Sno-tober

This greeted me yesterday morning...

Now, I LOVE snow (as anyone who knows me will tell you).

Unfortunately, our trees haven't yet dropped all their leaves.

Resulting in some very scary cracking sounds, me running around with a broom, slipping (and falling), and beating the snow off the trees, trying to save what I could.

This big maple tree provides a lot of shade for our deck.

Well, it used to.

Olivia was watching from the kitchen window (!!) when several big branches snapped off, fell onto the deck, and bounced off....

That branch is about 12 feet long.  And heavy.

I'm just sick about this. 

And this wasn't the only tree, but the only one I could snap pictures of from the comfort of the house.

The branch came from up there - about 20 feet in the air.

Unfortunately, we didn't get the cover to our pergola down in time.  

You can imagine what happened.

By the time we realized it, it was too late.

And we never thought we would get such a heavy wet snow this early in the season.

Totally pissed about that.

Anyway.....

While all of that was happening outside, and in between dodging falling branches while trying to get snow off the trees, I made these for a neighborhood Halloween bash.

Ghost Strawberries!

I found this on Pinterest and knew I had to try it!

Mine aren't quite as pretty, but you get the idea....

I also made some plain, chocolate covered strawberries for those who don't like white chocolate (my mother).

They were a hit and I made a TON, and came home with none.

Brian and I aren't really Halloween kinda people, so we threw together our costumes at the last minute.

I recycled my bridesmaid dress, threw on a crown, a sash and a velvet cape.

I was going to be Miss America, but in honor of the snow I went as Queen Sno-tober.

Brian hates to dress up so I threw my old graduation robes on him, hot glued a construction paper shield with a "G" and a lion that I whipped up, drew a scar on his head and tossed him a broom.

It took all of five minutes to throw it together.

Some pictures Beth took since she was spending the night here - her power was out for about 24 hours and her house was COLD!

Unfortunately, the weather kept most people away and it ended up being just a few brave people from the neighborhood who made it to the party.

We still had a great time.

But now I have to go clean up branches.