Halloween with the Rigg Kids

When our city postponed Halloween for a week I was majorly bummed since Taber and I would be out of town on the rescheduled date.  I really didn't want to miss it so we dressed them up anyway  and decided to check out trick or treating at the mall.

The girls were a lady bug and a bumblebee and Cam was the cutest little elephant to ever walk army crawl this earth. ; )

I had some face paint so I did some fun little designs around the girls eyes and on their cheeks. I thought they looked pretty cute.

We met up with Teya's bff Mia and headed into the mall.

When we got inside it was chaos! I guess since the city wasn't doing trick or treat everyone and their dog was at the mall. We waited in line at the first store for 20 minutes just to get a pathetic tootsie roll. We got in line for another store but 10 minutes into the wait we decided to ditch the mall and take our friends up on their offer to trick-or-treat with them in Massachusetts. We said goodbye everyone at the mall and headed down to Mass.

We got to our friend's house just as it was getting dark and the kids were not happy that we subjected them to picture taking before they could go knocking on doors for candy. This was the best shot of all 3 we could get. : )

The girls had a blast when we finally let them loose outside. They ran from door to door and got quite a nice collection of candy. It was pretty cold though and Brinley tapped out after about 20 minutes and sat in the car with me and Cam to get warm. It was a fun night and I'm glad we got to see the kids trick or treat.

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A week later they had trick or treating in Nashua. Taber and I were on our Anniversary trip but I told my parents about it and showed them where the costumes and the face paint were.  

 I figured my Dad would probably just do a few little designs on their eyes like I did but he found a book with face paint designs and let the girls pick the most elaborate ones they could find. 

 Teya picked butterfly eyes...

and despite Teya and my mom's best efforts to dissuade her, Brinley insisted on having an ocean face. Teya was very upset that Brinley's ocean face did not coordinate with her bee costume but you can't really argue with a 3 year old once they've set their mind on something.

The girls and their make up artist, Papa Uda.

My mom stayed home with Cam and passed out candy while my Dad took the girls trick or treating. It sounded like my dad had a blast and I'm so glad he got to enjoy some fun bonding time with his granddaughters.  : )

The Snowstorm that Crippled New England

On October 29th we were getting the kids ready for the Trunk or Treat at our church when snow starting coming down hard. The Trunk or Treat was cancelled and by 9pm we had lost power. Our power went out during Hurricane Irene but only for a few hours so I wasn't that worried. The kids thought it was awesome getting ready for bed with flashlights and we went to sleep thinking we'd be up and running in the morning.

 When we woke up the next day there was still no power. Our house was a chilly 60 degrees and there was a 10 inch blanket of snow covering our yard.

 Church was cancelled so we bundled up the kids and got to work shoveling the driveway.

The girls were so excited about the snow and we didn't realize at that point how much damage it had done so we just let them play and enjoy it for awhile.

Then Taber went to go check on some of the families from church and that's when we realized how bad it was. Since the snow had come early, all the trees still had their leaves and the heavy snow made them come crashing down. Hundreds of trees and power lines were down, taking out the power for over 80% of Nashua.

Here's a video Taber took driving around our neighborhood of some of the damage. It's pretty crazy to see all the broken trees everywhere.

No power in the winter means no heat, and the forecast for the next few nights called for temps in the low 20's. Fortunately in our church we have an emergency plan that includes a list of all the people with generators in case of a power outage. The "generator families" were kind enough to open their homes for people to take hot showers, get a warm meal and in many cases, have a warm place to sleep since the temperature inside of the homes without power was dropping into the 40's.

Some of our friends with power let us bring our frozen food over to their freezer so it wouldn't go bad. Then they kindly sent me home with a pot of hot chili and homemade bread. Despite the huge inconvenience of not having electricity, it was actually kind of fun to be in campout mode at our house. We bundled up, broke out the candles and headlamps and tried to make an adventure out of it.

That night we moved all the beds down into the family room by our fireplace so we could stay warm. The fire kept us nice and toasty but the rest of the house was dipping into the 50's so we stayed contained to the family room where we played, slept, and ate.

The next day was Halloween but the city postponed trick or treating for a week and school was cancelled. I felt really bad that the girls had been jipped out of trunk or treat, Teya's class party, and now trick or treating. Luckily our friends who live 40 minutes south in Massachusetts had power and invited us to trick or treat with them since their city was still doing it. The girls had a blast (pictures to come later) and when we came home we were overjoyed to find that our power was back on!

The next few days we hosted families who still didn't have power. People came to shower, do laundry and sleepover. School was cancelled all week until Friday and our internet and phones didn't come back until then either. Luckily by Friday most of our city was up and running again but our poor neighbors in Connecticut were still without power for another week! 

