Halloween Galore!

So my older sister Maureen was in charge of the Fall Festival at her son's school (the one in the Narnia outfit below). My sister Vic, my brother Mike, and I were able to go and help with whatever was needed. It was alot of fun! Vic and I took money for tickets the whole night, and we were surprised how busy we were! Vic dressed like a skeleton-it was seriously one of the creepiest things ever-and she even made a little girl cry because she was so scary! (she wasn't trying to scare her, she was actually being really nice). It was funny to see how all of the little kids would stare at her as they walked by. I was all prepared to put on a witch costume, but I didn't actually have time to put it on. Oh well-I guess I could wear it to work tomorrow, but I always feel stupid dressing up for work. We all had alot of fun and I feel sick from all the pizza, soda, and baked goods! It also makes me grateful that I chose to not go into elementary education-those kids are crazy!

Vic (skeleton), Austin (pirate?), Tyler (narnia character), and McKell (princess)

Creepy Skeleton

Jake wasn't able to go to the Fall Festival because he was working, but we have done some Halloween adventures of our own! We went to a cornmaze (yes, shaped like the American Idol guy, David Archuletta) at Thanksgiving point and did all the fun festivities! We went with our friends Tanner and Alli, and had a blast! Tanner and Jake decided to run ahead of us and try to scare us. They did it so many times that Alli and I decided to just run and finish the maze by ourselves and we would wait for them. Well we started running-with me in the front- and I wasn't watching where I was going and I tripped and slammed super hard into the ground. It was the funniest thing!-you had to be there I guess. They had lots of things for people to do-a small barn filled with hard corn kernels that you can bury people in, or have corn fights, a trampoline, little pedal karts, and a huge inflated monster that you walk through kind of like a haunted house. The inflated monster was super scary- especially when they all pushed me in front and it was pitch black and I was screaming because I couldn't see anything and ran into the walls. There really wasn't anything jumping out at you, but there was a random creepy girl who kept popping up in crazy places-that was the scariest part!

I will be celebrating my Halloween night with a night at home with my friend Shiloh. We will probably just watch a movie and make dinner, and pass out Halloween candy of course! Jake will be a cop for Halloween- and be at work dealing with all of the weirdos.

I forgot I had this random video, but thought it would be fun to watch. This is my brother mike dancing to some music. Enjoy!

Our East Coast Trip!

Well we got back Monday night really late from our trip out to Connecticut. It felt like a super fast trip full of tons of fun stuff. We had things planned for everyday which made the trip go by really fast. Jon and Christy's little girls are the cutest things ever. We loved being with their little family and were sad to leave and come back to long days of work and normal life. It went by so fast! I think it would be easiest to go through the trip day by day, so I hope it's not too long!
Tuesday: we arrived around 3 pm and hung out with Christy, Riley and Melaina at their apartment and then when Jon came home we had dinner and played games.
Wednesday: Jon had school so it was the five of us again- we went shopping at a mall near their house and went to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. While we were eating lunch all of the power went out and we just kept eating and talked about how crazy it would be if the animals came alive when the lights went out ( like jumanji). The waitress brought us a glow stick which entertained Riley throughout the power outage. We couldn't get dessert because the power was out, so we left and did some more shopping and then went back to get dessert. I am sure they thought we were weird for going back after an hour of already eating there. After the mall we went to a state park and went for a walk in the woods. It was gorgeous and alot of fun!

Thursday: New York Day! We started off our morning really early with the train ride:It took about an hour and a half to get to NY from Hartford but it was fun to just sit and talk. There was also this weirdo guy stretching for almost the entire train ride. It was kind of funny. When we got to NY we went and saw all the touristy things: the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street(the gold bull), some old church, Empire State Building, Ground Zero, China Town, Little Italy, Times Sqaure and FAO Schwartz. View from the top of the empire state building

The Wall Street Bull - it's supposed to be good luck!

