Tricks & Treats for Grown-Ups

How do you celebrate Halloween? Making pumpkins with the kids, trick or treating? How about when the kiddos aren't around? Well for us this weekend meant Halloween party: Adults Only. Some of us dressed up, some didn't but we all had fun. As most grown up shindigs, it was definitely a you-had-to-be-there experience and I'm not even going to try to post all the varied things that were talked about or the funny things that were said. So I'll leave you with a inside joke. Jenny's got bitches.

Dry ice centerpiece that kept getting stuck to the coffee table. Kyle kept refilling the glass to make more ice smoke.

 One very, very convincing zombie.

My last minute attempt at a Nicki Minaj costume. Complete with fake butt.

Found the 2 easy components to make Kyle into a lumberjack. Sadly no axe, but we make do.

Jenny, keeper of the bitches.

The Maker's Faire

The Norfolk Scope was host to a Mini Maker's Faire this Saturday. What is a Maker's Faire? Well, according to their site, it's a "family-friendly festival of invention, creativity and resourcefulness, and a celebration of the Maker movement." Pretty much it was a lot of engineer-y and a few artist booths. There were rockets, LEGO robotics, planes, and lots of homemade things like furniture. Think of it as a homemade fair, lots of jewelry, artwork, comics and more to be seen.

This was a machine that would produce a spark if you kept turning the handle. It took awhile before it generated enough electricity for the spark.

Possible Gift Alert! It's an all paper roller coaster for marbles. As you can guess you make it yourself out of a kit. Design your own roller coaster, cut and tape your paper together and roll your marbles on down.

Hobby airplanes, very different from model airplanes. These even had cameras attached so you can have an eye in the sky. I didn't even think to see how much a kit would cost because it's safe to assume it's not cheap.

One of Isaac's favorite things at the faire had to be this Chaos Machine. It was like a mega large K'Nex track with lots of moving parts that the participants were allowed to change and move around. Marbles rolled through the machine, sometimes they fell out but it was really interesting seeing all the paths that they take.

These were small robotics made out of Legos. The table was set up like game where you had to maneuver the robots around the table to knock down little displays of lego pieces.

One of my favorite things (besides the art table that I didn't get a picture of with the artist who was doing free portraits that I also didn't get) was a display of solar power. Think if that window as a large magnifying glass focusing the sun's energy into one spot. As soon as the demonstrator placed a piece of cardboard in there it ignited. Very cool. isaac even got a turn holding a soda can in the ray of light and watching it burn. Supervised, of course.

All in all it was really fun and I'm really happy that Carissa let me horn in on her fun. :)

Down In The Mouth

After months of avoiding it, I finally went to the dentist for my hole-y tooth. Yep, after a chunk of my tooth fell out I did not immediately schedule a dentist appointment. I know, I am a reckless woman. The dentist told me that there was a strong possibility that I'd need a root canal or even lose the tooth. Luckily for me there wasn't any nerve damage and they were in fact still unexposed. Yay! So a filling was on the bill for me. Got a shot, so no pain, but the awkward feeling of people literally staring in my mouth.

Sorry for the phone pic, but I had left the camera at home. But aren't you kinda glad because I definitely would have ended up taking one with my mouth full of dental implements.