Some Halloween stories and more

It's almost Halloween and there's too many stories to read! I visited my friend's class today and read a couple of books. I'm saving some of these for Storytime. Nancy Shaw's- Sheep books are always simple and fun. Sheep Trick or Treat is about the sheep trick or treating around the barnyard. Each animal offers it's own type of treat...like dried up flies, hay, clover...it's cute.
The Halloween Kittens by Maggie Kneen is a sweet little book. The cute illustrations and flaps to lift make it perfect for story time.
Add the little gold sparkle on the pages and it's sure to be a hit.
Fun cats hanging on the back "porch"
Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler is a cute story about the skeleton who wakes up with hiccups. hic, hic, hic...and nothing he tried worked to get rid of them...so his friend Ghost finally decides to take matters into his own hands. It's fun! (I had never seen this one before...even though it's been out since 2002.)
The Foggy Foggy Forest is another good one for Story time. The first page is a silhouette...then you lift the page to reveal all sorts of fairy tale folk out and about in the woods. Little ones have fun guessing "who" is on the next page.
Room on the Broom is another book that's been out awhile (2001)..but I've never seen it before it was returned to our library last week. I was drawn to the illustrations and the rhyming story...but it's a little too long for my group
It could be a little too scary too...but it's a cute story about all the friends working together.
For the 1st graders I brought some other favorites. The Biggest Pumpkin Ever is a nice little story about Clayton (a town mouse) and Desmond (a farm mouse) who both find the same pumpkin and help it grow, Clayton wants to win the prize for the biggest pumpkin...Desmond wants the biggest Jack-o-Lantern ever...they have both been fertilizing and watering the pumpkin and helping it grow....and they make a deal so that they both can win.
I think I mentioned The Scarecrow's Hat last year...it's just a cute story. I used it last week when our theme was Scarecrows.
and I can't forget one of my favorites...Space Case by Edward and James Marshall. A "Thing" comes down from outer space on Halloween night and joins right in with the Trick or Treaters...haha I love how Buddy's father doesn't even notice thing when it comes home with Buddy. That and the fact that Buddy earns an A- for his project...which is the thing doing math rpoblems on the board...hahah...reminds me of some teachers I've known...haha.


We made some paperbag scarecrows...pretty easy and each one had it's own personality...the kids enjoyed them.

I love these fall themes!

Race Day

Okay so I'm a week behind...time just got away from me this past week. Here's the photos from the(4th annual) Witch Way 5k. Pre race activities at Nance Park in Indialantic.
Only Al... would want tocould pull this off...here he is in his super duper racing suit.
The race started at 5th Avenue...down by Starbucks.The runners naturally took off leaving the slower runners and walkers behind. We over heard one group of adults and young (5-6 yr olds) the mom was saying "Slow and steady...don't rush." John piped up "I can guarantee you that by mile 2 they will all be going slow and steady'" hahaha
some racers and spectators were in costumes...and some of the walkers/runners sported the "Glow in the dark" t-shirt we got.
The race ended up back at Nance Park...and then it was followed by after race activities at LongDoggers. Al and the committee got the whole Indialantic Shopping Center involved...the businesses stayed open and offered candy to Trick-or-Treating kids. There was live music,a Bounce house, games, booths...lots of food and drink. It was a beautiful evening and lots of fun.
We enoyed hanging out with lots of friends and watching the Gators.........lose. Oh well....
The highlight of the evening was when the Mayor presented Al with a placque and announced that from now on October 15th was to be "AL STEIGINGA DAY".
Al was very pleased to be recognized. He does a lot for the community and with his help the race earned over $20,000!
Oh and by the way...John and I both improved our times...we walked most of the way...jogged through a few intersections and ran the last 1/2 block or so. I had to beat one lady who was ahead of me most of the race...whenever I passed her...she caught up and jogged by me ( there's always at least one...haha)so in the end I decided I was determined to beat Lady Gaga (her T shirt)...and I did. She actually came up to John and I afterwards and said we were good motivation for her...we kept her at a good pace. That's my job! hahah :)

What can I say..I like a good sunset

Yesterday evening we walked in the Witch way 5K. It started at 6:30...so as we walked, the sun was setting.
I did stop to take a photo or two along the route...but they weren't so great, especially the sunset......because I missed the "moment"
Right as we were nearing the end of the race...I saw the red sky...I tried to quickly get past the buildings blocking my view...but it was too late. Tonight however...I had all the time in the world. I was taking Kiena for her evening walk when I saw these clouds. Ran in and got my camera. I liked the way there seemed to be layers.
Then I just watched the sky as the sun set.
The neighbors may have wondered what I was doing...standing on the street corner taking photos...hahah...especially the three who had stopped to chat about a block away...haha
But...how could I resist this?
Tomorrow...a little about the 5K and the party afterwards. :)

