Halloween

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Tuesday, we managed to keep in front of the impending low front system behind us. Got to the McAsey's about 5pm, Theyv'e got very nice neighbours who let us park our trailer beside their house. Wayne was on the ball and had cooked us a very nice dinner. Alysha had left that morning for Vegas , so we took over her room. Nice to have a normal bed for a change. Wayne had matress's for the kids too, so they found a space on the floor and for the 1st time in months we deserted the poor old trailer and slept in the house.
Wednesday, we slept in and had nothing at all planned for the day. Wayne and the girls went off to work and school, Kylie caught up on some washing, I baked and the kids caught up on their TV watching that they have been missing out on. Poor deprived children !!!. Wayne and Jill have got a real nice house in a good neighbourhood, theyv'e got a swimming pool out the back. Its a bit cold today to go for a swim. After tea we sat down to watch the 1st game of the baseball world series ( that means the 2 top teams of the season finally get to play off)Philidelphia Phillies and New York Yankees play a 7 game series. Phillies won the 1st game 6-1. While we were watching they put on a severe weather watch for El Paso!! SNOW was forecast, It doesn't snow in El Paso very often. In some places it was going to get down to minus 3 degrees. Theres a huge snow storm going across the Rockies and we are on the very bottom of it.
Thursday we woke up to a very very cold morning and yes the snow had dusted the hills above El paso. What a sight. Sophie and Kelsi took us to the outlet mall for a bit of retail therapy. I dropped them off and drove up the road a bit to some dairy farms that I wanted to look at. Nothing like we have at home. Much like the ones I saw in California were the cows are all on a huge feed pad. Some have lean too roofs over them, all the cows get fed through the fence . They had thousands of cows on dusty cold feed pads. One farm would have had to have about 15 huge hay barns full of hay. They had a paddock of gras growing next door with irrigation going. By the looks of it they just keep cutting the grass for hay and fill up the shed again. Other barns are full of supplement feeds for the cows and a guy on a tractor and a front end loader just went around and made up a mix for the huge mixer trailer that feeds it out on the ground. Each farm would have only been about 15-20 acres if that. I thought it was interesting anyway. So then I went back to the mall and had lunch there. They have done well not to spend too much. Stopped at a Halloween costume shop on the way home as the kids are going to go trick or treating with the McAsey girls.Tori found a cool witch outfit, Josh decided he was to cool to go trick or treating. The place was humming with people trying on costumes and buying all the decorations for their houses as well. Watched game 2 tonight, New York came back to square the series.
Friday, we went up the gondola up to TV tower above El Paso. Bloody cold but a great view. El paso is a weird city as the border between Mexico and America runs right thru the middle of it. So from the hill we could see the Rio Grande river really easily. It has been concreted for the stretch thru town as it was for ever moving as rivers do and was very hard to monitor.So the Yanks fixed that, they also built a roadway along the middleof the river by the huge fence. There is an overbridge in downtown that is very busy with cars and foot traffic. Thousands of people cross over into the USA every day. Theres actually three bridges just in El Paso alone.Patrolling the border is an never ending job. On the way home we stopped in at one of the many 'boot outlet shops'. Cowboy boots everywhere, over 2500 of them. The designs on them are incredible but fairly pricey. Most were about $150 - $250, hence they are still sitting there. After tea we walked across the street to watch the girls football team play. The Hanks Knights beat the Eastwood troopers 42-41 in a thriller. The ref ruled the troopers scored a touchdown right on the final whistle but another ref over turned it with a penalty. So both teams were jumping up and down about that. We were just freezing our butts off literally on the steel bleaches!!!! So we walked down to Starbucks just around the corner after the game to warm up.
Saturday, we headed to downtown to have a bit of a look around. Drove under the bridge full of pedestrians coming to America for the day. They had a market day down there today, with tents out and lots of shops had the stuff out on the footpath. It was nice walking along in the warm sun , the place was buzzing with shoppers and a couple of 'boyz' cruising along the street in there hot rods playing their musical horns at the good looking girlies. Not a lot of english was getting spoken, we were definately the tourists down there, but there were quite a few others around and we felt pretty safe. Tori loved the many dollar shop like places, she went into just about everyone of them looking for a bargain. Womens jeans for $10 were everywhere, cheap t-shirts and jackets and loud spanish music being played everywhere. Came home to find Wayne had decorated the front of the house with his halloween decorations only to be outdone by the neighbours big time. They have really got into it. We went over for a sneek preview. They have done out their double garage with black polythene, and heaps of props that they had. they had the smoke machine going and three of the boys were getting dressed up to scare people as they walked through. It looked really good. Kylie got dressed up in an outfit that Jill was going to wear, so once they were all dressed in their costumes. Tania and Shey ( Waynes hosts wife) came and picked them all up and took them trick or treating around the base. The men stayed at home and answered the door. After Wayne and I doing a few , Josh took over the duties with his usual happy enthuseastic charm !!!! I think the neighbours house drew alot of people into the street as they seem to be driving in , in groups. Park up , the kids would do the rounds and then jump back in the car and drive to the next good street. Wayne had this thing in the bush by the front door that went off when someone walked past it and all you could see were 2 red eyes and it shook the bush as it made scarey noises. That got a few of them. The fake cobwebs looked cool, the doorbell that a spider touched your finger as you pressed it was excellent. About 9.30pm and 4 bags of lollies later it started quietning down . Our lot didn't get home until after midnight as they had gone to a haunted house thing and it had a 2 hour wait, but it sounds like they all enjoyed it with a lot of laughs and screaming going on.
Sunday , everyone had a sleep in but it was still early as we put the clocks back for daylight savings last night. Josh and I did a few running repairs on the trailer while we haven't got much to do. Jill got home after lunch, so we spent the afternoon catching up on all her news. All the kids here now have a cold and are coughing, Lovely !!
Monday, Josh had a bad night and looks like death warmed up. I reckon its too much TV watching!!, Sophi wasn't much better . She went to school but was home by lunchtime.So I caught up on my baking, haircut, blog, wash the car etc.

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Photos

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McAsey's house in El Paso.

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The pool out the back.

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The beast parked next door.

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Cows feeding at the farm I went and looked at.

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Yards for cows.

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SNOW in El Paso!!

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View of Mexico/USA border in El Paso.

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Us at the football, Freezing!!

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The high school football game.

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All dressed up for Haloween.

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The young and the old witch!!

Comments

[M&D]

For one of the funniest halloween stories you need to call Ross and hear his account of his halloween night.....Its a classic.....

[The Jammies]

Looks like Halloween was a blast. Georgia went to Union Square in San Fran on Halloween Night and said the Yanks go ALL out and it was amazing!! Would have been gr8 to catch up with the Mcaseys! Enjoyed yr update! Keep Safe.