weekend round-up

Can I still do a weekend round-up on a Wednesday?? Darn right you can when you're just coming off a 5 day weekend! Wuh-hoo!!Things started off as both a blessing and a curse. The curse part? The weekend was planned fully around the much-anticipated visit of my cousin Kaili and her family but unfortunately they all fell victim to the flu and had to cancel last minute!!!! HUGE curse to the weekend as I think we were both counting the seconds until the visit. The blessing part? That did leave me with a whole Friday off of work during which I really didn't do a whole lot. Well, that's not true really -- I ran some errands, spent some time hanging out at my fave coffee joint with pals, made a yummy Indian dinner and took Sadie on a really lovely and yet rainy afternoon hike. Here's some pretty pics of the greenbelt that runs behind my house about a block away.Well this is obviously super cute Sadie enjoying the mud.

Like honestly, as if this is so close to my house downtown

One of my favourite fall things in my 'hood - when the leaves are so thick you can't tell the lawn from the road.

Later on Friday we headed over to Cosmic Dave's Vinyl Emporium for the Ox CD release party. They've got a new EP coming out called Burnout and they're heading out on tour so out into the rain we went in support!!

Saturday brought Halloween fun! First though, out early in the morning for a bush hike before the rains came and a trip to the Farmer's Market to pick out some pumpkins! Then home for warm coffee and breakfast and then -- elbow deep in pumpkin insides!!! Me, I love carving pumpkins and I think Marc has been sucked into the fun along with me.

Here's my pic - idea courtesy of Martha Stewart of course. Stupidly easy, bigtime cool factor.

And here's Marc's pumpkin -- much more labour intensive but all worth it for the after-effect. The kids were in love with it.

And here's more Sadie - having a hard time picking her fave. I was just happy she didn't eat all my rubber rats...

We spent the rest of the day cooking (slow-cooked beef stew served over gooey parmigiana polenta - perfect rainy day food) and setting up the rest of the decorations and then watched cheesy horror movies and handed out candy. My fave costumes of the night had to be the group of teens dressed as Pac-man, Ms Pacman and the little ghosts who told me they were "bringin' back the 80's" and then the wee little toddler dressed as a crocodile who, once he saw Sadie, just stood in the doorway staring at her not saying a word. His dad had to come and get him. 100% adorable...

Sunday, not too much of anything else outside of another great bush hike on a new trail with some friends and some new doggy friends for Sadie. Came home with a dog that was soaking wet, muddy, smelling like bog and full of burrs. Basically we came home with the happiest dog ever....