Weekend storm

We had a storm over the weekend...it rained for two days...pretty much all day
and the wind was blowing. There were some pretty strong gusts. It wasn't a tropical system per say...but it sure acted like one.
Our neighbor across the street found out a few months ago that she has lung cancer. There is nothing they can do...so it is just a matter of time. One thing Ra had said was that she wished she could sit on her back porch and watch a hurricane blow through once more...that and to use her generator that she had installed after all the hurricanes in 2004. Well...it wasn't a hurricane but we figured this was the storm she wanted. The power went out a few times...her generator kicked on...and it was the perfect kind of storm...because it didn't cause any damage.
John and I were kind of laughing at ourselves...we are lucky it wasn't a hurricane...because were were totally unprepared.
We had one little flashlight that worked...then eventually rounded up a second one. we did have some batteries...but no 9 volt...which is what we needed for the weather radio and/or our small AM/FM radio in our room.
At one point John ran across the street and got some D batteries from Ra...and just as we got them all into the radio in Megan's old room...the power came back on. So...if there had been any severe weather coming...we wouldn't have known....(once the power went out that is). We had food and plenty of water...but that's about it.
After the storm we had some clean up to do in the yard...not as much as we would have had...if we hadn't done the trimming we did recently. All around town there were lots of palm fronds, some small branches and lot of leaves.That...and lots of puddles. The water ran out of places to drain...the ditch along Paradise Blvd was at least double in size...I took a picture on my cell phone...if I can figure out how to get it from the phone to the computer...I'll add them. There was a lot of water! An hour or two after I walked by...I noticed the City vehicles lined up to figure out how to get the water to start draining...before more started falling!
Our neighbors had no power for an entire night & day...glad we just had short outages.
Everything is back to normal...the sun was out again today...but I can hear rain on the roof right now!

Hot times on the 9th Anniversary

Last week the Library celebrated it's 9th anniversary.
I was there when the library opened...at that time I was in the Reference dept. Dianne (Children's), Susan (Circ), Mona (secretary) Irma (Reference) are the only ones still there from the original crew. We have a new director and other staff has seen several turnovers...especially recently...but happily we are still open! Budget hearings for the year are
over and the budget is set for the year...so we don't have to worry about that for about 9 months....
We had some simple decorations and we baked some 9 shaped cookies. which looked kind of ugly. Mine were pretty awful looking...but they were brownies...with frosting and sprinkles...so no one cared
At the end of the day all except one were gone.
While we celebrated the 9th anniversary...we were heating up inside...since our AC finally called it quits. It has been slowly dying over the past few months...and it finally died last Tuesday. Wednesday I was there all day...we had fans everywhere, dressed down to stay cool...but it was HOT! As long as you were right next to a fan it was fine....
Thirsday I decided I could be hot at the front desk or hot having fun with the kiddos at Storytime...so I put a few big fans in the room and we had stories about fire safety...and fall'
I read this cute one about Grandma Cat who bakes a pie...everyone has a piece, then the one piece left over is the perfect size for the six mice living in the wall...they leave behind six crumbs,,,just right for the ants...until not a crumb was leftover. After that...books about firefighters... When I got the first one out...one little boy ( who I love) said "Now I like that kind of book!" hahaha cute. I was hoping I wasn't scaring all the kids half to death...(Megan was not fond of the fire drills when she was in preschool...it really bothered her that she would not be able to take the time to get her lunch box if there was a fire... because she really liked it! )Any way all the books had a cute
little fire dog who rescued a kitten or something...
and of course everything ended well. Everyone safe, fires out...safe and sound back at the fire station.
The books all have fire safety tips in the back...(I skipped those. haha)
We ended with a short movie...Pete's a Pizza...narrated by Chevy Chase. They loved it. And then it was back out to the front desk where we tried hard to stay cool.
Next week...books about fall.

Maitland Art Festival

As I mentioned the other day I decided to head to Maitland for the Art Festival this weekend. My friend Linda was happy to join me and even though David canceled (too hard to regroup after a busy show in Kansas City last weekend)we decided to go for it.
We left midday Saturday with a late lunch at the way out of town at LongDoggers on Post RD.Our first stop in Orlando was IKEA. Last time went went over we had gone to Mall at Millenia...but ran out of time. Someone had described IKEA as sort of Disneyland with furniture and housewares instead of rides. We were curious. This time we skipped the mall and went straight to the store. All I can say is it was interesting. The prices are great...college kids or people just starting out could make their money go a long way..but you also could certainly get carried away and find yourself with an armload of things that "are so reasonable" and find yourself spending $$$$$$
but I did find these two pillows for only $9.99 each...shoot...for that price if they only lasted a few months they'd be worth it! haha The store is huge...you go in and follow the arrows on a path through the store. There were lots of people...LOTS of STUFF and it was a little weird! The even have a restaurant in the store and a grocery store attached......kind of bizarre. We had fun...but we were also ready to get out of there! hah interesting..............
It was a beautiful day and promised to be a beautiful evening...possibly even on the cool side (not really... it was pleasant...but warmer than we expected). The show is in Maitland around Lake Lily. It's one of the only shows that is open until 10:00 pm. Once the sun goes down (which is about when we arrived) and the temperature drops...the lights come on and it really is a nice venue. There was live music in a couple of locations around the lake, art of course and food and beverages...we just walked around and enjoyed the evening. I will say there wasn't anything that really caught my eye that I wished I had enough money to buy...except maybe some pretty light fixtures that had sea shells on/in the shade. Sounds like it could be tacky...these definitely were not...they were beautiful...but well out of my price range if I even had anywhere to put them. Soooo I enjoyed looking at them.
After we walked around...we headed across the street to the place David turned us on to 2 years ago...Antonio's. It was just as good as we remembered. No squash soup this time...but the eggplant parmigiana and garlic bread were good enough to make up for that. It was delicious!
We enjoyed our dinners and headed back to the hotel in time to see Alabama finish off the Gators. no big surprise there
Loved the cooler temperatures and the spot. Beautiful old oak trees all over the place, some brick roads, the lake etc. It's a nice spot in central Florida.
Next week David will be in the Winter Park show a few miles down the road...who knows...maybe we go see that one too.