Val's Birthday Week

It's wild to think that I was going to be 41 this year.  Time does fly by faster than you anticipate.  You get busy living, working and having fun and forget how quickly days, months and years pass by. As a kid, you think the adults around you are kidding when they say, make the most of your time while you have it and you're young because it does go by quickly.  Not that I've had a mid-life crisis, but I do understand how they surface in individuals.  I'm in that weird demographic where I'm still young, but in some instances, I am considered old.

I've thought about this more after my developmental job assignment opportunity, returning to work on Thursdays and being around people I haven't been around in four years or more. We've been so isolated working from home.  I'm torn though.  I enjoy working from home, but I do enjoy being around people occasionally.  

This would be the first time in probably five or more years that I had to work on my birthday because it was in the middle of the week.  It's hard to take off a Wednesday and have that consecutive three or four-day weekend you want.  I was alright with it because I wanted to be a good asset to the new opportunity I was given.

Friday, November 8th

I took Friday off to have that four-day weekend since Veteran's Day was on Monday.  It was so nice to sleep in and not be in a rush to do anything.  I got ready, went for a walk around the park and then finished getting ready for my hair appointment with Celeste on the westside.  I desperately needed a haircut since the last time was the previous spring.  

It was a nice visit with Celeste.  We talked about the usual things, reminisced about the weddings, told her about my DJA and the stuff in between.  It's always a nice chat with Celeste and she does a great job on my hair every time I go to the salon. I paid, thanked her and did some errands while I was in town.

I drove over to Trader Joe's to pick up some gluten free items for Ben.  They had the breads, cookies and candies that were reasonably priced for gluten free items.  I was in and out quickly because the place was super busy.  I got on the freeway and decided to go see Erika and Brian for a little bit, but I needed a snack.  I stopped by the Albertson's for some Cheez-It's and a pop for Erika.  I got to the house, and we hung out for about an hour.

Since I was out, I decided to do some shopping at Winco.  I got gas and went home.  

Saturday, November 9th 

We were invited to Heather's father's funeral.  He had passed away a few weeks ago with a long battle with Parkinson's.

This is what I wrote about that day:

This afternoon, we had the honor to celebrate the life of Michael Iselin, at a lovely venue outside of Tenino.

Ben and I left a little later than we wanted to but made it to the venue just in time.  There were a lot of cars and trucks in the parking lot, and it drizzled as we approached the barn doors.

We entered the hallway and Michael's family members lined each side welcoming everyone to the event with handshakes, hugs and smiles.  It felt homey.  Heather told us that we were going to sit at a family table and to go find Josh, so that's what we did. 

We sat down and introduced ourselves to the family members we didn't know.  Everyone got settled in, some small talk was had and within a few minutes, Heather and her siblings went up to the front with the microphone.

Heather thanked everyone for coming, said a couple of things about her dad, the order of events for the day and wasn't sure what else to say because she really didn't prepare a speech. She just decided to wing it.  She came back to the table and asked if it was okay, we told her she said all the right things and it went well.

Table by table, we all got up and filled our plates with Costco sandwiches, entrees, veggies, fruit, dips and chips.  It was a nice spread.  There was also an array of drinks, water, coffee, and many different types of sodas. For dessert, there were cupcakes and Michael's favorite candy - Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Almond Roca and three different kinds of Mountain Bars. He wasn't supposed to have chocolate, but he snuck it in anyway.

While we ate, we watched a 20-minute slideshow on Michal and his family throughout the years.  You could see the love in each and every photo and the way his eyes lit up every time he held his newborn child or grandchild. It was amazing to watch the photos progress year after year and all the good times he and his family had together. Heather has shared some of these memories with Ben and I over the years.

After the slideshow, we listened to whoever was brave enough to stand up in front of everyone and share their stories about Michael. Some of them were very touching and emotional and some were hilarious.

I, personally, didn't know Michael that well, but both Ben and I did go camping with him and his family last summer. We spent three days and two nights with them.  I remember how much he loved his sweets. I brought banana bread with us and gave him a small piece before dinner time. He wanted more.  Theresa told him no more until he has eaten dinner that night. He looked disappointed, but Thresa was right.  He did end up having more pieces of it as the weekend went on.

I was able to connect with Trina and Mark.  I haven't seen her in person since Covid.  We caught up and shared stories. It was a nice visit.  She has known the Iselin's for many years.

