Pumpkin Carving

I've never really been into Halloween. The costumes and parties have never really held much interest for me. However, there is one thing that I have always loved about Halloween and that is carving pumpkins. As a child I remember taking hours to design the perfect pumpkin, it started with faces and soon I branched out to other designs. One time I did the Star Trek insignia, another year I did a map of the United states.

Consequently as I have grown older and started my own family the only strong Halloween tradition we seem to be starting is that of the pumpkin carving. Geneen and I have been carving pumpkins every Halloween we've been married. It was about the same time that I discovered jack-o-lantern patterns available online for free and in the store. It was also about this same time that I discovered that it was worth my money to buy a pumpkin carving kit. The tools provided in those kit are about the best thing I have found for carving a pumpkin. (Amazing right? They do what we want them to do.)

So I hope that you enjoy our pumpkins from this Halloween, maybe next year I'll be inspired to forgo the free, well-designed patterns and painstakingly create my own, lesser pattern. But then again, probably not.

BYU Homecoming 2009

Without going into any painful details about certain outcomes of certain football teams which lead to certain painful feelings and near expletives coming out of a certain blogger's mouth.... I'll just skip that part and go on to the parts of homecoming which were fun. My sister Lori and I, along with my good friend Tanille, signed up for the BYU 5k Homecoming Race this last Saturday. I got the start time wrong (I thought it started at 9:00 am but it didn't start until 9:45) and so we decided to wander over to the ESPN Game Day broadcast that was going on by the stadium. It was pretty neat to see all the hullabaloo, but I'm glad I wasn't trying to elbow my way closer to try and get on camera. We liked to stay in the back and read all the funny signs from other people.




After the Game Day stuff, Lori and I ran over to get in our race. That race is so hard! I've run the same route 3 times (they use an almost identical one for the Rex Lee Run in March) and the big hill in the beginning (up University Ave to 900 E) is so hard! Puker hill for sure. I did not puke, but I went at it way to hard and as a result I almost puked trying to finish the race. Most people get their second wind around the third mile, I did not. I finished the race with a time of 24:50, which was better than I was expecting since I was hurting so badly. That time is only 8 seconds slower than what I ran for the 4th of July in Idaho. Go me! I might (and it's a big might) do one more race this year for Thanksgiving, but we'll see. One interesting thing was that I saw the guy who sold me my running shoes from Runners World at the race. He came in second place. Another cool thing was that because I'm in a new age category (25-29 now instead of 18-24) I placed 9th in my age group, and 58th overall. Pretty cool huh? This is me finishing the race. I tried to sprint, truly I did, but I don't think I accomplished much.

After the race we went to the Homecoming Parade. Evelynn was convinced that the parade would through candy and chocolate milk, because that's what happened at the last parade we went to. Unfortunately we were at the very end of the parade route, so we got ONE piece of candy and no chocolate milk. Oh well. The parade was short, which was very nice. Evelynn got to give Cosmo a high five, and Eloise waved at all the grandma's in the fancy cars. It was a good morning.

After the parade we went home and napped and prepared for the game.... which I won't go into. So my post is done.

Bridal Veil, Conference, and Find Daddy

This is kind of a mixture of random things, but that's ok. The first set of pictures are of a trip we took up to Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. The girls and I were waiting for Doug's plant identification class to come by on their field trip, so I tried to get a few pictures for Christmas presents for grandparents. I didn't get as many good shots as I was hoping, but for any grandparents/great grandparent who reads my blog, please tell me which, if any, of these pictures you like and I'll frame it for you. In fact, that goes for any picture you've seen here. The first few are just some shots of the awesome scenery in the canyon. I love fall colors!

Bridal Veil Falls

Provo River. The last time we came up here in June it was twice as full as this and lots more white water.

Smiles are hit and miss with Eloise. She knows the concept, just not how to give a pretty smile.

Evelynn was trying so hard that her smiles look goofy.

This would have been so much cuter if she wasn't trying to escape! They did not like to be posed for shots, that's for sure.

