A Veteran's Day recap

Veteran's Day for us isn't really a celebration as it is more of a day to reflect on people and the ones that have given it all for us to have what we have today in America. With Skylar being active in Karate, he is was part of the Veteran's Day parade this year. We spent the night before the parade stapling and taping small pieces of candy to flyers for the karate school, so the kids can pass them out.  We finished over 12,000 pieces of candy!

Here's a recap of the Veteran's Day Parade in Albany, Oregon.

Skylar with his karate class came marching through shortly after the fire engines made their appearance.  He said he loved being right behind the vintage fire engines.

Recycled dryer sheet ghost garland

This time of year, when the leaves began to change and the thoughts if Halloween costumes start racking my son's brain, my creative nature takes over.  My son is always so creative with his Halloween costumes and make every single one of them, even his first Halloween, when he was a chili pepper.  I remember sitting and having my mom help stuff the hats with batting with a chop stick, just to get the right curve in the pepper stem.  This year my son wants to be a deer.  Not a reindeer, just a regular deer, so I am hard at work on that.  We have three more days to get this deer done, and it is coming together great!  

Along with the deer sewing and stuffing, I decided to make some Halloween decor of ghosts.  Dryer sheets are probably the most worthless creation ever once they come out of the dryer.  The serve their purpose and then they get thrown away, so I came up with an idea to use them in the "after-life." 

I used dryer sheets, cotton balls, thread, and rubber bands to achieve this garland across my fire place mantel.  

It seemed to bring the entire mantel together for my Halloween theme.

What you'll need:  Used dryer sheets (you could use new ones, but I don't think you will get the same "flowing" effect), cotton balls, and rubber bands.

Place three to four cotton balls in the center of your dryer sheet.

Bring the dryer sheet ends up around the cotton balls.

Place a rubber band around the end of the cotton balls.

And that's it!  A ghost comes alive, or comes dead, or something.

Once you have a lot made, which takes about five minutes to make 10 of them.  It goes really fast, so the more cotton balls and dryer sheets you have the more ghost you will have to string on the ghost garland.

I tossed them into the air, but my dogs were not amused.  

Oh well.  They are going to LOVE the costumes they are going to wear on Halloween night, for sure!  I hope.

Once you get all of your ghosts done, thread the heads through thread with a needle, or small twine.  Black would look awesome!

Then hang and enjoy.  Once the holiday is over, you can either add them to your decor box, or recycle them.  

Super fun, right?

Check out one of my other crafts for Halloween.  It's been pinned on Pinterest over 30,000 times and over 3,000 times in the last 30 days!

Learn how to make this Halloween craft here!

Happy Halloween!

What happened this time last year?

All Aboard! the Runaway Pumpkin Express Train

Last weekend we took advantage of the nice weather and hopped aboard Albany and Eastern's Runaway Pumpkin Express.  The Rick Franklin Corporation, that owns the tracks that run from Sweet Home, Oregon all the way to Albany, Oregon, runs a holiday express shuttle that will ride you from Lebanon to Sweet Home.  We hopped aboard the Pumpkin Express to see just how the ride was.

The view of the train passing by from our backyard.

Getting our genuine tickets to ride.

I fell in love with the vintage light fixtures in the train station.

The conductor was a very nice gentleman named Pat Patterson.

The lounge car was such a fun place to sit.  We imagined how many other train passengers had been in that very location when the train was operational back in 1950.

Skylar loved walking between the train cars, and the parlor car was very fascinating.  I was in vintage heaven through the entire trip. 

The private coach had private compartments, that weren't very big, but offered a long distance trip in privacy from the other passengers.

Each private, parlor car had it's own bench seat, and a personal toilet to each compartment. Of course, these parlor cars were only available to the well off that could afford them, at that time.

We passed by the Weldwood water tower.  This area was famous for it's logging and timber processing back in the late 40s and 50s.

Cheadle Lake

Cheadle Lake is home to this town's annual Strawberry Festival, and Fourth of July Celebration.

Skylar was loving that he could share his love of trains with other train enthusiast.

This post is dedicated in memory to Donald Lehman.

Pictured here on the right.

Such a great tour of the vintage train cars.  This company also provides a train that will run at Christmas time called, "Polar Express Train," of course!  

If you live in or around the Willamette Valley of Oregon, you can read more about this Santiam Excursion Train here!

This post is dedicated in memory to Donald Lehman.

What happened this time last year?