Jon, Christy and Melaina

This was outside some old church- i guess it was in National Treasure or Divinci Code ( I can't remember)Central park

FAO Schwartz- these were made out of Legos

Rockefeller Center-where they have the ice rink and the huge christmas tree- they were already getting the ice rink all set up

Friday: Boston. I think I liked Boston more than NYC. It still had the big city feel, but it wasn't as crazy. I thought it was alot of fun! We went on "the Freedom Trail" which is this red line that is painted on the ground and if you follow it you can see all the historic sites in Boston. We decided not to get a tour guide (they were men dressed in colonial clothes), and went on the trail ourselves. I am glad we did because we were able to stop and look at whatever we wanted. At the end of the day we got a big pizza and ate it in a park in the middle of the city. It was seriously one of the best pizzas I have ever had. Riley and Melaina ready for fun!

Some tour thing that takes you on land and on water...

One of the tour guides for the Freedom Trail

Saturday: Jake and I went to Six Flags in Springfield, Mass. It was alot of fun- they had it decorated for Halloween and we went through a haunted mansion. We made the mistake of going on the best ride first- Superman- and were dissapointed with all of the other rides. Next time we will have to save the best for last! Afterwards we went to dinner with Jon, Christy, Melaina and Riley to this place called Moes with really yummy mexican food.

Sunday: We all went for a hike in the same state park we went to on Wednesday. Before we got started I got hit by a car- It was the craziest thing! I was leaning against Jon and Christy's car while everyone else was getting the kids ready for the hike and all of a sudden I was pushed forward by the car- Some psycho old lady bumped the front of their car with her bumper (don't worry there was no damage) and I got hit by their bumper. It was super funny. This time we went on a non-paved hike and enjoyed all the fall colors and the trees. It reminded me of Michigan because it was so gorgeous and had so many trees! Afterwards we went to a little city Whethersfield and looked at all the scarecrows people had put out. It reminded me of all the cute little cities you see in the movies. It was alot of fun! Jake, Me and Melaina

Jon, Christy and Riley

Monday: We headed back to Utah.

Leaving on a jet Plane....

Well, we are off bright and early tomorrow morning to visit my brother, his wife and their two cute daughters in Conneticut. This trip could not come at a better time- we are both excited to not have to work for a whole week! We have lots of fun day trips planned- Rhode Island, New York City, and Boston. It will be great to get to spend some time with them! Not that I post all the time, but be looking for pictures from all of our fun adventures when we get back next week!

Fall Decorating!

So I love the feel of fall. I don't know if it is the fact that because growing up in Michigan was absolutely gorgeous in the fall (the canopy of trees down the street when they were changing colors), or because the air just smells so good! I also like the fact that we can wear light jackets and cute scarves. I decided this past weekend that our house needed some fall decorations, so I took matters into my own hands. I went to Tai Pan in Sandy and spent about an hour and a half walking around and just thinking about what I could do. Now, I am not good at decorating by any means so it took me forever to pick out just a few items. I went home and cleaned the house and put up my decorations. I love sitting in a clean house (especially with fall decorations!). Here are a few pictures of what I could come up with:

Our fall colored pillows!

Pumpkins on the front porch

I promise these are fall colors (it looks a little christmasy)

I also tried to make the house smell like fall with this wax melter thing we have, but it didn't quite smell like fall. When Jake got home that night he said " it smells like a craft store in here". It reminds me of something my Dad might say...

Two things I don't understand: poor sportsmanship and sagging pants.

Last night Jake had a softball game and I saw a great display of poor sportsmanship. While our team was in the outfield (know that jake's team is full of ward members and the bishop) the other team's 3rd base coach went crazy. I guess our third baseman made a comment to him about whatever and the 3rd base coach went off. He was swearing like crazy and looking like he wanted to push the baseman and then Jake got up off the bench and told the guys to calm down and just play the game, but then the 3rd base coach yelled at Jake to "Tell YOUR team members to calm down and play...What are you doing up anyway? Shut up and sit down". I was sitting on the sideline watching this whole thing and I was getting fired up! I wanted to yell at the stupid guy for yelling at Jake. I had this whole thing set up in my mind how I would yell at him and then things would get so crazy that I would have to punch him in the face (a little extreme, i know). The Ump stood up and told everyone to shut up or he would call the game, so everyone went back and played. I couldn't believe how upset I had gotten. On the way out I saw the jerk walking out and i wanted to "accidentally" hit him really hard with my purse. I can't imagine how I am going to be when we have kids and someone says something mean to them. I told the guys at work about this today and one of them told me "watch out for mamma bear!" That's right!