In the end we spent 40 hours without power.  It was a crazy adventure that taught us a lot about emergency preparedness in the winter and gave us a new sense of gratitude for things like central  heating, our dishwasher and Cam's white noise machine : )

Taber conquers the Hartford Marathon

Hello blogosphere. I have missed you : ) 

Things have been a little crazy but they're starting to settle down so prepare yourself for a picture overload as I crank out the posts over the next few days to get caught up. 

First up: Taber the dominator kills the Hartford Marathon.

 Hartford is just a 2 hour drive from us so the night before the big race we drove down to get settled in. The city was bustling with marathon fever and it was fun to see signs everywhere welcoming the runners.

 We hit the expo and Taber picked up his bib number and timing chip.
 He looks so excited : )

One of the booths was giving out Larabar samples. They had a sign that said, "Just take two please" But when Taber told them he worked for General Mills (GMills owns Larabar) The lady gave him this giant bag with at least 100 bars. SCORE!

The kids did great at the expo, they scored free glasses and suckered Daddy into buying them some sporty little headbands. : )

 After the expo we went over to the park for the Pasta feed so Taber could get in a good carb load before race day. 

Then it was back to the hotel to attempt to get some rest. Attempt definitely being the key word here. We were all crammed in one small room with Cam in his pack and play and the girls on a blow up bed that wouldn't stay inflated. They replaced it around 9pm and then had to come in again at 3am to fill the replacement back up with air.  Also our toilet flooded and maintenance had to come up and deal with that. It was a rough night but with pre-race nerves I'm not sure how much Taber would've slept anyway.

Despite the lack of sleep Taber was up early and ready to roll. We were only a 5 minute walk to the starting line so he hung out and stayed warm until the last minute.

This is the view of the start and finish line from our hotel room. Once we sent Taber on his way we hunkered down in the room and alternated between watching the live broadcast on TV and watching out the window. 

I had signed up to receive text message alerts when Taber hit the 10K, half marathon, and 20 mile mark so I would have an idea of where he was. For some reason I never got the text for the 10K and I was freaking out wondering what had happened to him and if he was okay! Luckily I got the half marathon update an hour and 49 minutes into the race and after that I was able to calm down knowing that he was okay and cruising at an awesome pace.

I was very grateful for the hotel room to corral the kids and keep them entertained. Especially because it was chilly and very windy that day.

Before long I received a text that Taber had crossed the 20 mile mark in 2:51:05. That was my cue to load up the troops and head down to the finish line with our cow bells and posters.

We met up with our my friend Darby whose husband was also running it and anxiously kept our eyes out for our runners.

Soon we saw Taber coming around the corner. He was well under his goal of sub 4 hours and crossed the finish line in 3:54:00.  Here are his thoughts he posted on Runkeeper after it was over:

 "Wow what an experience. New PR by a good 45 minutes. Going into the marathon my main goal was to break 4 hours and I'm happy to see my time starting with a "3" in front of it. I felt like I might be able to push for a 3:40-3:45 so I decided to start the race with the 3:40 pace group. I couldn't find the 3:40 pace group so I just started off on my own. Mile 1 felt great. Found the 3:40 pace group at mile 2 and decided to hang with them. This was probably my biggest mistake because the pace group was running a very fast 1st half to bank a lot of time for the 2nd half. I clocked a ridiculous fast mile 2 and 3 (7:42 and 7:48 pace) before I realized that this group was not the right pace for me. Once I clocked 8:03 for mile 4 I knew I was going to be hurting later in the race. I started to let up and eventually settled into my own groove of 8:20-35 splits. I took a gu after mile 8, 17 and then again around mile 22. Those fast miles early on really wore on me during the last 6 miles. I ended up getting through the first 18-20 miles at a decent clip, but the last 6 miles I hit a wall. At that point I was glad I had banked enough time to start running 9-10+ min/miles because that's all I had in me. The last 4 miles were especially tough with the wind (20-30mph) coming head on. I finished at 3:54 and was spent! It was so awesome having the family there to catch me. The marathon was put on really well and had a ton of water stops. Also the finish shoot was really impressive and there was a ton of loud screaming fans. Overall a huge success and a very memorable weekend with the fam."

It took awhile to find him after he finished but when we finally did we made sure to let him know how proud we were.

Marathon Dad!

We took some pics and then dropped him off at the massage tent.

While we were waiting for him to get his massage the girls kept themselves entertained by digging up an impressive collection of earth worms. I know it's disgusting but it kept them busy so I wasn't about to stop them.

When it was all over we took our runner boy to Five Guys for a victory burger.  

I guess spectating a marathon is almost as exhausting as running one if you're a 3 year old.

 Brinley literally stayed passed out through the entire meal. 