We thanked Heather and her family for inviting us to Michael's memorial and we were happy to come support her in any way we could. Heather, you had an amazing dad, and I am happy you have many memorable moments with him throughout your life. Hold onto those and cherish them!

Sunday, November 10th

That morning, I got up and went for a walk around the park in the freshly fallen leaves before breakfast.  I was happy it didn't rain on me.

That afternoon, Ben and I went over to the rental to get a couple of things accomplished. We worked on getting the cabinets over the stove area down.  It took a while, but with some finesse, we finally got them down.  I got another section of the wallpaper trim off in the dining room area and clean up the mess I made.

Mom and I did some math and figured out how much wallpaper to purchase for the kitchen and we measured out how big of an area we had to purchase backsplash for behind the sink. 

Ben worked on the trench some more and I picked up limbs in the yard and put it in a pile so Dad and Doug could haul it away on Wednesday. It was a lot of work picking up the branches, but I am glad I got it done before it rained and got dark.  I was not a fan of the upcoming dark, dank days of a pacific northwest fall and winter. 

Monday, November 11th

We had the day off so all of us went over to Grammie and Grandpa's house to start getting rid of stuff that wasn't worth anything.  We got there around 11a.m. and Dad had jobs for everyone.  We went through a lot of the boxes in the living room.  Most of it was Goodwill and stuff you would toss.  We packaged it all up and divvied it out into a Goodwill pile and a throw away pile.  I still can't believe how much random stuff they had tucked away.

Going through loved one's personal items is never an easy task.  A lot of the things we went through that afternoon reminded us of our grandparents and the memories we share with them inside that house.  I know it's just stuff they can't take with them, but it still reminds you of people you miss seeing and talking to every day. 

We packed up a load of it into the trailer.  The house looked weird with the stuff missing, but I knew it was something we had to do.  We all went to the Goodwill to help Dad unload the trailer.  It really did suck giving away my grandparent's stuff, but they didn't need it, we didn't need it but maybe someone else needs it?

We all went to Mr. Doug's for a hamburger.  That was Dad's way of thanking us for helping him. We drove back to Grammie and Grandpa's house, did a few things and then went home.  I got home around 5.

Tuesday, November 12th

Due to being off the day before because of the Veteran's Day holiday, we did find out that morning the Comagine did work. It was my least favorite day, a double Tuesday.  I knew it was going to be all day long too because of the waiting for stuff to come over.  So, while I waited, I did my DJA stuff throughout the day, so I had something to do.  

With this new opportunity that came my way back in August and started in October, I was thoroughly enjoying learning the new information in another business area and honestly, I was slowly checking out of my UR job.  It just wasn't something I wanted to continue on doing, especially, if my supervisor was going to continue taking my work away and not replacing it with anything else. I started seriously thinking about what it would be like to work in a different place.

I did not get done with my UR work until about 3:20. That pushed into my DJA time, and I was only able to get 40 minutes of DJA work in before I left for the day.  I went for a walk around the park and thought I could make it to and from without it raining.  Luckily, I had the umbrella and was wearing my rain jacket and new waterproof hiking boots. 

Wednesday, November 13th

I can't believe I am 41.  This age seemed like it would take forever to get here and now that it's here, what happened? It's like, did I let my guard down or is life is really moving faster than I think it is?  I can tell you one thing; life is extremely unpredictable and throws you some pretty hefty curveballs. 

A year ago, life was different.  I had just turned 40 and Ben and I were eight months away from getting married.  Erika was also 3 months pregnant with a potential niece or nephew.  Our lives were changing slowly every day and so were everyone else's around us.  We were a few years removed from Covid, and I was still working from home.  I had a different mindset than I did then too.  I was comfortable with being mediocre even though I knew I should be doing something better with my time. I had no idea my life was going to change a little less than a year later.  It is amazing what time does to people and the potential possibilities it gives.

Anyway, this was the first time, in a while, that I've had to go to work on my actual birthday.  The last 6-7 years or so, it's fallen on a weekend, near a holiday or near a weekend.  This year it was on a Wednesday - that's a hard day to take off.  Well, a hard day to take off to make it worthwhile. So, this year I got up and went to work.  

I did my UR work in the morning, went to lunch and then did my DJA work in the afternoon.  Liz and Sandra wished me a happy birthday on TEAMS, which was a great surprise, and Liz spent about an hour teaching me how to do the preparing for collections spreadsheet. She explained that it was a piece that customer service usually does but because they are short staffed our team does it currently.  She said it may change somewhere down the road, but they wanted it to get caught up, so it was weekly instead of several months behind. I told her I would do my best with the time I was allotted to get as much of it done as possible.  I truly believed I could get this stuff back on track.

