Back to Halloween...

I know I should have posted about our Halloween party a while back, but my job search has been taking most of my free time lately with no success, but I at least have some good news.

On October 31st at 8:00am, Rich and I had our appointment with USCIS. The officer was really nice, and  approved us!! For those who don't know what it means: I was going to receive my Green Card within the next 3 weeks. Last week, I GOT IT in the mail! My Green Card, which isn't green at all, is called Permanent Resident Card (or something similar) and authorizes me to stay in the US and work for the next 2 years. As we haven't been married for 2 years, my Green Card is temporary, and in 2 years we will have to apply for a permanent one... then it is road to double citizenship. Even though the lawyer's fees were enormous, it was worth it. If you can afford it, we recommend it. 

Review: married legally in March, paperwork sent in April, 3 requests for additional evidence,  interview in October, Green card in November.... = 6/7 months total!

Back to Halloween:

First, the greatest pumpkin patch I had even been to. 

We usually get our pumpkins the weekend before halloween (about a week before), and it always seemed to be a little late. Most people came a lot earlier, so there aren't that many choices, the left overs are rotten... or full of bugs. 

This year I found on the Denver Post a list of pumpkin patches in Denver. I chose one one close to Denver... in Broomfield about 25 min away:

ROCK CREEK FARM

2005 South 112th Street

Broomfield, CO 80020

smiller@rockcreekfarm.com

And it was the BEST ONE I had EVER been to! First, we noticed that we weren't the only ones going (there were cops doing circulation just for that pumpkin patch). Then, we were greeted with pruning shears because the pumpkins were still on the vine - fresher. We drove forever in pumpkin patches and could stop anywhere to get a pumpkin. Then you load it up, and you just go pay for what you got. It is a fixed price per pumpkin, doesn't matter the size.

You can see in the pictures there were pumpkins to the horizon all around. We got 1 great green pumpkin (didn't want orange), and we drove out to pay. There, there were huge buckets of specialty pumpkins even cheaper than the one we got in the field. 

We got:

- 1 field pumpkin (green, but now after a month totally orange)

- 2 light green gourds

- 2 grey greenish pumpkin

We now look forward to eating them!

Our green pumpkin (now orange and totally ripped)

1 of each (pumpkin from the field, gourd, grey pumpkin)

Both gourds

Next, planning the party and baking the food...

Halloween Invites

As I am a little bored right now, I decided to host a nice halloween party at the end of the month... on the 31st of course. First off, I had to do the invites as I wanted to give everyone enough time to answer. After browsing a LOT of ideas I decided to go with a Bat theme

... and a Black, Grey/Silver, White party. 

I chose those colors because I wanted something chic/elegant and would work great for Halloween. Orange and Black being a little too common, I decided to choose Silver. Then, I was off to design the invites... on PPT because it is really easy and I still have to learn

 Illustrator. Thankfully I had a cool font on my mac: Lucinda Blackletter.

And here is the almost finished product...

After designing the perfect invites, I wanted to get some special paper. We didn't get anything fancy for the wedding, but noticed that a nicer paper makes the difference. So to add the Silver touch, we picked some silver stationary (cards + envelopes) at Michaels. 

We printed the invite on the paper and I added silver glitters (Martha Stewart) to the H in Halloween and one of the bats. 

And here you go... (I had to use an ancient digital camera, so the quality is not great, and on top of it I took those pictures at night). 

I took the first picture with Flash so we could at least see the Silver card.

And Silver envelope

The card has a final touch... Bailey's paw ($1 at Michaels)

Now, I just have to come up with the food, beverages... and a costume!