As time progressed, Evelynn got worse and worse with her smiles. :)

Running away once again.

These next pictures were taken during General conference. The girls did pretty well for the Saturday session, but Sunday was another matter entirely. I think that was mostly because we took them to the church for the Sunday morning session.... We were trying to make it feel like church for the girls, and they did well enough the first hour, but I have no idea what was said the second hour. Good thing we get those talks in the Ensign.

Content to play in the laundry basket.

Doug actually made this Lego tower. In the end it stood taller that him (he's just over 6 feet tall).

This video is from a game that the girls like to play with daddy, called "Find Daddy!" Sorry it's a bit shaky, I was just trying to keep up!

Trip to MO... finally!

Sorry for the delay, but I have finally not only got the pictures from my mom, but I have a free moment to put them on the computer and blog little bit about our vacation/trip to visit grad schools. The first day we left around 4:00 pm and drove to Denver CO to spend the night with our friends the Phipps. We pulled in around 12:30am, way after every one's bedtime in their house and our car. Chris claimed he didn't hear us enter his house, go into our room, which was right next to his, use the bathroom etc. and get the kids settled for bed. This worries me since it could have been anyone in his house, and he had just left the door unlocked. It must be his exhaustion over the new baby... right? Maybe they should think about an alarm system, or a dog. ;)

The next morning, very early, we were up and Doug and I were off to visit the University of Colorado, Denver campus and their Landscape Architecture program. It was a little scary trying to navigate Denver freeway systems, but we managed with only one mishap. The campus is located in downtown Denver, which was kind of cool because downtown Denver is very exciting and pretty with historic building and such. We had to park on the street and use a parking meter, which I had never done before and so I felt a little bit like a hick, but oh well. The school was very nice. We toured the whole building (the whole program is located in one building) with a very nice lady who answered all of our questions, but she had very little knowledge that I needed, such as how much rent was for a three bedroom apartment, how do students with families fare here, and how on earth would I deal with 2 kids in downtown Denver? Most students in the program are in their late 20's early 30's true, but few were married and even fewer (if any) had kids. The drawback to Denver was that we would have to live fairly close to campus because parking is outrageous, and there is no way we could afford rent there (we're talking $1200+ a month for a two bedroom apartment). But Denver had a wonderful facility, and we could get instate tuition after the first year, and big bonus.

After seeing what we wanted to see and wandering around Denver for a while discussing options and taking in some sites, we made our way back to the Phipps. Our plan had been to stay the night and take off for MO the next morning, but we decided we didn't want to cool our heals that long, even though the Phipps are so awesome. So we packed up and were off once again by 12:30. It was 11 1/2 hours to my parents house, and so with stopping for dinner, we made it in about 12, which put us in at their house at 2:30. This was nice in a way because we got a whole extra day with my parents instead of getting there one evening and then Doug and I leaving for Kansas the next morning. And my parents were more than glad to spend time with their grand kids.... and us. :)

My mom spent almost the whole day playing dress-ups and imagination with Evelynn and Eloise. I came into the playroom once to find my mom sitting in the middle of the floor with a hodgepodge of dress-ups on, several necklaces, and a toy dinosaur, talking to Evelynn who was the dentist/doctor that kept coming in and out and in and out to check on her patient. Mom had the biggest smile on her face. I had come to see if she needed to be relived for a while, but obviously she was having way too much fun, so I left and took a nap. It was wonderful.

