As is our usual tradition, we took a vacation out to my Mom's place for my birthday and Halloween.

On Wednesday (my birthday) morning, Rob and I volunteered at Gabriel's school for his fall costume party. Gabriel wore his Jerry the mouse costume, Rob wore his blue Power Ranger t-shirt, and I wore a princess costume. I worked on the Bingo station and Rob worked on the Pictionary station. We also helped pass out treats and stuff. All in all, it as an awesome time and I'm very glad I volunteered.

Gabriel only had a half day, so when the party was over, we headed home and packed up. We took my car (otherwise we knew it wouldn't start when we came back after almost a week away) and headed out. We made one potty stop, and made good time getting to my Mom's place. We arrived around 5pm.

We dropped our stuff off and then headed into town. We had reservations at the Log Cabin for my birthday dinner and I decided to wear the princess tiara that went with my morning costume all day - why not, it was my birthday. Dinner was great and Gabriel seemed to love watching the "flaming cheese". I even got a $20 gift certificate from the owner.

That night we chilled out around my Mom's house, watched Survivor and American Horror Story, and I got to open presents. I already got a card from my Dad in the mail with a check in it. My Mom got me a Coach purse and purple Coach watch and some cash. My in-laws got me a hat and glove set. Rob got me two Squishables - the regular sized jellyfish and the mini wolf and a metal band Coach watch. Gabriel got me a mini panda Squishable. Instead of cake, we had a giant cookie from Mrs. Field's.

Thursday we spent most of the day around the house. I had a 4pm tattoo appointment with Gary. I now have a neat Shoggoth tattoo on the outside of my right calf. When it's healed, I'll add it to my tattoo album on Facebook. When the tat was done, we all headed to dinner at Durty Gurtz and then went back to my Mom's place.

Friday we just bummed around, made a Walmart run, and grabbed dinner at Los Aztecas.

Saturday we decided to stay out of town because of the huge Halloween parade (Gabriel really doesn't like loud noises or crowds of people), so we headed in to Dubuque and had dinner at the House of China.

Sunday we grabbed some caramel apples from downtown Galena, chilled out some, and were going to head to a brewery/tapas bar for dinner - but the crowd and the loud music bothered Gabriel, so we did Durty Gurtz again. It's Gabriel's favorite restaurant, so he was super happy about that.

Monday was Halloween and Gabriel got all dressed up in his Spiderman costume. Rob wore his black lantern t-shirt and his black lantern ring (I think t-shirts are as close to a costume as he's going to get). My Mom didn't wear a costume and I went as Mother Nature. A renaissance style green dress, green fawn horns, a wreath of ivy and ribbons, and a leaf necklace. I think it looked rather cool especially since I pieced it together myself.

We grabbed dinner at a pizza place since Gabriel has decided that he likes pepperoni pizza and then it was time to trick or treat. That's why we like trick or treating in my Mom's area - it's done on Halloween night (5:30pm - 7:30pm) and not on a weekend day like it is in our area. We did the two streets we usually and Gabriel had a blast and made out like a bandit with all the candy he got. The Airheads were his favorite and were gone right when we got home. We still have his ghost basket with lots of candy in it here. Pics of Halloween and costumes will be posted on my Facebook account down the road.

Tuesday I drove back home with only a brief stop for some foodage (Gabriel was hungry). When we got home Rob's car started up just fine and we got some Chinese take out for dinner and watched Ringer.

Today is back to the same ol' same ol'. Though this week I'm going to be awfully short on time and it's going to be difficult to get everything done during the day that I need to. This is because today I had a noon meeting at his school (more info on this will be posted on the private section of my journal - probably tomorrow), tomorrow I'm volunteering at his school, and Friday is a half day for him.