Saturdays Are Great Day!

I don't have any pictures from Saturday, but it was a fun day. You won't believe that I sat in one restaurant for 4 1/2 hours and then went and sat in another restaurant for 2 hours. It was Doug's first Saturday with nothing to do, but the day ended up being filled with things to do.

Doug was able to spend some time with his family, pick up a mattress, pull some weeds, went to Costco and then we went to hang out with some friends at night. He got a message that a couple friends were in town with their new baby girl, so we all met up at Chili's. They are a fun group of people! While Doug was running all over the place I sat at Costa Vida with a dear friend, Carellyn. We usually have 4 hour lunches, but this lunch ended up being 4 1/2 hours. It was a great surprise that Beth and her kids came too. The kids got bored pretty quickly, so Beth ended up leaving, but it was great to see her. Carellyn and I laughed so much that my face hurt at times. Then hanging out with our friends that night made my face hurt from laughing too.

I'm so glad Doug has Saturdays off (hopefully he will keep Saturdays off). I spent so many Saturdays by myself and it's so great to have him around. His first 2 Saturdays off have been pretty busy, but they've been good days and he didn't have to go to work! We're still getting used to his new hours during the weekdays though.

Pumpkin Carving

The Sedgakers and Bakewicks had another date night. Ben and Breanna brought pumpkins so we could carve them and bake the seeds. Mmmmm, pumpkin guts! Using patterns makes pumpkin carving pretty darn easy. They chose a creepy face and we chose ghosts.Focused:

Baked seeds...which we were supposed to send home with Ben and Breanna, but we apparently stole them. oooo, I'm telling!The finished products:

We had a lot of fun. We sure hope Ben gets promoted soon. He's working the same schedule that Doug was and we know how hard it is. Ben and Breanna are a strong couple and I know they can get through this.

October Is Over?

I can't believe this month is already over! I really need to read and catch up with every one's blogs! I read a few last night, but Windows 7 has some issues with blogger and compatibility and one problem is that it doesn't let me leave comments.

This is what happens after Doug uses our barbecue....can you tell it needs to be cleaned??!!
I went to Ikea for the first time the other night and holy cow there is a lot to look at. It ended up being a trip that lasted a couple hours, but I only spent about $26 on 5 things. One was a bottle rack, but the holes are too small for our bottles so I need to return it.
I couldn't believe the amount of carts they have waiting for people. They also had an automatic cart dispenser for the large item carts. Oh, they have some nasty food items though! They have crab paste in a tube and other nasty fish looking things in jars.When Doug got home on Friday there was a cute plant on our doorstep. His previous employer sent us their condolences and this plant.

It means so much that they sent this!

Punk Goat

Happy Halloween from the goat!!!

Uh Oh Spaghetti O

So.....Doug gets a promotion and what do I do????? I run his paperwork through the washing machine. CRAP!!! About 70% of the paper was still in one ripped and wrinkled piece, but it's pretty messed up. I felt SO bad and Doug was so sweet and said, "Well, it was my fault for leaving the paper in my pocket." Awe!! It took quite a while to unfold the soggy paper without making it worse than it was. I don't know if you remember how long it was before I bought razors, but I promise you it's been much longer since I've bought jeans. Becky told me she bought jeans at Old Navy for about $10, so Doug and I went to check it out. We were rushing through the store and I found a couple pairs of jeans that I like. Of course, as the gal was ringing them up, they weren't on sale. Crap. Crap. I was so excited to get 4 pairs of jeans for about $60, but nooooo... I ended up with 2 pairs for $55. I still feel really guilty about it too. I haven't bought jeans in about 11-12 years, so I don't know what my problem is. It's about time! I have 4 pairs of jeans and one pair looks okay for about 10 minutes and then it gets the baggy butt, crazy look to them and another pair that's almost too short for me.

Also, since it was my birthday and I've been looking for a pair of brown, knee high boots for a couple years, we went to JC Penny and bought the boots I saw in their ad. All 3 items are still in a guilty little pile on the floor. I need to try them on again and get over it, or return them and look for better deals. Sigh.

Brian's Funeral

Friday was a celebration of Brian's life and it was such a beautiful day. The day was full of tears, laughter, friends and family.After the funeral there was a BBQ just like Brian wanted when he beat his cancer. It was a tri-tip BBQ with more salads and desserts than I can count. Go HERE for more pictures. The tri-tip was missing Brian's secret sauce though. We miss Brian so much. Thank you so much to everyone for your love and support and for your kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Remembering Brian

Come share your stories and pictures of Brian:
http://briansedgwick.blogspot.com/

A Long Time Coming

I'm so glad I can wrap up this week with some good news.

