October State of the Union - Life Happened

Oooohhh ... it's been a while since I have posted.  Just like the title says; life has truly happened this past couple of weeks. So, I will play a little catch up.  First off, remember about my planner?  What a wonderful tool that has been for me.  A true blessing and keeper of sanity.  Well, I had gotten the whole house in the planner game plan ... except for the final frontier ... the office.  The office still tended to be a catch all room and a bit of a mess.  Well, Darin gives me a call from work on Friday morning to tell me ... ummm ... heads up, the Bishop is coming over and helping me to figure out why our computer isn't letting me do the ordering like I should be able to.  He will be here tomorrow morning at 8 am.  Well, I was planning on tackling the office on that Saturday, but it just got bumped up.  So, took out dead computer, and DI stuff, tossed the riff raff out .... took the entire day (I am a slow but thorough cleaner, so it takes me a while - grin)  But it was so worth it.  I really liked how it turned out.  It's actually a pleasure to work in there :D 

It's actually a functioning room now.  I guess I needed a fire put under me to get it done.

 My next project was to do something I had been wanting to do for a while.  When we lived in the Santa Clara Valley, there was a family in our ward that she would have something in her front windows that was themed for the month.  I always loved to see what she would put up.  So, I decided to start doing that.  This is my October efforts. 

 And I decided that I was going to try to put something monthly themed on the cute little desk in the office too.  I just love this cute little pumpkin.  You just can't help but smile when you look at it :D

From there it was vacation time!  Woohoo!!!  We went to spend a week back in the old home town.  It was so nice to be back in the green country side.  We went to stay with Ashley and Austin.  They had to go to Monterey the first couple of days we were there, so we just stayed there and took care of their animals.  Drew has gotten so much better around animals.  He has always loved animals, but he would want to love them ... to death.

These two were practically inseparable while we were there.  Drew pet Kitty the cat a LOT ... and Mischeif (that's how Ashley spells it ... wanted to be different) decided that she was going to be afraid of us the entire time we were there.  Sad.  Oh well.  But while Ashley and Austin were gone we also decided to hit one of Drew's favorite places to go ...

 Chuck E. Cheese, of course!  Have to go there ... right???  Oh, RIGHT!!  Yeah ... anyhow ... gone are the days of earning mountains of tickets.  Lots were still earned, but Drew likes playing the non ticket games more and more.  And that is okay.  I had done something to my right hip, so I just stayed sitting in the booth while Darin and Drew played.  It was funny ... Darin was playing that Basketball game where you shoot the ball into the hoop as many times as you can and Drew decided to try it too.  He made a few baskets all by himself!  That's a big deal.  Was very proud of him.

The next day, we went to visit Darin's parents for the day.  Darin's mom has surgery, so we just went to visit.  Drew is a blood hound when it comes to legos.  He sniffed the grandparents lego collection immediately and played pretty much the whole time we were there.  He tried to take them with us, but alas, we said no.  :D 

When Saturday rolled around, Ashley and Austin came back home and we along with Darin's parents went to Bishop's Pumpkin Patch.  I had fully intended to stay there until they closed, but Drew had been doing his version of 13 lately (deep sigh) so, we actually didn't stay very long.  But I did accomplish what I wanted to do while there.  They have this cute gift shop that they had fun holiday decoration stuff there and I wanted to get some Thanksgiving decorations.  Don't have much of that.  You will see those later in my post next week.  We got a few cute pictures anyway ...

except this one.  The sun was directly in my eyes.  I was going blind here.  But had to show one of the pumpkins we purchased at the pumpkin patch.

 Sunday we went to spend time with Greg and Kelley and family.  They were having a 1st year birthday party for Lon's youngest boy, Zenock.  It was nice getting to see them for a bit.

 Monday we went and had dinner with Austin's family and had a very good time.  Something funny.  As soon as we got there, Drew started playing their wii game.  Evidently this certain Mario game you could have four players go at once and Drew wanted to observe, so he just went and started picking them for Mario game duty!  LOL ... you WILL play for me to watch and you will LIKE it!  Mwahahahahaha!!!  Seriously, they were very good sports about it.

Tuesday we went to Fresh Choice with Darin's parents ... and were acting very silly (well, at least Ashley and I were ... don't know what was in the soup - silly spice maybe)  Then we went home and made gluten free woof ums (don't know if the spelling on that is correct, but you get the idea)  Very yummy and fun.  It was really starting to cool down, so it was fun to sit around a camp fire.  Afterwards, we took our holiday pictures.  I came up with this idea of what I wanted for it, Ashley thought it would be good too, so we did it ... until late into the night.  I am not going to write what we did because I want it to be a surprise for Christmas card time. 

Well, Wednesday rolled around and was time to get ready to go home.  Still felt giddy from the silly spice soup ... (or maybe just sleep deprived) and felt creative.  I call this one "Pumpkins Incognito"  (heh heh heh heh heh)

Then thought I would leave Ashley and Austin with this final holiday fun for the Halloween season (LOL!!)  Funny, huh?  (big grin)  Can I just say it is SO much more fun for me to DRAW on a pumpkin rather than CARVE one.  Yep ... MUCH more fun - grin  When we were leaving, you should have seen Titus the dog.  He was so SAD that his friend was leaving.  It was truly sad :-(  Poor little puppy.

When we got to the airport, I got to get searched because I was wearing a skirt.  That was fun  ... umm not much.  Note to self.  NEVER wear a skirt to the Sacramento airport EVER again!  :D

And finally, yesterday was Halloween.  I was under the impression that Drew wanted to stay home and hand out candy to the few trick or treaters that come, but at about 8 pm, he decided he wanted to go.  We didn't get him a new costume.  Luckily ... I had his last two years costumes ready to go, so he went as the yellow peanut M&M again ... (sigh)  silly, silly boy :-)  He went to about 10 or 12 houses, felt he was done, and came home and confiscated the rest of our candy as his.  Which is fine with me.  I don't want to eat it.  But it reminded me of something Ashley had read and told me about ... the 2 year old mentality list:

If I am holding it, it's MINE

If I want it, it's MINE

If I am building something and need another block, they are all MINE

etc ... etc ... etc ....

LOL

I think you get the idea.