Ben came home and we got ready and drove out to the westside for some Buffalo Wild Wings!  This was our first date night to BWW since we got married. We got our usual and used some of our gift cards to pay for our meal.  It was fun to go out and eat dinner for my birthday.  

We hit up Costco and Walmart on the way home and got home around 7:30.

I know I've said this before, and I will say it again; it's just not a complete birthday without my annual birthday song from Grammie. 

Thursday, November 14th

I was in the office.  I started going into the office when I started my DJA.  This week had been odd because of the holiday on Monday and the double Tuesday with my UR work. The days in the office seemed to go by really slow, especially in the mornings while doing UR work.

I was out the door and made it to the office at a decent time do to "past Val" for getting everything ready the night before.  I got all of my stuff set up and started in on my work list.  We didn't get the DE's right away and that bummed me out, but I was able to work on my other stuff.  I took a quick walk around the campus loop and then stopped by Jamie's desk and chatted for a little bit.

I did a couple more hours of work, we got our work list done before 11:30 and finished the first version of my DJA spreadsheet.  Liz added more to it.  I am determined to get them caught up so we can move onto the next part.  We met up with Jamie for lunch in the cafeteria.  The conversations are always hilarious.

That afternoon, I sent out a bunch of citation emails and now that I had done it a few times I felt like I was getting quicker at it.  I was able to finish them before it was time to go and even got to work on the spreadsheet for a half hour or so.  I logged off, gathered all of my stuff and went to the YMCA to work on my basketball skills for the upcoming RHS Alumni game.  I needed to work on my shots and dribbling skills because it's been a while. 

Friday, November 15th

I was so glad it was Friday.  I got all of my morning work done and had a little bit of extra time to start my DJA afternoon work.  I was able to get my collections list done before the end of the day. Ben and I had finally hammered down dates for our honeymoon.  We were going to do it the last two weeks of February and started planning what we were going to do.  I thought I would be considerate and let my supervisor know three months in advance. It did not turn out the way I imagined it going. She basically said that it was great that I had a plan and next time give her and the team a heads up.  Then she continued with, that we are a group of people with various time off needs, but it was obviously great that I had a plan. I sat there going, what?  Next time give her a heads up?  Were three months not enough of a heads up?  She's never had an issue about me taking time off ever.  This was the first time she was rude to me about it.

I was so frustrated and angry that I called Debbie for a few minutes to vent. Debbie didn't understand either. Then I called Liz to get a supervisor perspective on it.  She said she would love to have that much of a heads up if one of her teammates was going to take an extended leave. She didn't understand why my supervisor was being like that.  It sure ruined the rest of the day and set the tone for the weekend.  

I logged off of work, went for a walk to clear my head.  I did get some joy out of the afternoon with my annual front yard mushroom Smurf photo shoot. 

Saturday, November 16th

Ben and I went over to the rental house in the early afternoon with at least one goal in mind, finally getting all the trim in the dining room off the top of the walls.  It took about two hours, but we were successful. We can prepare it for painting, and I bought some wallpaper for the kitchen on the internet.  Once it comes in the mail, we can figure out a day to start doing that.  Ben was able to work on the trench a little bit and hopefully soon we can have power back in the shop.

Later that evening, I met up with Julie to watch the Cougar game at River's Edge.  

Her friend Alaina joined us after work.  We had some great and hilarious conversations while we watched the game.  It was awesome to finally meet up with her after all the time that has passed. The Cougars didn't win but we still had a fun time.  I am hoping this is something we can do every year.

Sunday, November 17th

I planned out my own 41st birthday party with my family.  Erika and Zac were willing to host because it was easier to do it at their house than have to bring Brian and all of his stuff to someone else's house.  We decided to eat white people tacos and have gluten free Funfetti cake.  I provided the hamburger, taco seasoning and the tortillas, Erika cooked the food and had cheese, sour cream and cilantro, Doug and Sonya brought chips and Trish, Amy and Ed brought tomatoes and lettuce. Mom and Dad didn't come because they were sick. Grandma drove herself into town.  We made sure it was in the middle of the day so she could get home before it got dark.

The food was good, and the cake was alright for gluten free cake. I got a couple of cool gifts - a book from Grandma, a curling iron from Doug and Sonya, a panini maker from Trish and Erika got me some penguin D&D dice for our campaign with Nicole and Del. 

