Surprise!

I hate surprises.
I mean, really REALLY hate them. Knowing there's something going on and I'm not a part of it drives me crazy. Knowing later that people went and planned something (like a surprise party) for me and I didn't know about it makes me upset. People singing "Happy Birthday" in restaurants to me... well, that's not really a surprise. But I still hate it. Just ask anyone who's slyly asked the waiter to bring that brownie with ice cream and a candle out to the table. I turn red, I give a death glare, and, on occasion, I cry. Okay, so I was 8 at the time, but I'm still not above it!

Anyway, I think Carson's trying to break me of the surprise thing. He keeps planning date things and telling me to get ready but won't tell me what's going on. And believe me, I try my darnedest to figure it out.

Last Friday, he said he had a surprise planned. He said I could maybe wear jeans but he wanted me to wear a dress. He said that we should eat beforehand. And that we had to leave at ten minutes to seven. And I had no idea... but it drove me crazy.

It turned out to be West Side Story... the musical! He had passed the Civic Theater's sign a few days before, thought we'd both like it, and popped in to buy tickets. And we did like it! It didn't have professional actors and parts of it weren't perfect, but the story line wasn't ruined and the music was good and it was just so fun!

[Not to mention, Carson's still singing the songs... it's like the gift that keeps on giving!] ...

I'm not even close to saying that I like surprises now. I still hate them so much. But if thoughts can "count", then this one, and the other surprise things Carson has planned have definitely counted. He's incredibly thoughtful and creative with things we can do together. I love it! Spending time with my husband has definitely become my favorite thing to do. We're both quite busy and only have one or two nights together a week, so the times we do get are all the more special.

I may hate surprises, but the ones I've had lately have been really great :)

How We Spent Halloween

Halloween was a few days ago, you may remember.

I generally like this holiday. The weird, evil, creepy stuff, I hate. Mostly, I go for the costumes and the candy. Because really, you don't get many times each year where you can look ridiculous and be rewarded with sweet stuff for doing so. So generally, I like Halloween.

And here is what we did!

First, there was the Halloween/Harvest Party at Kidz Club last Wednesday:

This is Bethany and Hayley, a marker (she had a cap too!) and Cindy-Lou-Who from the Grinch

Pumpkins were carved:

There was a little apple-bobbing:

And we dressed up too. Rachel was a nerd, and I was a teacher. 

I borrowed her "nerd" glasses for Kidz Club and returned them for her in Junior High, which follows. 

And Heidi didn't really have a costume, but she would make a cute farmer!

Then there was the Costume party on Saturday night hosted by some Moody students. The dressing up was fun...

Naomi wore an 80's formal and resembled a Steel Magnolias character. I donned my costume again. 

Jess was Carmen SanDiego  

Erica was a pirate (this is us "in character")

Angela and Ashley were tourists

It was honestly not so much fun (also, I'm not a huge party person unless I'm hosting. Love to entertain, hate to mingle and make small talk). Fun to see people I knew, but really not much to do. We were there for about 20-30 minutes. We DID stay in costume as we headed over to James' house to watch a movie. My first Alfred Hitchcock - Psycho. Completely freaky. This is the movie that makes us paranoid about checking behind the shower curtain.
What? You know you do it too!

Carson worked that night, otherwise, he'd have dressed up as well.

Sunday was super fun. After church, we went to some friends' house for chili and games and fellowship.  Since it was a wonderfully beautiful day, I suggested that we head up to Manito Park to look at leaves. We did and it was great. Simply beautiful. This is my favorite season but I know that in just a few weeks we'll have naked branches so we're soaking it up as much as we can!

[I'm going to give those pictures their own post. This one is heavy and I don't want to lose these pretty ones in the huge dump of pictures here]

As we returned from Manito, we stopped by to pick up two movies. Then we carved our pumpkins. Time budgeting didn't work so well that day, so we didn't roast the pumpkin seeds, though I love doing that. Carson gutted and threw away the insides in record time. Then we carved, sitting on the kitchen floor because it was the easiest to clean.

I had him make the same face as his pumpkin. He's quite obliging!

