Completing the post below this one!

Well, I still don't know what's going on but now I was able to upload these photos that were intended to be with the blog post below but Google/Blogger wouldn't let me upload them there! Go figure! So anyway, here's the rest of the story -as Paul Harvey maybe would say.

Above here -Maya eyeing up the candy and pretzel treats we had ready to hand out last night.


Here's Maya, in her loveliest -Princess Maya costume.
Maya and Chino discussing trick or treating I guess.
Maya telling Chino that maybe next year, Chino can go trick or treating with her. Do ya think that might be their topic?
Kurtis and Chino having what appears to be a really serious discussion about something too.
Kurtis discovers some Kit Kat candy bars and then, things take a little turn for the better after that.
See what a little bit of chocolate will do for you? Works wonders! A great attitude adjustment, for sure.

The only drawback to last night's trick or treating event came to light when Mandy and Bill returned back home with the kids and Maya looked around outside and asked "Where's my pumpkin?" Mandy had bought three pumpkins - a nice sized larger one and two smaller pumpkins -one a kind of medium-small and the other a tiny one -for her and for Kurtis. Well, when she asked that, Mandy glanced over in front of the house where she had placed the pumpkins and saw that yes, Maya's pumpkin was missing. On a little closer investigation, they discovered it had been taken and smashed! Why kids feel the need to do destructive things like this is beyond my level of comprehension. But what makes it harder here is that Maya, being autistic, can not understand at all -and there is no way at this stage of her life that we can explain it to her either -what happened to her pumpkin!


Now to the rest of what I had intended to tell you in my post (the one below here titled "Of Tricks and Treats" and this is about the bazaar the women of our church held today.

Every year now, the women of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lanse, PA have a Fall Bazaar where they have all kinds of home baked goods for sale, lots and lots of gift and craft items, a table with Swedish gifts, and this year they had all kinds of stuff loaded up on tables the whole length of the Sunday School room -all for the Chinese Auction. One item there -up for auction -was even a ton of coal -either hard coal or soft coal -donated by the Bumgardner Coal Company here! The owner of this company and his wife and family are long-time members of our church and this item really was one of the largest donations received and something pretty doggone valuable to whoever may have won it too!

In addition to the above mentioned things, the ladies also serve a meal - your choice of a lasagne dinner -served with a tossed salad, roll and butter and a piece of pie -or two hot dogs with chips and cookies. Your choice of beverage -coffee or cider -comes with the meal. And also, they have something else too they started just a couple years back now -a "Candy Shoppe" where they sell several different types of home made candies -fudges of all sorts -and all of it really, really good stuff! They package the candy up in pretty little boxes that have a sticker, trimmed in gold, that says "Packaged for you by the women of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church" and the box is then tied with a pretty red ribbon.

So, here then are some photos of the activity at the bazaar today!

Here's people at the Bazaar, lined up at the table with the Chinese Auction items. Just gives a little bit of an idea of the people attending -and this picture was taken fairly early on at the Bazaar -more folks coming in all the time, ya know!
Here, below are Shirley Nelson Pillot and Joan Larson Fetter-House watching over activity at the Baked goods table! This is an area that ALWAYS draws in lots and lots of customers especially for the homemade Swedish Kaka breads that many of the members of our church still bake. Mandy and I came home with a nice big loaf of white kaka bread plus a loaf of cranberry-nut bread. Turns out the kaka bread I selected was one of several that Shirley (shown in the picture) had made. I kind of had figured it was one of hers because of the handwriting on the label on the package and also, because of the color of the bread too. Having enjoyed -many, many times -bread Shirley has baked as well as kaka bread that had come out of Shirley's Mom's kitchen too over the years, I can usually pick out her bread because it almost always has a very nice, light tan color to the crust! We had some of her Kaka bread with our supper tonight and judging by the way Kurtis practically inhaled his pieces of it, I'd say there are now a couple more fans in this household of the good Swedish Kaka breads!




Another picture here of the Baked goods table! Here is Shirley (again) talking with parishioner Annette Jacobson. Both Shirley and Annette have been recently laid up with hip problems -Annette had hip replacement surgery about the same time that Shirley fell walking down the sidewalk at her sister's home about two doors down the street from my house and broke her hip in that fall. Today was the first I have seen Annette out since her surgery. Although she is still using a cane to get around, she looks good for her age and having had the last two months or so recuperating. Shirley just graduated from a walker to a cane and now, today-no cane! Glad to see both of these great ladies up and moving about so well again!


Here now is the "Candy Shoppe!" In this first picture, the lady to the left is Florence Dahlgren Stickel (she's the one who got the "candy shoppe" idea started and generally oversees the whole operation of it) and the lady on the right is Brenda Larson McDowell, who also is our organist and choir director too!



And here are three pictures of the candies they had there today! Please don't droll on them.

See the candy on the far right here -the orange-colored stuff? That's called Creamsickle Fudge (I think that's the name of it anyway or maybe it is Dreamsickle) but anyway, it tastes just like those Creamsickle ice cream bars except this isn't cold, doesn't melt and run down your arm as you try to eat it. But boy, is it ever good! I got a package of just that candy in it!

In the backdrop here to the left -there's some really good peanut butter fudge I induldged in too! Actually, I got some of that and some other peanut butter fudge from a plate in the first candy shoppe photo! Both excellent too, I must add!

And here's the end of the table of the candy shoppe! Hope I didn't send your sugar levels over the top looking at all these yummy goodies!

If you live anywhere in the central Pennsylvania region or even out-of-the area or state and want to attend a really great event though, mark your calendar now for next year -for the first Saturday in November and then, you can check back with me and I'll gladly give you directions to find Lanse, Pennsylvania and our church so you can come and enjoy the fruits of the labors of a lot of the women of our parish! Well worth the time to come to it -trust me on that and I've got the pounds on me to verify the goodness of the food too!

Till next posting and here's hoping the photo problems I had earlier are now all self-corrected too!