I helped Erika clean up, thanked everyone and Ben and I drove out to Rainier to hang out with Megan and the kids.  

Hung out with Megan and her kids for dinner and game night.  She made us a yummy dinner and then we played a Superhero card game and then beard ball.  

There was a lot of giggling. We thanked Megan for a great time and headed home because we needed to get ready for the upcoming work week.

Next Adventure: Trish's Birthday, Cougar Football and Work at the Rental House

Seattle Seahawks vs. Buffalo Bills

I've always wanted to see Josh Allen in person play football.  The Buffalo Bills should have already had two Super Bowl rings, but here we are.

Ben's friend Sven was given his parents Seahawk season tickets a few years back and he wanted to give us a wedding gift. He and his wife, Cheri, decided to gift us a pair of their season tickets.  It came with a parking pass too.  He told us we could choose whatever home game we wanted.  Ben and I sat down and looked through the schedule and saw we were playing the Buffalo Bills at home.  Ben and I both agreed that is the game we wanted to go to that season

Ben got a hold of Sven and told him which game we chose.  He told us great choice, and he will send over the tickets and parking pass as the game got closer. We thanked him for his generosity.  Now, we gotta hope that we chose a game where both teams played well and that it's actually a good game.  I was also hoping the weather was decent for us because you never know what kind of weather you'll get at the end of October.

As it got closer to game time, Sven sent Ben the tickets and parking pass.  We made sure they went into Ben's digital wallet so we could access them quickly once we got to the stadium.

Ben and I got up, got ready and made sure we had all of our game, rain gear and clear plastic bag.  I even grabbed a couple of hand warmers just in case we got cold.  We both wore layers, brought our hats and scarfs.  I wore my waterproof shoes.  We ate a quick breakfast, and we were out the door by 10:15.  Ben drove. 

We didn't have any issues on I-5 which was nice.  It slowed down a little bit as we got into Seattle and to our exit. We made our way to the T-Mobile parking garage and found a place near one of the stairwells, grabbed what we would need and headed down that stairwell.  We made our way over to the field house to hang out there for a bit before the game. We went through security and had our tickets scanned. We kicked field goals and got a couple prizes, we got mini-Seahawk candy buckets because Halloween is a few days away and I got my face painted. We watched some of the other games that were being played on the big screens and checking our teams on Fantasy Football. By the time we did all of that, it was time to head upstairs into the stadium.

Sven sent us a view from our seats, but it did not compare to where our seats actually were in real life.  We made our way over to our seats and the best part of them they were by themselves along the first level concourse, they were squishy seats (they had padding and backs), and we didn't have to sit next to anyone.  The view was also amazing!  I can't believe those were our seats!

We got comfortable and hoped the rain would stay away.  We took a bunch of pictures and then both teams came out to warm up.  It's always exciting being at the game even though you miss a lot because you don't get the announcers tidbits, replays and other info that the TV provides.  We watched the teams go through their warm-up routines while we kept track of our Fantasy Football teams.  They cleared out, did the starting line-up and then the national anthem.  They raised the 12th Man flag, and the game promptly started at 1:05.  I was really hoping the rain would stay away from our mild 57-degree afternoon.  Fingers crossed.

The game was going to be interesting because we were playing one of the better AFC teams, their quarterback was clearly better than our quarterback and Metcalf had a knee injury and wasn't going to play.  I didn't see this going very well but we were happy to be there together anyway.

The first quarter began, and it was awful.  I've watched and have been to many games since 2002 (when we were more competitive) and I've never seen such a bad quarter of football (by my local team).  The Bills looked fantastic though.  On their first attempt with the football, they went on a 14 play, 90-yard drive that ended in a 2-yard touchdown by Keon Coleman thrown by Allen. Tyler Bass made the kick.  The quarter ended with the Bills up by 7.  The first quarter stats were horrendous.  We had a total of 3 yards while they had 122.  We had the ball for two and a half minutes while they possessed the ball for a little over nine. It could be worse. 

I thought, well...they are only up by a touchdown.  We might be able to turn this around.  Haha, nope!  When we had the ball, we slowly marched down the field somehow. We were literally on the 2-yard line and managed to go backwards and Geno's foot was stepped on, causing a fumble and out of touchdown range.  We had to settle for a field goal. On the Bills' next scoring opportunity, they made a 93-yard drive look easy.  It ended in a 12-yard pass from Allen to Dalton Kincaid and the a made field goal to take a 14-3 lead into half time. The score really didn't reflect how we were actually playing but the stats sure did.

