Ward Halloween Party

Tonight we had our ward Halloween party. Matt decided to be Michael Phelps so I was his "Phelps Phan"! People got a kick out of it and it was easy so we had a good time with it. Here are a couple pictures. Bishop Chipman made this giant tree! We helped with a couple branches on Saturday but I'm sure he was there all day with his wife! It was pretty neat...

Whaley House fun!

Saturday night we went to the Whaley House in Old Town for some spooky fun! And was it ever!!! I've been in the day time before and it was just like walking through an old house, so we decided we would have better luck catching some ghosties if we went at night. You better believe we did too... :) So our good friends Dayne and Carolina came with us for a double date and we had such a fun time. First we had some good Mexican food across the street and then we went on over the Whaley House.. for a night of hauntings.. Take a gander at the pictures and tell me if you don't see Ghost dots...

Notice the ghostly fingernail scratches to the right of my head................ spooks....

This doll kept smiling and frowning at me! I'm serious!

Ghostly orb anyone? Matt took this one

Can you say ghost drama?

Don't I have a hot man?

Carolina=Spooky Eyes

Spider!

Mario & Luigi...

It's been a while but here are the pictures from when we had Joe and Ben.. so cute... enjoy!

Something sour, something sweet...

2 things:

1) something sour: Yesterday at school I spilled ranch dressing down my pants and shoes.. I was only like 2 feet from my table- I made it all the way across the whole dang place, outside, and right up to my table and then i spilled it.. so stupid..... but- I will say that it was quite serendipitous that I happened to be wearing the stupidest outfit I could have ever put on.. I'll explain: All morning while I was getting ready, I was thinking about the cute outfit I would wear- I was going to wear my second favorite pair of jeans and my cute new little shiny steve madden flats. All the way up until I actually went in my room to get dressed I was going to wear them, and then at the last minute I decided I didn't want to waste a cute outfit on school and I was kind of in a frantic rush, so I threw on my oldest jeans and frumpy shoes instead. All day I kept asking myself why I had worn such a dumpy outfit... until that fateful salad dressing-dumping moment. I was so glad I wasn't wearing my cute clothes!

2) something sweet: So October 13th was Grandma and Grandpa Browning's anniversary! I was thinking about it all that day and it made me miss them so much! I don't remember Grandpa that well; I only have 3 memories. One was at his surprise party- I remember hiding in the kitchen and him walking in the door. Another is just sitting on his lap at the house at a family gathering. And the last was sitting on his lap at the Pit- I offered him a lick of my purple sucker- he politely declined :) I have loads of memories of little Grandma though! A couple years ago I got the special privilege to be her every-other-Tuesday grocery shopping chauffeur for at least 6 months I think. We had such good talks. I always felt I had so much in common with her and I always left our visits feeling so secure and confident in who I was. What a special gift that was! I miss her a lot but I'm so glad I got to have as much time with her as I did. What great grandparents we have! (I didn't have a pic of Grandpa but here's little Grandma)

Two little Monkeys...

We have two little monkeys asleep downstairs! Not real monkeys, just Joe and Ben :) Ivy and Karl are in "Golowado" AKA Colorado this weekend so we have the special priveledge of having the twinsies over night! They got here around noon and it has been nonstop fun since! First we had hot dogs and goldfish and played Shrek on Matt's X box. Then we went for a walk down to the beach to play at the playground that we forgot was demolished.. the swings and dolphins are pretty much all that's left but they still had fun- for about 10 minutes and then decided they wanted to go home :) well the 3/4 of a mile was a pretty long walk for the 5 year olds so we carried them home. Oh but on the way there they kept stepping on all of the metal plate things and manhole cover things on the sidewalk and going "gling gling! That's an extra life!" (Their favorite video game is Super Mario Brothers) It was super cute. So after the beach we came back and watched a little bit of Monster House, but it was pretty scary so we watched a show on "Nicky-lodey-in" instead. Then off to dinner at Red Robin. They got to color their menus and Uncle Matt gave them a quarter for gumballs afterwards which became their Luigi mustaches for the rest of the night. We walked around UTC mall for a while and Uncle Matt even bought them a video game! We also wandered around a Halloween superstore and they had a blast in there. They each tried on a Shrek and Donkey mask and they looked so cute I wished I had a camera with me! Then it was off to get treats I promised them. They chose a package of Starburst and a Nerds rope :) We went home and played the new game for a while, put on jammies, had our treats and then they chose Enchanted for us to watch (Earlier while we were in the car I heard one of them humming one of the songs from Enchanted so I started singing it all animated to them and a few lines in Joe had his hands on his ears. I asked him why he was covering his ears and he said "I don't like that noise"...) ANYways, I put the monkeys to bed about an hour ago and they fell fast asleep within a few minutes. They look so sweet when they sleep! Oh one more funny thing- toward the end of Enchanted when he has to wake her up with true love's kiss, Joe turned to me and told me about how when he was playing with Lexi, he pretended to be Mario and she pretended to be Peach and then he... I said "kissed her?!" and he got the cutest little mischievous, but totally innocent, grin on his face...