I was sad that I couldn't think of anything creative. So I opted for a regular faced pumpkin but added eyelashes. 

And we took a picture. What an amazing background, right? I cropped the dish rack out for the most part. 

We placed them in the window to give passersby a friendly Halloween "hello"

And yep, wouldn't be spending time together without the junk food. How do we not weigh 700 pounds? 

We watched scary movies because it was Halloween. Once again (and way more than the night before) I was so scared. I screamed into a pillow. When I'm with people who tend to be frightened in movies, I can be brave. When it's just me, I'm a big chicken. Carson laughed at me but acquiesced to my request to protect me. 

Ps - A note on the movies we watched:

 Hide and Seek = totally scary, do not recommend. Rear Window = not scary at all after the other one. Also, I learned that the "Horror" movie section of video rental places is utterly repulsive. If there's blood on the cover, can you imagine the film? Not a fan. 

Next year, we're renting It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 

Home For the Holidays

Where will we be spending Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's?

Well, we'll be spending each holiday in a different place, at different times.

Our plan right now is to spend Thanksgiving right here in Spokane. We're hoping to gather together some friends and have a potluck style meal like we did last year.

Our plan for Christmas is this: We will be going to Beaufort in one month from today to spend a "Christmas" visit with Lindsay's family. We'll be there December 1-7. So if you'll be there and we'll be there... let's make a plan! It's a short trip and we'll be spending it mainly with family but our hopes are to get in as many visits in with friends too.

Christmas doesn't happen until the 25th, of course, so we'll be spending that in Washington also. The plan for now is to go to Olympia with Carson's family, as we did in 2009. Six days prior to Christmas, however, is Carson's birthday! He'll turn 24 on December 19th.

fro-yo friend date!

It seems like good conversation always occurs in the presence of food. Well, some sort of food that is. Whether it's coffee, popsicles, IHOP, or a happy meal, I love getting together with friends and chatting it up over food. 

Especially when it's sweet. It must make conversation sweeter also... 

So anyway, my hall-mate and friend, Rachel, decided that she needed to try the new fro-yo place in Spokane. I was definitely loving that idea, so we hopped down to the corner of 2nd and Division and partook in some yummy frozen yogurt.

All that goodness at the push of a lever... 

(the middle lever swirls the two flavors!)

Some of the toppings...

Rachel's happy fro-yo

Rachel's {happy} self

My tasty treat

Smiling because of the sprinkles. I'm all about sprinkles.  

A squish pic, mid bite

And after these pictures were taken, we spent about an hour in lovely conversation... all about life, God, goodness, relationships and frozen yogurt. Such a wonderful friend date.
And definitely NOT the last time you'll see pictures of this place.
We'll be back!

Our Wedding: Reception Finale

Such fun people came to our wedding! To be honest, most of them had never met Carson until that day, but that didn't stop people from enjoying themselves. I'm not sure how they felt, but Carson's family seemed to merge really well with all the Beaufort friends and family. I loved that they were all there together, dancing, chatting, eating, and celebrating with us. 

The Photographers. There were a LOT of cameras at this wedding. Many of the pictures seen here are from these lovely guests. 

As the evening drew to a close, I needed to go in the house for a bathroom break. I enlisted the help of my too-good-to-me maid of honor Brooke, and Jillian and Emily came too, for moral support and photography. I realized then that the four-inch heels I'd been wearing were killing my feet - and if you're wearing four inch heels, you'd better not plan on taking them off unless you'd like four extra inches of dirt on the bottom of your wedding dress. So my mom (who joined the party at sometime as well. The more the merrier.) advised us to go ahead and make a run for it. We weren't really planning on leaving at that moment, so I do regret not having that dance with my little brother that I'd promised and not saying goodbye to people. But anyway, someone was sent to round up Carson so that we could make our grand exit, and in the meantime, we took pictures in the house.

I think I was probably waving at bugs here. We weren't leaving... but the picture fits.

Only picture of the two of us looking at the camera and smiling. Oops.

We were off! Lavender in our hair, clothes, and all over my mom's Pilot. She's probably still vacuuming it up.