Saggy Pants: What is the deal with these? Is this even comfortable? I went to get dinner tonight and while there a teenager was walking around with his pants around his thighs. He didn't even have a belt to hold them up. Do teenage girls find it attractive when guys have to walk with their legs spread so far apart, not able to bend their knees because their pants might fall down? I would think it would be harder to walk that way, but what do I know?

I went to a pampered chef party last week and realized I have a problem: I love to buy kitchen gadgets. Do I cook very often? No. I think I have a hope that if I stock my kitchen with fun gadgets I will want to cook more. I think I just find it hard to cook for two people. Then when Jake is working I find no point in cooking for myself and when I do I usually just make macaroni and cheese. Any suggestions? I know it will definitely help the waistline and wallet if we don't eat out so much...

We had the fun opportunity to have dinner with my friend Heather and her husband last night. Heather and I went to high school at the same time (different High schools) back in Michigan. It started out as a normal dinner, but of course it turned out to be a reminiscing party (for me and heather). I am sure our husbands felt like it was one of those times when old mission companions get together and talk about all of their old mission stories, except our involved my "jersey years", when I was obsessed with wearing basketball jersies in elementary school, and girls camp stories. I thought it was tons of fun and we laughed alot! I love hanging out with old friends. It is so much fun to remember fun things we did together and it just feels comfortable. I just hope our husbands will let us do more things together-even though we talked the whole time :)

Some fun memories we talked about last night:

• When we were girls camp YCL's and one of the girls was made over by the other girls in our cabin with tons of blue eyeshadow and makeup and I didn't even recognize her. I was yelling for her and asking where she was when she was standing right in front of me.
• Youth conference when we were given and orange to eat in the morning and then had to go all day hiking and doing different activities without eating anything and then we had a HUGE dinner and everyone got sick.
• Going to Prom with boys who were brothers and then wearing our dresses and disgustingly hair sprayed "prom hair" to church the next day.
• Jet skiing and having heather be pulled into the water by the neck from the rope that was attached to my tube.

There were alot more, but these were some of my favorites.

In other news, Jake started rifle school today, and I am sure he was VERY excited. He came in to say goodbye and was practically skipping :) Okay, not really, but he is excited to go. I am off to work and on my way will listen to the Mamma Mia soundtrack- vic you got me totally addicted! (if you don't own it, Go get it!)

Well things have been going really well. Nothing too exciting has been going on. We have both been working as usual and are excited for the upcoming weeks. Next week Jake is going to rifle training for work, so he gets to work from 8am-5pm Monday through Thursday. We will get to see each other everyday! I have been in a transition at work with moving into a new position, still doing my old tasks but adding on a whole new aspect of the technical side of email marketing. I am starting to learn HTML and CCS coding (totally geeky, I know) but I am really excited about it! I get to start learning how to build templates for emailing and webpage design, so it is a challenge.
Enough of boring work! We have both signed up to play sports in our ward. Tuesday nights are Jake's softball nights, Thursday nights are my volleyball nights, and Jake will start playing volleyball on Saturday mornings. It has been alot of fun going to Jake's games and watching him play! I promise to get pictures up soon!
We are heading out to CT to visit my brother and his family (Jon and Christy) at the beginning of october and are SUPER excited. It will be fun to go out there to visit them and see where they live! We all plan to make a couple day trips....to NYC and Boston and eat real seafood! It will be quite an adventure! We are counting down the weeks until then.
I realize I don't have much to say, but will post something better soon!

Although this does look like photo shop, these were actually stickers he put on his face

Vic brought us a suprise!

Showing off my sunglasses