Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

We have an annual tradition to get together with a group of friends and carve pumpkins for Halloween. Over the years, it has ended up being the guys carve the pumpkins, the girls talk, and the kids play and try and help their dads' carve if they aren't too busy playing.

This year, we had the pumpkin carving at David and Kristin's house. Kyle and Crystal Mellon brought their 3 kids, Kacie, Chloe, and Kody. Alina brought her daughter, Catia, as Jared wasn't able to attend due to homework. Matt and I were also there of course.


We had soup and chili in bread bowls. We also had homemade Rootbeer. The guys got a kick out of the dry ice billowing smoke.

Parker's first Halloween. He is checking out Matt's pumpkin and Gracie was inspecting what he was doing.

Home made rootbeer. Thanks, David!

Dry Ice Smoke

Matt is getting ready to do his pumpkin. In year's past he always takes the longest to carve, because his ideas are so elaborate. What will be the design for this year?

Gracie got her hands, gooey this year. Glad she is in the spirit, because I definitely don't like this part. Good thing someone has to take the pictures.

Parker and another pumpkin.

Kacie and Chloe playing with the dishes. Not ready to get their hands gooey yet.

The carvers are going at it.

Gracie watching her dad cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin instead of the top.

Matt's carving is in progress....what will the final product look like?

Matt is the first one completed. Simple and easy. Wonder were he got the inspiration for his idea from. It kinda looks like him. Right?

Katie, Gracie, and David finished their pumpkins.

Kyle, Kacie, and Chloe posed with their pumpkin. Not carved, but a jeweled pumpkin. Nice Kyle!

Matt and his pumpkin. How cute!

We took the pumpkins outside and put candles in them for a picture with Katie and Gracie.

Our pumpkin. Matt carves them and I take the pictures. Works out perfectly!

82... What a great number!

Yesterday, my Gram (aka Grandma) turned 82 years old. Well, I got to spend the evening with her. A couple months before, I asked her if she wanted to go see "My Fair Lady" at Hale Center Theater. She said yes and for me to pick a date. I knew her wedding anniversary (my grandfather died over 4 years ago) and birthday were in November, so I asked which day I could help her celebrate. She said her birthday, which is on November 15th. So I bought the tickets and waited for the day.

I left work at 5:15pm to go and picked her up. We planned on eating dinner at her house before leaving. We ate my favorite meal, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Gram had hers in a cup and mine was in a bowl. :-)

As we were getting ready to leave for the play, my sister, Kali, called me about a something. I told her I had to go, so Gram and I could leave. She told me that she had been planning to come over to Gram's house and surprise her and now she wasn't going to be able to. She was a little bummed, but it turned out that it was good she called me or she would have gone over to Gram's house and been surprise herself to find out she wasn't there. Sorry Kali, but Gram and I had fun.

We left for the play at 6:30 and got there in 20 minutes, which was 50 minutes early. We took some pictures while we were waiting for the play to start.

It was fun watching the play. Gram and I both agreed that the actor for "Freddy" had a beautiful voice.

Happy 82 Birthday Gram!

Matt and Phi Kappa Phi

What is Phi Kappa Phi and who cares? Well, I will tell you.

In August, Matt received a letter from the Weber State Univeristy Chapter of  The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's oldest, most selective, and most prestigious all-disiplining honor society. Standards for election to Phi Kappa Phi are extremely high. Membership is by invitation only to the top 7.5 percent of second term juniors and the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students.

Matt was selected to be part of this prestigious honor society. On Monday, November 14th, we went to the initatation banquet for Phi Kappa Phi, where only 100 students were initiated for this year.

I am so proud at how well Matt has done with his schooling for the past 8 years as he has pursued the schooling to become a specialized Radiological Technician in MRI/CT. He only has 15 days until the end of his schooling. Yes, I am counting down and have been for years! We are almost done with school, and I did mean "we". As anyone knows, when your spouse is in school it effects you too.

Here are a couple pictures from the banquet. I took them with my camera phone, so they aren't the best, but wanted to capture the moments.

Waiting in line to be received (yes, the picture is blurry)

Going through receiving line

All Dressed up wearing his honor cords!

15 DAYS to go!

Matt Suprise Party

Since I missed Matt's Birthday, we had a surprise birthday dinner for him at my parent's house, on October 9th. We had tacos and had our best friends come over with Matt's favorite little girl, Gracie, to help suprise him.

Here are the pictures of him blowing out his candles and opening the present that I gave him. It was nice to be able to throw this little party for him, because I missed celebrating his birthday even if he didn't.

Big WHEEL fun at Kennecott Copper Mine

All summer I had been hearing radio commercials to come out and see the Kennecott Copper Mine. So while my sister, Chelsey, and my niece, Arlee, were here I thought it would be a great idea to go out. I thought, something fun for a little 2 1/2 year old to do with the big trucks and their big wheels, plus a huge hole to look down.

Well Chelsey ended up going to with Hans' family to witches at Garnder Village and she asked me to babysit. I asked my mom if she wanted to go with me. We took my 2 nieces, Kasiah (4) and Arlee (2 1/2), to the mine.

Well it wasn't what I thought it was going to be exactly. There was a big hole and a big tire, but no bug trucks, unless you count the ones down in the open copper mine and they looked tiny.

BIG HOLE!

BIG TIRE!

We walked around the visitor's center and watched a movie about the mine. While we were watching the movie, a picture of the Earth came on and Arlee said, "Look at that big ball."  Kasiah proceeded to correct her and said, "That's not a ball, that's the Earth." Quit funny and cute!

After the copper mine, I took everyone out to eat at McDonald's. What a fun night!

Trips for work - Part 2

I went on a second trip for work from September 17 to September 22nd. This trip was to Atlanta, Georgia for a Store Development Conference. We had seminars and classes during two of the days we were there. On the other days, we went and toured some stores in the Atlanta area. Why you might ask...well by touring stores, you can find ideas that you might want to incorporate into your store. Or that you might not!

I know I found one idea that I would never want to see in a Grocery store again, maybe a pet store, but not a grocery store...LIVE Frogs! Yes, they had live Frogs to buy at a grocery store to go home and cook. YUCK!, but I guess some people like that.

I also got to go to this Fresh Market and they had tanks full of live fish, crab and lobster to buy and they would kill it for you on the spot.

 My favorite thing I found was "Uncle Matt's" products....reminded me of my Matt.

At the end of my trip, I was able to go to the Georgia Aquarium....It was fun looking at all the sea creatures. Check out my pictures....I even touched the sting ray...and it only took me an hour to get up the courage.

Ever since I watched Jaws, I have been afraid of Sharks. I don't really like going into the ocean because of them. Ever since the movie "Soul Surfer" came out, people keep asking me if I have seen it. Definitely not, I would probably never set foot in the ocean again and one of the things I want to do is go to Hawaii one day. So why would I pictures of sharks, well they are behind glass and are safe to look at.

Looks alot like Jaws!

The best thing I liked about the aquarium was the Beluga whales. It was fun to watch them dive and play around. They reminded me of the dolphins, which are really my favorite, but I really didn't get to see because they were in the dolphin show.

Here are the Beluga whales and a couple of pictures of me trying to take my picture with them.

I was also able to get my picture taken with a penguin, a white allegator, a large fish, and a manta ray.

 The biggest surprise of the trip was that I actually touched a manta ray in the touching pond. Mind you, I had to go back three different times and on the third trip, I waited an hour until I got up the courage. This was silly, because all the kids would touch the manta rays with no problem. I really need to get this figured out, because one of my life goals is to swim with dolphins.