The annual "Halloween in September" at our local Camp Crescent Campground is set to be open in all its glitz and glimmer tonight. Although a camper's event, many local children along with curious adults will "trick or treat" throughout the campground this evening. The pictures shown here are just a few of the "haunting scenes" participants have set up. Once it becomes dark, there will be lots of lights and TREATS!! A special thanks to all those who take the time to make this a special September event in small town Iowa.
Scarecrows was the theme for our 2nd After school Hour event. Didn't have as many children as our "gingerbread" event last week but that was probably because it wasn't advertised the same. Now that word will be getting out that this will be a weekly event I expect the numbers to increase. Those that did attend this week had a great time again "competing" at some Wii sport games, participating in a story/poem about a scarecrow who needed to make "scary faces" to scare away the crows, AND the stuffing of our own life-size scarecrow! It is still standing in our meeting room and actually does cause one to "jump" when not expecting to see it standing there. 
The first After School Hour event went off in great style with a gingerbread man theme- thanks to a new picture book entitled The Gingerbread Man - Loose in the School by Laura Murray. 30 children from grades K-4 croweded into our not hardly large enough meeting room to eat popcorn, design paper gingerbread men (seen above) compete in Wii sport games, hear the story, go on a gingerbread man scavenger hunt throughout the library and then end up decorating edible gingerbread man shaped cookies! Since only a few pairs got to compete on the Wii the competition, along with prizes, will continue next Monday and other Mondays up until November when the weather gets a little unpredictable. Will try and plan for the younger children to be able to do their activitity in a different area if the crowd of older children is as large as this first one. All in all everyone had a good time. I failed to get a picture of my able assistant, Joyce, who was even wearing a special gingerbread apron. Will get a belated one to post. 
Here are some new scenic views from my lakeside home: a gorgeous sunset over the lake, leaves changing color, my recently manicured secret garden area and some lovely cloud formations. It is scenes like these that make the coming winter weather worth living through!
While visiting my New Mexico "hometown" this past summer my friend took me on a tour of different houses. The very adobe Spanish style home is one that is located along the Pecos River that runs through Carlsbad and should I ever want to give up my lovely Iowa lakeside home, this is where I would probably want to move to. The other two houses pictured here are definitely out of my price range but are just two of many lovely homes in this desert town. They, too, have the Pecos River in their backyard. All homes along the Pecos have a special "Christmas on the Pecos" event where they have very elaborate yard decorations all lit up for tourists and locals to view while floating down the river on large pontoons designed for this annual event.
