Pumpkin seeds and Apple Pie

Now it's time to focus on Halloween as it is just days away!
After some heavy cleaning to get rid of the smoke dust, the kids carved their pumpkins and I roasted the pumpkin seeds. We have been doing this for years and I use my top secret recipe, which I will gladly share with you:
Soak seeds to clean and get off all the orange stringy stuff, let dry a bit, coat a cookie sheet with cooking spray, spread seeds evenly on the cookie sheet, coat with lots of salt, bake at 325 for 10 - 15 minutes until start to get a little brown, stir or flip and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes until crunchy. Let cool and then devour! That is actually my own recipe that I made up years ago, has been working so why look for something else.

We have an apple tree in the back yard that produces apples, sometimes. Most of the time the critters get them before we get any ripe apples. But this year, we had a lot! Evy and I picked the apples and prepared them to make an apple pie. Found the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens (go to www.bhg.com and under recipes look for mile high caramel apple pie) Took some time to make it, but the end result was simply delish! Yum-O!!

Things seem to be getting back to normal. Kids are back at school today, we can actually see the mountains from the kitchen window and there is only a slight hint of smoke smell in the air. I did take K on our early morning walk this morning and could see the stars and the moon. I could however, feel some smoke in my lungs. Practices are to resume today and all games for the weekend are on as previously planned, unless things change. So, back to another normal crazy week!

The fire is 65% contained and full containment is expected by Friday. It has moved East of us and there are still canyon homes in danger. We can still see the water dropping helicopters and planes flying around and media helicopters hovering near. I think some flight plan has changed as there are a lot of passenger jets flying over from the East to the West.

Time to get back to work. I have a lot of catching up to do from last week. Ugh. Have a super week everyone!