Selma & Mother Nature

Tiffany was Mother Nature for Halloween: her costume had garland to represent each of the seasons.

Hell's Angel

Tom's Hell's Angel costume was complete with tattoos, a halo, and angel wings. I found the mask a bit creepy, actually.

Syndrome

The best costume at the party was Erik's: he was Syndrome, from the Incredibles. (Also not a wig; hair also sculpted by Sarah.)

Patty & Selma Bouvier

We had fun putting these costumes together. Sarah's hair was a wig, but mine was all my own...

Pumpkin Cake

Well, actually it's pound cake... but it was pretty darned good. We made this cake for Sarah & Erik's Halloween party by making two pound cakes and turning their tops together...

The Drennens

Doesn't Tom come from a handsome bunch? This is Tom's aunt Judy (left) and his mom, as well as his uncle Glenn. Even though it was a sad farewell, I enjoyed finally getting to meet Glenn & Rosemary.

There is proof!

We were all very happy to see Donna at Tomapalooza. 

Tomapalooza

This weekend we had a wonderful party to celebrate Tom's musical career in Phoenix. We hosted about a dozen of Tom's musician-friends, who recreated various line-ups that Tom played in over the years. Tom played for about 4 hours -- mostly drums, but he got to play guitar, too. He found a liquor store that carried kegs of Alaskan Amber -- so the night was a true success. It was a real treat to see all of our friends, and hope that they'll come visit us in Colorado frequently. (I'll put up more pictures as people send me copies of their photos.)

Tom's hams

No Post Party would be complete without some sort of smoked meat. Tom smoked 3 hams for yesterday's bash. They were soooo tasty!

Sheila doens't like cockroaches

Jim evidently has several very large (fake) cockroaches -- which Sheila finds disgusting. Jim made sure that we all knew the extent of Sheila's cockroach disdain...

The crowd enjoys the show

We were lucky that so many of Tom's friends were able to come together to create such a great show. The crowd clearly enjoyed every minute of it.

Regulars

Do these guys practice lining up their guitar necks at precisely the same angle?

Spencer came prepared

Spencer showed up with his own drum sticks. Once again, he impressed the whole crowd. Next year I'm sure you'll be able to catch him on tour...

Brandon & Alex

We were so happy that so many people from our softball team came to see us off. We haven't seen Alex in about a year, and he's gone and grown up on us!!

Tom asked for sequins

Several years ago I went out shopping at a local drag-queen store, and on my way out the door asked Tom if he wanted me to buy him anything. He replied, "Something with sequins." I was so excited when I found him this jacket! However, I have remained disappointed since then, as Tom had not found "the right performance" to show off his spectacular duds. Well, he promised me that he'd wear the jacket for Tomapalooza, and he kept his word. His jacket was extremely popular, and even earned him a few extra dollars in "tips."

Stevo & Tiffany

We were very excited that Steve came all the way from Seattle to join the party. Judging from the smiles here, I'd say this was taken after the shots had begun...

Partying with the Harrs

The Harrs have clearly become Arizonans already: it was probably 65 degrees out last night, and they already require 3 layers to keep warm...

Jeff & Elise

Well, I'm definitely not as good as Tom at the self-portrait thing, but I'm certainly going to miss Jeff a lot.

The Regulars Return

It was only 2 songs, but they were oh, so sweet! What an epic performance. (From left to right: Tom, Greg Simmons, Scott Seymann, Steve Metz.)

We got a new car!

Isn't it pretty? After all of our planning -- things didn't work out as we'd planned. Go figure. Although we were expecting to buy the car in Colorado, we couldn't pass up the deal here: we had decided upon a V6, 6-speed manual transmission (266 horse power -- Tom is proud to announce!) Accord with tan leather interior... and since one of the dealers here had an '06 left on the lot that they were pretty desperate to get rid of, we decided to take it off their hands. Now I will get the joy of driving the car (thank you, Sarah, for volunteering to go with me) up to Colorado with Sable in the back seat. Hahaha. More on that later, I'm sure.

So happy to be back

Little does she know that she's about to enjoy apartment living again... but for the time being, Sable is extremely happy to be back in Phoenix. 

I finally figured out the cropping stuff!

Thanks to Anu's tutoring (what a super-woman: she has time to be a new mom and teach me some new tricks), I now am able to crop photos 'til my heart's content. This is a picture of the Blue Angels from the airshow in Anchorage (from August). 

Blue Angels #5 & #6

We lucked out on the weather -- which made for a fantastic air show. 

Can you tell I've been dying to meet this boy?

This picture is from last week -- the evening we returned from Anchorage. I'm happy to say I've been able to see Kiran 4 or 5 times in the last 10 days... and I still can't get enough. Is he handsome, or what?? 

Simmona's a ham!

We had a great night last week visiting with the Gullakkis (Anu, Vijay & Kiran), Jennifer & Henry, and Camille & Simmona. We missed Kaleo, but his daughter was adorable! She wowed us with her ability to do summersaults, and she was very sweet with Kiran. Ah, leaving Phoenix will be bittersweet.