Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving was different this year but just as nice. For the last 4 years, we've been going to Aunt Jan's for Thanksgiving. We tried visiting Idaho again, but flights were too expensive by the time we figured out Blaine's work schedule. So we decided to visit Massachusetts because Blaine's parents were also spending Thanksgiving with Brian and Kim.

We barely made our flight. First of all, I was working until late that day. When we tried getting our boarding passes, my flight itinerary wasn't showing up. Ends up being that I didn't have a seat on that plane. We had to buy another plane ticket right on the spot for me last minute. Obviously, we were beyond furious because American Airlines did charge our credit card for that flight that "was never bought." We just didn't have the time to complain because we would've missed our flight. Needless to say, we will never fly American again. But, we made it to Massachusetts safe and sound and it was worth every penny we did (over)spend.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Cowdens, Brian and Kim's good friends that we've met before. We really really missed Aunt Jan's cooking but dinner was still great. The boys played football outside and we drank hot apple cider. We played with the kids for hours and hours on end. After dinner, the adults played Catchphrase. It was a lot of fun.

Tucker man! 

Watching the boys play football

We snuggled on this couch for most of the day.

The next day, I went Black Friday shopping with Kim, Eileen and little Chase. I didn't get a ton of shopping done due to the lack of space in my carry-on but it was still fun to have girl time.

We hiked Purgatory Chasm on Saturday. It was a pretty cool experience. I've never seen anything like it. It's .25-mile-long, 70-foot-deep chasm of bedrock. There were a ton of abrupt precipices and sharp edges and caves created by boulders. By some miracle, nobody was hurt. Blaine pulled a neck muscle pretty bad but he lived :) At night, we made cookies for everybody with Ashton and Chase's help. 

Sliding down "sliding rock"

This was crazy scary.

It was a beautiful day!

On Sunday, we drove to Hockessin and just hung out at home. We didn't have much time and didn't get to see all of our family or any of our friends. But it was still nice to stay in Hockessin. Kerri, Connor and Jason came over for dinner. Connor is already taller than me and is catching up to Blaine.  The next day we got up bright and early to go to the airport and grabbed some Wawa hot chocolate on the way there. We definitely wish we could've stayed longer. We love visiting our family in Delaware and the Northeast! 

November

I was so bad at updating the blog in 2013, but you bet that one of my resolutions is to be better at keeping this up-to-date.

November was a great month even though I really really missed fall weather. Here are a couple of things we did throughout the month.

I've really gotten better at going for walks with Rue. We go daily if not sometimes twice and our walks have gotten longer too. We live super close to a cool little place called MainStreet and we discovered this French bakery and stopped to have breakfast there. It is so good.

We went on double date to The Melting Pot with Damaris and Bruce. As always, it was delicious.

The youth of our stake had a really nice temple fireside at a park that overlooks the temple. It was such a special activity. We all sang "I Love to See the Temple" and the Spirit was felt so strongly. A lot of the girls in our ward are new to the church and don't know much about temples. But ever since that fireside, they have had lots of questions and a great desire to go to the temple and do the work for their ancestors. It's not "100 % official" yet but it looks like the temple will be open by April! We are so excited.

My love for these girls keeps on growing! 

We ate a lot of pizza. Blaine's very happy that we live in walking distance to a pizza shop. Look at the size of that thing.

I'm still loving my job and get lots of love and gifts from parents and kids a like. But these bracelets have to be my favorite. I wear them every Wednesday when I see the little girls who made them for me.

The whole family went to Uli and Ivan's primary presentation (Uli's last one!).

I had a nice Thanksgiving lunch at my job. I made these little cornucopias with the help of my mom for my kids. I'm so grateful for nice co-workers incredible bosses, and the children I see and learn so much from.

Blurry picture and just one of the many tables. 

Blaine and I went to a Panthers/Flyers hockey game. It was my first time going to a hockey game. It was fun to go on a different date and have an excuse to drink hot chocolate.

We went to Massachussetts for Thanksgiving. We knew we wouldn't be able to travel for Christmas so it was so nice to see some of Blaine's family before the year ended. It was freezing but we didn't see snow. It was a nice change from the monotonous weather in Florida (still love the warmth though!). I'll write more about our trip in another post.

November definitely flew by this year. I didn't eat enough pumpkin flavored things as I liked but November was a great month :)

Halloween

This year Halloween was fun but a little different. Usually, we do a ton of Halloween/fall related activities. But here in Miami, those fall activities are pretty nonexistent. Sure, there are haunted houses and such, but that's not our cup of tea. Anyway, Blaine was supposed to be out of town this year so I didn't plan any costumes for us. But fortunately, his business plans changed and he's been home for the last 3 weeks! Kind of a miracle. He got lucky this year and didn't have to dress up.

My plan was to just dress up as a witch for work with stuff I already had. But that morning, I took Rue to the vet (she's been sick - post on that later) and bought her a Minnie costume on sale - really I couldn't resist. I sent a picture of her in it to my mom, and my mom offered to make me a matching Minnie costume. This was 2 hours before I had to go in to work. She already had some red and white polka-dot fabric and I already had Minnie ears. She sewed up a skirt and put a lace collar on a black shirt in less than an hour. As much as I miss fall and our Utah life sometimes, I really enjoy having my mom around to do awesome stuff like this for me. How she pulls it off? I'm not sure. But she's been doing it ever since I can remember.

The pictures that sparked it all

So I went to work as Minnie and all the little girls I see loved it. I even had one little girl come in dressed as Minnie too. The look on her face was priceless. Halloween was fun at work since most of the kids came in costume.

The north office therapists 

Placed our phones on a table. Excuse the angle. 

Cutest little twins 

Hello Kitty & Minnie Mouse

Thank goodness he knows are to say his r's :)

After work, I went to my aunt's neighborhood to trick-o-treat with the kids. Blaine and Rue met up with me there. It was nice being around for Halloween after missing out on so many. Ulises wore his signature scream costume with a little Miami flair (check out the flip-flops), Uli was some character from Halo and Ivan was Snake Eyes (a ninja from G.I. Joe I believe). Damaris and Bruce were both busy with school and work, so they were missed.

Before heading out

One house had a crazy set up with a cemetery

She loved trick-o-treating but it tired her out 

Blaine was happy to be himself this year :)

Riding home - she was tuckered out

In honor of my mom's awesome spontaneous costume-making, here are some pictures of past Halloweens that show how talented she really is at making costumes. I'm sure there are tons more pictures of us in costume, but she came across these recently and shared them with me. Whatever I wanted to be for Halloween, she made it. Same goes for my brother and sister. No wonder we love Halloween so much. Thanks Mami!

Black cat

Poison Ivy, Mario and a 50s chick

Yes, one year I wanted to be a gypsy - and my mom let me.

All the boys thought I was so cool that year

Tinkerbell