Blog No. 44 of 2025

Happy Halloween!!!! I’ll be wearing my Jack Skellington t-shirt from “Nightmare Before Christmas” today, I wear it every year on Halloween.

Today, Nick and I are headed up to Merritt Island for a weekend at the townhouse so of course, an obligatory stop at Cracker Barrel will be in order. My sisters Susy and Mari are joining us for the weekend and my sister Ana will already be up there for trick or treating with her daughter Nicole and her kids Mazen and Ramzi.

But let’s backtrack to what happened this week leading up to today.

Friday I attended Creative Mornings at Bookleggers Library at the Bakehouse Art Complex. There, I met some cool people, reconnected with a few fellow Creative Mornings attendees from the past that I hadn’t seen in a while, and thoroughly enjoyed the talk by Industrial Designer Scheur Werde, founder and principal of the industrial design firm DBS Studio. He was engaging, giving a presentation on the process of his firm’s work and all the moving parts that go into creating products from client meeting to prototype and beyond.

Vance and his Port Canaveral co-workers on the course.

Alligator catching some rays on the course.

While I was doing that, Vance was playing in a golf tournament with his Port Canaveral co-workers where they had a great time out on the course and encountered a rather large alligator!

That night, while Nick was having fun at his annual Halloween Dance at Sandra De Lucca, Vance, who drove to Miami after the tournament, and I went back to our favorite nearby cozy Mexican restaurant Taqueria los Potrillos. They have excellent guacamole and the tacos are fire.

Hailey, me and Ana at the Food Rescue Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning.

Saturday started with a Food Rescue Farmer’s Market at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex where my sister Ana, her granddaughter Hailey and I spent the morning unloading food, setting it up market style and handing it out to people in that underserved community.

Adina and Rick or pardon me, Wilma and Fred Flinstone, the best Halloween party hosts.

The Gulliksens as Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein and Nick the surfer.

Rick, Vance and Kevin in their awesome costumes.

Michelle, Kevin’s wife and me as the Bride of Frankenstein!

The charcuterie skeleton!

Adina’s spooky Halloween-themed sweets.

Then Vance, Nick and I spent a fun-filled Halloween-themed evening starting with the pumpkin carving party at Janet and Ruben’s house. Janet made her fantastic chili and her Asian-inspired broccoli salad. Vance and I went in our costumes and finished up our face paint at her house. Everyone there was impressed with our look and we got the same oooohhhsss and aaahhhs when we arrived at Adina and Rick’s Halloween party that night. Adina put out an equally enviable spread of charcuterie and Halloween-themed sweets. Just look at that skeleton charcuterie on the table! Let’s just say it was a really fun day, thanks to both the hosts for throwing some great parties. Oh and thanks to our neighbors Matt and Carlos for gifting me the pumpkin that we took to the party, we let the young ones at the party do the carving.

Sunday I headed to Gramps in Wynwood where Kate and her band from Miami Girls Rock Camp took the stage during the Open Mic event. Kate did a great job on guitar, it’s always fun watching her perform and it was nice to hang out with my sisters and my niece Tiffany, Kate’s mom.

The lamb staring right at me as I caught it grazing.

I took a couple of really great walks this week, one through Enchanted Forest Park and the other through Biscayne Park. On the latter walk, I once again encountered the cute lamb pictured above. It was on the same exact street where I saw it the last time only this time, I saw it cross the street from a particular house so I guess that’s where it resides? You know I’ll be walking that route again, hoping for another encounter.

That’s Nick, #13 high fiving the Doral team after beating them.

Yesterday I watched Nick and his City of Miami softball teammates take on the City of Doral and win before they head to Orlando in a couple of weeks for the Special Olympics Fall Classic.

Now here’s some fun stuff to do this weekend…

Trick or treating events around Miami, Jazz at MOCA in North Miami, Japanese Festival on Watson Island, fun events at The Underline and Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations.

That’s it for this week, I’ll be back in your inbox next Friday!