We did a little better, but it was still terrible.  We managed to get to 95 total yards and possessed the ball for almost 10 minutes.  Sadly, it also started raining but thankfully I brought our rain ponchos. I was happy the rain didn't last a long time but made everything wet and cold. Ben got up to go find something to snack on.  He brought back some gluten free chili, popcorn and two Budweiser seltzers.  Those actually weren't bad. 

The third quarter started, and it was more of the same except we threw an unfortunate interception on a favorable drive.  The Bills only got a field goal out of that, but we basically did nothing else during the third quarter.  The Bills managed to get a rushing touchdown from James Cook.  The score was now 24-3.  The game was now getting away from us. 

With the Bills' final touchdown in the 4th sealed the game for them.  They were up 31-3 at this point and anything else after that was garbage time. To make it look less bad, the Seahawks did manage to score a touchdown by Zach Charbonnet.  It livened the crowd a little bit, but the game was pretty much over.  The Bills were clearly the better team, and we all knew it.  I was hoping the Bills would finally make it to the Super Bowl and win it. 

We lost 31-10 in front of 68,704 people and a lot of them were Bills fans.  We had a 233 total yards, 2 turnovers and 17 first downs and the Bills had 445 total yards, one turnover and 29 first downs.  Buffalo held Seattle to 1 yard rushing in the first half, the second-fewest rushing yards the Bills had given up in a half this century and the Bills controlled the game for 38 minutes while the Seahawks did for 22 minutes.  If we would have had a better first half this may have been closer, and the game would have been more exciting.  We will never know.

We stayed until the end, gathered up our stuff and then made our way back to the parking garage through the sea of people.  It didn't take us long to get back to the parking garage and out onto I-5 to start our way south towards home. The traffic was heavy but started to thin out as we got to Tukwila.  We got home just after 6:00.  We washed some laundry, relaxed and got ready for the busy work week.

Next Adventure:  Val's Birthday Week!

Halloween Party with Friends

A few months ago, Ben and I were trying to decide what we were going to be for Halloween this year.  As you all know, this year was super busy with wedding planning, the arrival of my nephew and the actual wedding in July.  Those events pretty much took up most of our time.  

The summer Olympics were also this year and were held in Paris, France. There were some memorable games, matches and athletes.  Break dancing was officially included in the 2024 Olympic games, marking the first time a dance sport has been included in the summer games. The competition included 16 males and 16 females, each representing their country in one-on-one battles.  Five judges assessed the break dancers on criteria such as technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality according to Olympics.com.  

Well, one of the female Australian break dancers competed and received a score of zero in one of her rounds.  Her performance, particularly her "kangaroo bounce" move, went viral, leading to both positive and negative reactions around the world.  I didn't actually watch the Olympics this year because we were busy, but it was all over social media.  It was hard not to see the memes and jokes.

Despite the excitement surrounding the debut, the inclusion of break dancing in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is uncertain, raising questions about the sport's long term Olympic future.

There was another well-known athlete participating in the games, and he was one of France's top pole vaulters.  He failed to advance to the finals because a video of one of his attempts where he knocked down the crossbar with his wiener went viral.  Following that, he was offered $250,000 by the Vice President of the porno website to create a webcam show.

Ben suggested that we be the failed Olympic athletes this year and I couldn't say no.  We looked into my costume, which could be purchased in its entirety for about $25 on Amazon, and Ben's costume, which could be purchased in pieces off of Amazon and created.  We thought our costumes were going to be hilarious.

I also thought it would be funny to post hints on Facebook for people to guess what my costume was going to be.  I had quite a few people follow and had no idea what the hints were until almost the last day. I had fun with it. Ben spent most of October getting his costume perfected but was having trouble with the pole.  He could not get it to stay where he wanted it.  We tried many different things, but it was just too heavy and did not give it the illusion he envisioned. 

The last few years after Covid, Celeste and Isaac have been hosting Halloween at their new house. We all planned a game night with costumes and food.  I was excited to see what everyone was going to dress up as.  Ben and I drove over early because we had the extra table and chairs.  We also got to park in the driveway.  Their neighborhood has crappy street parking and there are never enough spaces for everyone.  We brought everything inside including our dish and my gluten free pumpkin cookies we made for the party.  We helped set up the extra table and chairs.

Celeste had great Halloween and spooky decorations all over the house and the table was very festive as well. It was fun to see what everyone dressed up as once everyone showed up to the party.  Everyone thought our costumes were hilarious.   We ate food first, then got a bunch of group photos, individual photos and then dove into the games.  