The next day Doug and I drove the 4 hours up to Manhattan KS to check out Kansas State and their program. It was a very different feel from Denver. Manhattan is a college town, and Kansas State is a big university like BYU, so there were students everywhere (in bright purple since it was game day the next day. KSU colors are royal purple and silver)! The town was a lot bigger than I expected, but very nice, a lot like Provo with no Orem attached. I felt much more comfortable there than I had in Denver because it was a place that I could see myself actually raising kids, where as Denver I got a slightly panicky feeling just thinking about trying to do that. The program was great though. We talked to several ex-BYU students who gave us the skinny on the program and professors and pros and cons. There was even one guy who was in his first year who had two kids and one on the way. We talk to him for a long time since that is where we hope to be. We even found one professor who had gone to Denver for his masters and was now teaching at Kansas. We asked him which program he thought was better and he said if you wanted to be a professor of Landscape Architecture, Denver was a better school. If you wanted to practice landscaping in a company or on your own, Kansas is better. Well, Doug wants to practice, not teach, so that was very good to hear. On top of that, the assistant dean talked to us and she told us what it took to get into this school, and we knew we could fully meet all of those requirements. It was very heartening. Truth be told, I would much rather go to Kansas than Denver, and m0re than Utah State or Georgia, which are our other options. I always said I never wanted to go back to the Midwest, but after visiting the school, I knew I could live there and not be too intimated. Plus my parents are only 4 hours a way, which is a HUGE bonus.

Doug and I didn't take any pictures of our visit, which was silly of us but there you go. All of these pictures are from my Mom and Dad, most of while Doug and I were gone. They had so much fun without us, as well grandparents should. Mom and dad took the girls to a nature center with a kids area and nature trails. They had lots of fun.

We need to go this way Grandpa!

Yes, that is a giant toad she's sitting on. Eloise wouldn't get anywhere near it.

Walking the trails. Eloise is pushing the stroller so all you can see is her fuzzy head. Humidity did amazing things to here hair. :)

Eloise mastered the "CHEESE!" for pictures on this trip. It was so cute!

What huge smiles you all have!

Grandpa and the big cheese!

We went to a permanent carnival park that had lots of rides for little kids. The merry-go-round was a huge hit.

I made Evelynn go on the roller coaster with me. She balked at first and was scared, but after the first hill she was having a blast, like I knew she would.

Coming off the roller coaster. No tears! Success!

Here is an example of what humidity did to Eloise's hair. It was awesome.

Evelynn decided all on her own to go on the swinging boat. We had so much fun having a screaming contest with by brother Mark and Doug who were sitting across from us on the boat.

It was nice to see some people I knew in my home ward on Sunday, but truthfully things have changed so much since they took two wards and made three that I hardly knew anyone and the ward was half the size it was when I lived there. I also had the realization that I have lived longer in Provo than I had in Carl Junction. I lived in CJ for about 4 1/2 years--one summer before high school, then 4 years of high school, and then one summer after my freshman year of college. After than I got married and haven't really been back since. I've lived in Provo almost 7 years! I still think of Missouri as my home, but it's changed so much, as have I, that I don't know if I can really claim it any more. It's more just where my parents live. It kind of makes me sad, but then again, I'm an adult now and I've made my own home, so it's ok.

Tuesday morning we left to go home, very early. We left the house about 6:15 am and started our drive. Doug had hurt his back before the trip, and he just didn't feel up to driving so I took over and he promptly fell asleep. I then proceeded to drive through an intense rainstorm that only can happen in the Midwest for 3 hours on a two lane highway, getting passed by reckless semi trucks and having to pass old men in farm trucks going 30 under the speed limit. It was quite nerve wrecking, but we made it through. We had planned to stop in Denver again with our friends the Bishops, but we had made such good time that we arrived in Denver at 4:30 their time and it seems a waste to stop to early in the day. So we pushed through and made it home in Provo around 1:30 am. We did the entire drive in one day. It was intense, but the only reason we did it was because the girls were absolutely amazing in the car. I'm not kidding, hardly any problems at all. That was in good part to the DVD player the Simmons let us borrow (THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH!!!) and a good stock of movies. Oh what a trip! I figures out that I was in the car with Doug for 47 hours... almost two days of the 6 day trip. But it was worth it. Seeing the schools was worth it in itself, but visiting family is always wonderful. Hopefully we'll be able to do it much more often if we end up in Kansas. Applications are due in January, so I'll keep you all posted as to how things turn out!