys and came dressed in my Star Wars skirt. (It glows in the dark!)  The scout leader and his wife were sporting their Star Trek uniforms. Guess we are all geeks! Scott is still trying to adjust to his new role as Assistant Sr Patrol Leader. Last week he had to run the meeting himself when all the rest of the boys came down with the flu. And he is still very busy keeping his video club running. I am also busy working with the boy scouts-attending the parents meeting on Monday and collecting money and permission slips for an upcoming rappelling and zipline camping trip.

Allison headed back to school Sunday afternoon(before it got dark). I packed her up with plenty of food and candy bars.

It was nice to end October on a high note. Last week was a bit depressing as I said goodbye to 3 wonderful people that recently passed away. On Thursday, Tom and I attended a wake for a good neighbor of ours-Paul Rehmet. He was in his late 80s. His wife Winnie is amazing and is staying on in their home. (must be that german heritage). After the wake, Tom and I decided to go out to dinner. I was also shocked to hear that the kids previous school nurse passed away last week-she was only 54. Not sure what happened to her. And then I received a phone call from my old high school pet store boss. Al and Bonnie informed me that our dear friend, Rochelle had passed away suddenly of a heart attack. She was 75 and living with her youngest daughter in Las Vegas. We used to all hang out together when I was in high school working at the pet store. And after going to the late Sunday mass, I was shocked to hear that one of my girl scout moms and fellow co leader was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Not a great week.

On a good note, Congratulations go out to Tom for being accepted into an online University PhD program. He is studying Management and took his first online test this weekend. Only 3 more years to go! Happy Birthday to Stacey's husband Matt. Hope you all got to do something fun and special to celebrate. And Congrats to Eric and Sarah on the purchase of their 1st home! What fun!

Scott carves his pumpkin at Boy Scouts

 Lots of Decorations for Halloween

 Spooky house guests!

 Our spooky house

 Beautiful Fall Color