We played a couple different ones but one of our favorite ones from the night was Poetry for Neanderthals. We also played a game to where we had to shout out songs to a word.  It got pretty competitive at times. A few people had to go home early but the rest of us stayed for other games until Celeste and Isaac were tired of guests and wanted to go to bed, lol.  Ben and I left before midnight because we had a Seahawk game to go to the next day.  I am excited to see next year's costumes.

Next Adventure:  Seattle Seahawks vs. Buffalo Bills

Pumpkin Carving and Mom's Birthday Party

Mom's birthday was quickly approaching, and she hasn't told anyone what she wanted to do.  We were running out of time to plan something. I asked Mom what she wanted to do for her birthday and of course, she said she didn't know.  I gave her a couple ideas to ponder.  I told her we could carve pumpkins after her party, and she said we could do that.  I asked her what kind of food she wanted to have at her party, and she said she didn't know.  I threw some suggestions at her and she agreed to have chili and corn bread.  She added that I get her an Oreo ice cream cake.  I noted that as well.  I let everyone know when we were going to celebrate Mom's party and that we were carving pumpkins.  Because most of the weekends were busy, we had to have this one on a Friday night later on in the month.  Her birthday was on a Wednesday this year and those are hard to have in the middle of the week.

A few days before her party, I went shopping for all the stuff I needed to make her birthday dinner and dessert.  I'm glad she picked chili and corn bread because that was relatively easy to make, and I didn't have to dirty up a bunch of dishes. I found a couple birthday presents months ago that I made sure were wrapped and her card was signed.

The day before and most of Friday afternoon I spent getting the house ready.  I already had pumpkins from when we went to the pumpkin patch a few weekends prior, so I didn't have to get any more.  Plus, Mom and Dad, both left me with theirs, so they were already at the house.  I got the house vacuumed, put up the tables and chairs, made sure I got some big bowls out and the pumpkin carving tools out, cleaned the kitchen and waited to log off of work on Friday afternoon so I could start the food.  I did the corn bread first and then the chili second.  I was hoping I had enough food for everyone and pretty sure I did.

Ben came home, changed his clothes and helped finish setting up the tables.  The cornbread was done, so I took that out and let it cool.  People started to arrive and making themselves at home. I finished up the chili and let that cool for a few minutes.  I told everyone to come in and grab some chili and cornbread.  There was cheese, sour cream and Fritos if people wanted that along with their chili.  I took a couple handfuls of Fritos, poured some chili on top and added some cheese.  That is my go to.

We ate our food around the table and chatted about the latest and greatest things that have happened since the last time we hung out.  I told everyone how my DJA was going and what kinds of things I was learning. I was excited to see where it went in the future.  Doug told us about the status on his job he's been doing since June and the hope to stay with them beyond his internship and Brian was almost 5 months old.  Time sure flies.

We finished up our food, cleared out our bowls and I got out Mom's Oreo cake.  Ben was sad he couldn't have any with his recent gluten free diagnosis.  We had to learn how to eat food without gluten in it and so far, it's been an interesting journey.  I put two candles, a 6 and a 4 in it and brought it out to Mom.  We sang her happy birthday, she blew out the candles, I gave out ice cream cake to those who wanted it and then she opened her gifts. The weirdest gift she got was from Doug.  He painted her a sloth pumpkin, lol.

We cleared off the table from the presents and ice cream cake and got it set up to carve pumpkins.  I grabbed the large bowls, knives, spoons and the pumpkin carving tools from those little kits they sell at the Dollar Tree.  I couldn't decide what I wanted my pumpkin to look like.  I went through some of the stencils and decided to just free hand a face to carve. It was fun.  Then Mom told me to carve out another pumpkin so we could get a picture of Brian inside of it with the outfit Mom bought him a few weeks ago.  I wasn't sure if the pumpkin was going to be big enough but surprisingly, it was.  Erika got his outfit on, and we plopped him into the pumpkin.  He was not happy, but we got one good one of him.

Everyone had a great time carving pumpkins and we got some creative ones.  We plopped some candles inside of them and got a few pictures of them on the front porch area.  

Everyone helped clean up the pumpkin messes on the tables before they gathered up their stuff and headed home.  I made people take their pumpkins with them.  I didn't need 10 pumpkins on my front porch.

Happy Birthday Momma!

Next Adventure:  Halloween Party with Friends