Photos from our Tour de South

Tour de South

So we just got back on Sunday night from a glorious 10 day adventure to the south! Matt's parents live in Oxford, MS so we decided to go visit, but this time we made it into a longer vacation where we got to go to other places as well. We flew into Nashville, TN, stayed the night in a (haunted!) hotel (Union Station- an old train station that looks like a big stone castle!) and spent the next day exploring Nashville. We went to this old restored plantation called Belle Mead where we toured around the grounds and the inside of the actual house. It was one of the best days of my life! We ate a the little cafe above the giftshop and I had the most wonderful salad made with tomatoes and cucumbers grown at the plantation and bread with honey butter from the bees they had there! It was so yummy and magical. We also drove around that area to look at all the breath taking southern houses, and we found out later that we drove down Kieth Urban and Nicole Kidman's street!... So after Nashville we drove a couple hours to Cadiz, KY and stayed 3 nights at Matt's family's cabin on Lake Barkley. All we did was float on rafts in the lake, lay in a hammock in the screened in porch with fans blowing, and eat Oreo Blasts from Sonic. Matt fished a lot too, which was so cute. He was so calm and peaceful and so in his element out there on the dock with no shirt and dirty feet! So cute... While we were out there we got to spend a lot of time with Matt's Aunt and Uncle and cousins and their fat babies, which was a lot of fun! After that we drove a couple more hours to Memphis, TN to spend the afternoon with Matt's younger brother Jason and his sweet 4 year old son, who's a pirate. Then onto Oxford, which was only an hour away, to spend the last 5 or 6 days being fattened up by Mama Wells' chocolate cake and homemade ice cream and cheesy bread and other magical creations. It was so nice to just be on a vacation where you feel like you're at home but don't have all the responsibilities that are at home. Matt's parents were so wonderful and they did so much for us while we were there! It was quite a lovely trip!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JILLI BEAN!!!

It's my beautiful baby sister's birthday today and I just wanted to wish her a happy happy birthday! I hope you have a glorious day!!! I luf you!

Once we were just wee bebes....

....but now you're grown!

Swim! Bike! Run until you DIE!

Imagine you're in a race against time. Except it's a a race for your life- except really it's just a race for fun.... Matt and I just did our first sprint triathlon.. wow. It was pretty tough! The funny thing was that everything I thought and expected about the race turned out to be exactly the opposite. I was most scared about the bike ride because I just started riding 2 months ago and just got the clip in shoes a week ago- a.k.a. you're feet are attached to the bike while you ride and if you don't slide them out before you stop, you tip like a dead animal (hence the bruises on my legs). Anyway, so I thought the swimming would be no big deal- I like the ocean and I can handle waves right? no big deal. And the run, well, there's nothing to it, right, one foot in front of the other...... WRONG! The bike turned out to be the most enjoyable and relaxing, relatively speaking. It was long and not too hilly- not so intense. The swim felt like it was a fight between you and the ocean and you start to feel really small. Those are some big waves out at Camp Pendleton! It was a lot scarier than I thought! So we did a 500 yard swim, 18 mile bike ride, and then came the longest 3 mile run of my life! My legs felt like lead and I thought I might literally die.. to make my run extra special, Matt's wave started 35 minutes before mine so as I was starting my run he was already done! He was all sipping on his gatorade and waving at me as I crawled by.. miserable.... but we did it! Weee! And now we can have cookies again!

Tiger dogs

Anyone who is a southern and/or football person and/or is married to a football person (i.e. me) will appreciate this. So I was sitting on a bench at the beach this evening when an attractive gentleman of his 60's approached me with his three little white fluffy dogs. He noticed I was wearing my Ole Miss hat and, while pointing to his polo shirt with an Auburn logo, told me that he had to hold his dogs back from me because they were tiger dogs! I couldn't stop laughing because they were the cutest, mildest little dogs that practically pranced rather than walked! Tiger dogs... grrrr!