Halloween Happenings

Thanks to the Halloween decoration Lisa gave us, we were inspired to do some crafts of our own. Unfortunately I still don't know where everything is in Richmond, so I limited our craft options by a lot. These were made out of paint buckets bought at Lowe's and painted with our very few paint colors, lacking especially in Halloween colors. (Which tends to make Halloween crafts a little difficult.) Nevertheless, we had fun with it.

Then in the spirit of Halloween, and in celebration of two more classes completed, Josh and I rented The Rope by Alfred Hitchcock and made some delicious Halloween treats. Josh says he loves these rice crispy treats even more than the regular kind with no food dye in them. :)

Trip to DC and Adam's Visit Part 3

Towards the end of Adam's visit we had yet to explore Richmond itself, or do much shopping... This store here was a special find.

After finding a great pair of pants for Josh and a fantastic tie for Adam we headed off to do a little sightseeing in the city. We discovered an awesome Civil War museum that was actually built inside a building partly destroyed during the Civil War.

We found some cool looking black powder candy to buy. Turns out it was just plain sugar with something in it that made your mouth black. Not tasty.

We also spent some time exploring the James River and the surrounding areas. Kind of bigger than most the rivers one would find in Utah.

Across the bridge was an area called Belle Isle. It was sweet and looked like the world of the lost boys.

And here they are... the lost boys. :)

Then we took Adam to see more of actual downtown Richmond, including where Josh goes to school. This picture should look a little familiar.

And of course we took some time to snap a few model shots up by the capital. He's a natural.

After all of our adventures we needed some nourishing food. And two nights in a row of Buffalo Wild Wings? What more could boys ask for? Truly a great vacation for all.

Trip to DC and Adam's Visit Part 2

Day two started off with a bang... not really. The night before we had the fun adventure of having our driver's side window quit working while it was down. It had just started to rain when this happened and we had two hours of driving to do to get back to Richmond. After 15 minutes of driving we decided to pull over to a gas station and Josh and Adam managed to get the window up halfway before the gas station turned its lights out on us. Luckily it had pretty much stopped raining by the time we started again, so the ride wasn't as bad as it could have been. Anyway, this is us the next morning angrily taping up the window (a momentary fix) so that we could take a trip to King's Dominion.

Before King's Dominion we HAD to stop off at Waffle House for Adam's first experience. The place is fabulous! The little space in the two walls behind Josh and Adam is where the old dirty waitresses come and ask, "What'll ya have hon?"

Next stop... KING'S DOMINION!!!

The first ride of the day was a great lookin' wood one. It was pretty awesome, but Adam and I were in agreement that it hurt a lot.

Here we have what is called the Anaconda. It really did look like a snake and it was out over the water which was fun. There is even a tunnel that goes down through the water.

Then, of course, we have the Dominator. Highly enjoyable with the most twists and turns I think I've ever been on. I don't know what I'm doing in the picture so please just ignore it.

After going wild all day in the park we took a little break to go to the top of the "Eiffel Tower." We timed it just right and managed to catch the sunset. It's amazing how many trees there are in Virginia. Amazing.

Before our trip up the "Eiffel Tower" we had noticed the beginnings of smoke machines being turned on throughout the park, and after coming back down we immediately discovered the thrill of taking pictures in the fog.

After many minutes spent playing in the smoke we headed over to what was going to be one of our last rides. The map we had of the park had rankings of the rides and our goal was to ride as many of the high ranked rides (5's) as possible, which this one was.....n't. Instead it was some gay haunted house that wasn't even scary and we waited in line for way too long and witnessed too many muffin top boobies. (I will spare you the details.) This is what we did to pass the time.

So, after waiting in line for the dumb haunted house we came to the conclusion that the once nearly empty park was beginning to fill up for the Halloween activities and decided to make our way back home. Our heads needed the break anyway. And that ended our second day of non-stop walking. We were all very thankful to return home for a relaxing evening. You can see how Adam enjoyed his on the bed Josh made for him. (Couch cushions, camping pads, sleeping bags, and a sheet to hold it all together. It felt like a real bed.)

Lastly we have a video Josh took of "The highest ride in North America." The video doesn't do it justice, but it was REALLY high, and REALLY fun. Oh, and sorry it's sideways.

Trip to DC and Adam's Visit

Thanks again Adam! We were lucky enough to be visited by Josh's brother Adam two weekends ago. On Friday of his visit we decided to make a our first trip to D.C. to explore our nations capitol. We took LOTS of pictures, and since they upload so darn slowly on our blog I've decided to post a few here, but the rest of them I put on facebook. (Sorry mom and dad, I told you wrong.)

Anyway, our first stop was the DC temple. Very cool.