We're very proud of our Marathon man for training so hard and pushing past the pain to reach his goal on race day. He really is such a great example to our kids and a huge inspiration to me. WTG Taber!!

Rigg's Annual Halloween Party 2011

I love love love Halloween! A holiday that gives me an excuse to dress up and throw a party? I am all over that! This year I felt like the planning was a lot easier since we had a year of experience under our belts. The party ran smoothly and was a huge success but I still learned some things this year that I think will make next year even better! (Such as more costume prizes, better voting system, some new games and possibly a spook alley! Gotta start planning these things early ; )

Originally we were going to be Dora and Diego, but when my "Dora" wig arrived in the mail I realized it looked more like Cleopatra hair. Plus I've done Dora before so we decided to switch things up and went as Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. 

We had about 40 people this year and everyone brought fabulously spooky desserts and appetizers. My favorite were the candy corn rice crispy treats. WOW! those were awesome!

The costumes this year were SOOOO good!  It was tricky trying to narrow it down because everyone received lots of votes! It was so hard to just give 1st, 2nd and 3rd which is why next year I think we'll do some house prizes and category prizes too.

Here are the awesome costumes:

 Steve Jobs and the iPhone, Punk Rockers, 

Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth, and the Flintstones.

 "Bad News,"Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa, 

Carl and Ellie from UP, Static Cling and She Devil.

Settlers of Catan game board and victory journal, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra.

Dominos delivery boy and Pizza, Father Time and Mother Earth.

Candy Corn, Vintage Comic

Popeye and Olive, Adam and Eve and baby apple.

And now for the winners:

First place went to the Blanchettes for the second year in a row! Last year they were the Grinch and Cindy Lou who. This year they got tons of laughs as Sonny and Cher. I don't know how Jenn convinced Casey to dress up like that but watching him work those heels and flip his long hair all night was hysterical!

2nd place went to the Fry's for their re-creation of Russ and Teresa's engagement picture from the 80's. (background story below)

 It's kind of a big inside joke with our church friends. Russ used to be the bishop and when he posted the old engagement pic on Facebook everyone went nuts over it. The feathered bangs and jean jackets were just too funny! When the Fry's showed up dressed just like them with a wedding announcement and their iPod blasting "Take my Breath away," No one could stop laughing! 

And 3rd place went to the Nelson's who dressed up as a black and white TV couple from the 50's.  This is not a black and white photo, they just painted their skin gray! Definitely impressive and well deserving of their prize!

We enjoyed an evening of chatting, eating, and crazy minute to win it games (see post below for games). It was a lot of work to put together but soo worth it when it was all said and done. Now I just can't wait for next year, I already have some costume ideas brewing in my head.... ; )

Halloween Party Minute to Win it Games 2011

We had so much fun playing Minute to Win it Games last year that we decided to do it for one more year. There were lots of laughs and cheers as we watched our friends complete the challenges. Here are some of the games we played:

Ready Spaghetti: two players had to move soda cans from one table to another using only their mouths and a spaghetti noodle. They had to build a tower of three cans before the minute was up.

Mad Dog: Each  player had a ruler with two boxes of tic tacs glued to each end. Payers had to put the rulers in their mouths and shake till all the tic tacs came out and then their partner had to do the same all within a minute. Messy but so funny to watch!

Baby Blocking: Players had to balance a plate on their head and stack 5 blocks on top of the plate without falling. This one is WAY harder than it sounds! 2 of the 4 players got it.

Nervous Nelly: Player had pedometers strapped to each arm and leg. They had to shake, wiggle and move around as much as they could in a minute to try and get a total of 500 clicks. I will definitely be posting video of this one later, SOOOO funny!

 Rapid Fire: Players had to use rubber bands to knock over a tower of 6 empty soda cans. The cans had to be completely cleared off the table before the minute was up.

 Separation Anxiety: Players had to sort 50 M&M's by color with only one hand. If they accidentally put the wrong color in a cup they were disqualified. I actually practiced this one with Teya and she was able to do it so I tried to make it harder by using 60 M&M's and no one got it! Guess Teya just has mad skills!

Ka-Broom: Players had to set up a marshmallow on a plate on the edge of a stool. Using a broom to tip the plate they had to launch the marshmallow up in the air and catch it in a cup, 3 times. This one was intense but so much fun when the players caught the marshmallows!

We also did a game where players had to bounce ping pong balls off the ground and onto a table and try to get them to stick onto a piece of bread with peanut butter. Much harder than it sounds! We finished with one more round of nervous nelly to break a 3 way tie between some of the teams. Whoever got the most pedometer clicks in a minute won. It was tons of fun and hopefully I'll be able to get some video up because watching this stuff in action is hilarious!