Halloween

It's seems like lately I'm always a day late and a dollar short, but I guess it's better late than never, huh? We had a great Halloween. The weather was so nice! My extended family came over and had dinner with us then sat around our fire pit while we handed out candy. Shannah dressed up like a gothic teenager, Mandy was half angel/half devil, Josh was a stick figure and Brandon was a pirate. Britney was hanging out with friends all night so she's not included here. Here are some pics. I'm including a picture of Josh's costume in the dark so you get the whole effect. I have to admit that it turned out pretty cool.

Best Anniversary Gift Ever!!!

I can't believe it's taken me this long to post this. This was by far the best anniversary present ever! (Well, except for winning our car on The Price Is Right 9 years ago. But that's going to be pretty hard to top. :o)
Anyway, knowing what a big fan I am of the Osmond family, particularly Donny & Marie Osmond, Scott surprised me with tickets to their show in Las Vegas. (I know!) Our Anniversary was on a Tuesday and the tickets were for Friday night. The plan was to drive down Friday morning, see the show, stay at my Aunt Sheryl and Uncle Bob's house and then head home on Saturday.
So, we made great time and got to Vegas Friday afternoon by about 2:30 on one tank of gas and the gas light wasn't even on. We decided to go straight to the Flamingo to pick up our tickets and then head to Sheryl & Bob's house. Well, we quickly ran out of gas as soon as we got back on the freeway. After almost 3 hours and 4-5 walking trips to the gas station about 1/2 mile away, we finally had Sheryl & Bob come rescue us. They called a tow truck and wouldn't you know, the tow truck guy got in and started it right up? So we quickly drove straight to the casino and changed our clothes in the parking lot. While we were walking through the casino to the theater, Scott realized that one of our tickets was missing. It probably fell out of his pocket. We panicked and searched. (As if we would find it, haha!) We went to the ticket office and they said "no problem, we'll just print you a new one." Can you believe it? We were so lucky.
The show was awesome, everything I dreamed of and more! Donny walked on the table next to us so close that I could have reached out and touched him. (But I didn't because I thought that would be weird. And I didn't want to trip him. :o) Marie picked the guy sitting right next to me (Steve) to come up on stage and sing with her. I videoed it on my camera and sent it to him on a CD later. He was really nice.
After the show we went to a midnight dinner at IHOP with Sheryl and Bob. When we got back to their house she had our room made up like a bed and breakfast with rose petals on the bed and chocolate and everything. It was so cool! Thanks Sheryl.
The next morning we went to visit our dear friends who moved to Vegas from the house across the street from us. We love and miss them so! Then we headed home. We had a mostly uneventful trip, except for our car shutting down on us 3 times. We think it was a vapor lock or something like that because it was 104 degrees down there. After waiting for 15 or so minutes, it always started back up again and we got home just fine.
We came home to 3 of our children standing in the driveway with a welcome home poster that they had colored. They are so cute. Honey, you are such a romantic! Thanks for this spontaneous and most memorable trip. I love you!