After we attended a session we made our way to the train, boarded it, and headed into the middle of DC. First stop... the White House!

Then we made our way over to the Washington Memorial, which was particularly fun to take pictures of.

Then we decided to head over to the one of the smithsonian museums before they closed. On the way we passed this giant map of the world, so Josh or Adam (I'm not sure who.) thought of the great idea to do the mission pic.

We were too late for most of the museums, but we did manage to get into the modern arts exhibit. This art piece is made out of cardboard and aluminum foil. It was pretty intense. The best part was when Adam sat on the chain blocking off the art and broke it. :) This picture was taken after the fact, hence the face.

Another favorite of ours was this art piece...

And the caption for it...

We were in the museum for quite some time so when we finally started our march to the Lincoln memorial it was dark. We tried our hearts out to take good pictures, but it was quite difficult with the camera we had. These are our best... the WWII memorial.

And the Lincoln...

Oh, and I forgot to mention we got to see our first real live white house picket? I guess you could call it. It was all very exciting. :)

Puppy Mania

So... I've been bad about updating our blog as of late, and much has happened during that time. First of all - We got a puppy! Well, sort of. We fostered a puppy. ... For 3 days. :( Her name was Rosie and here she is sitting in her favorite spot in the apartment.

Because we technically live in an apartment that doesn't allow dogs we didn't want to risk getting a permanent one in case we were forced to get rid of it, so we decided to try fostering. When we agreed to fostering Rosie we told the volunteers that we needed a well behaved and quiet dog or it would never work. Ha ha. We took her home a week and a half ago on Saturday. Sunday we left Rosie home when we went to church and came home to this.

Oh well. So we decided, no more soft things in the crate for Rosie. Then Monday night we heard a bark while we were falling off to sleep. To our sadness we realized Rosie had been whining and barking while we were out, and that was NO good. Tuesday we had to leave her once again on her own while I went to work and Josh went to school. We decided to do something about the naughty business once we got home. When Josh got home he stumbled upon this. :)

Naughty naughty puppy. (She pushed the floor of the crate out, peed all over the hardwood floor, pulled the blanket that had been covering the crate into the crate and started ripping it to pieces.) Long story short, we took Rosie back to her kennel that afternoon. She was a very nervous puppy and really hated the city. When we took her back we realized why.

This was where Rosie had been currently living. I would never want to live in the city either. (Pictures don't really do it justice, especially from the car.)

These pictures are actually from two days ago. We went back to visit Rosie (who was actually a happy dog here) as well as volunteer to help walk other puppies that live at the kennel there.

It's absolutely beautiful and we really had fun walking these other GIANT pups.

Can you believe Buttercup here is an actual puppy?

Don't worry here. The one jumping on my back is the mom. (Not a boy.)

Um... his head is twice as big as mine.

Robert The Bruce gets a makeover!

Sadly when we tried to get our 1990 Honda Accord (aka Robert The Bruce) inspected for registration in Virginia, he didn't pass. They said he needed new rear brake shoes, and that our red plastic and tape job on our broken tail light was not up to par. To explain.....

On Valentine's Day 2008, Sydney and I were returning to Logan from a lovely day in South Jordan with my family. There was a huge snow storm and Sardine Canyon was bad news! We ended up getting rear ended and spinning across the opposite lane of traffic. Lucky for us, the car wasn't damaged other than the rear tail light and the trunk is a little funky. So, I got some red cellophane and taped it on the rear of the car like a light. It worked great.....

Until we came to Virginia. So, last week, Syd and I changed the brake shoes, and installed a new tail light for old Bruce. It took a little hammering on the car to get it to fit, since the metal was pretty bent from where we got hit. I think it looks pretty good.

We also had a ward activity called a

"Fish Fry." It was a great time. Our ward mission leader, Brother Chambliss deep fried up a bunch of fish and it was delicious. There were a lot of people there and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. I made a new friend with a little boy in our ward named Skyler. We started playing games with my wedding ring. Spinning it around on the table, hiding it behind our backs, putting it in our mouths....well...I guess only Skyler did that. He loved it!

That's all for now. I think I will need an entire new post to include all the detail about Damon, the incredibly awesome street wanderer I met while working on the car at our parking lot. Words can barely describe. I'm trying to find him again so I can get a picture and maybe a video. As a preview, for most of our 2 hour conversation, he referred to me as Kurt Cobain, but asked me why I'd had plastic surgery. Later, he told me of his wonderful business idea to grow Indian-grown colored popcorn. He was talking about how much money we'd make and how we should do it. I was trying to be nice and just said, "Yeah, that would be sweet." He looked at me and said, "No. It would be salty." What a treat!