I wish I could scream this from the rooftops (I probably should, it might shut our new, noisy neighbors up!)

Doug got the promotion he's been waiting for!!!
We are so excited! Doug has been working 2 jobs for about 4 1/2 years and TODAY is his last day at that second job. HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brian is already up there working miracles.

Eye Exam

I hope you all have regular eye exams. It's important to have your eyes checked and it's amazing what the doctors can see - for example, they can tell if you have high blood pressure and diabetes just by looking into your eyes. I ended up with a subconjunctival hemorrhage in my right eye on Wednesday. It's basically just a bruise on the eye, but it looks like the eye is bleeding. My camera sucks at close up pictures, so I found one online that looks like my eye did - I didn't have a black eye though. I've always found these bruises to be somewhat neat because as they heal the blood moves to toward the iris and then begins to move down. Similar to this picture:

It's been a week and a half and I still have a very thin line of blood that outlines my iris. If it would have happened closer to Halloween I could have made it part of a costume :)

People can get a "bruise" on the eye even from sneezing, coughing, or rubbing the eye. Luckily they don't hurt and I didn't even realize I had one until I looked in the mirror. If someone gets them frequently they should have blood work done to make sure there isn't an underlying cause.

And that concludes this quick lesson and public service announcement about the eye. ;)

Birthday Week

My birthday week started last Friday with a great lunch with my mom and grandma. My mom gave me all her Halloween decorations and costume things from years ago. It was fun to go through the boxes and see things from my childhood. I'll have to post pictures of the cute little costumes we wore as kids.

Doug surprised me with a birthday dinner on Monday evening. He kept asking me questions that didn't make a lot of sense until Ben and Breanna showed up for dinner. It was a great surprise. It was weird though because I was cooking dinner and I heard our front security door and then heard our door open and I just about lost my mind as a dark shadow entered our home. My initial thought was, "So much for this freakin' security door!!" Then Ben yelled HAPPY BIRTHDAY APE! I told him he almost had a knife thrown at him. HAHA Breanna made me a cake that ened up melting and getting gooey, but no matter what a cake looks like it can always taste great! :) This is before it got too melted:After the trip to our house and more melting:Ben really celebrated my birthday by shaking the parmesan cheese with the lid open. HAHAMy desk was decorated on Tueday. It was so cute!There was a monster theme with bags of treats, hats, streamers, ballons, etc.Doug bought me flowers and we went to dinner at PF Chang's on Tuesday. If I took a picture using the indoor setting and moved the camera quickly it would smear the image. It was kinda fun.We had a giant horse staring at us the whole time during dinner. It was a delicious dinner and the fantastic service made it even better. A fun thing for me to do is to ask for a manager on the way out of a restaurant. The manager always gets this "oh crap" look on their face (that's the fun part hee hee), but when you end up giving his staff praise and compliments they get SO excited.

The events of the week became very sad when Brian died on Wednesday, but Doug's family is so sweet that they said at least Brian gave Denise and me our birthdays. (Doug's sister and I share the same birthday). I made a birthday shrine on our kitchen table.

This cute little mermaid picture will forever hold a place in my heart:

Lydia colored this picture for me as a gift for my birthday and she gave it to me the day her daddy died. At the time she didn't know Brian had passed away and she lit up with excitement to give it to me. Doug and I were visiting with Bonnie's mom and Caleb and Aaron got home from school while we were there. It was so hard to see their sweet, smiling faces come running into the house. My heart goes out to them and Bonnie.

Till We Meet Again

God be with you till we meet again;
By his counsels guide, uphold you;
With his sheep securely fold you.
God be with you till we meet again.

Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet,
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.

God be with you till we meet again;
When life’s perils thick confound you,
Put his arms unfailing round you.
God be with you till we meet again.

Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet,
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.

God be with you till we meet again;
Keep love’s banner floating o’er you;
Smite death’s threat’ning wave before you.
God be with you till we meet again.

Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet at Jesus’ feet,
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.

Written By: Jeremiah E. Rankin

Brian

The world has lost an amazing man. Brian passed away this morning.Those are a few pictures of the last time the siblings we all together. I can't bring myself to type "he was" because Brian will always be a wonderful dad, son, friend, and brother. Please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. I will share a few stories at a later date; I'm a complete mess just typing these few sentences.

Durrr Moment

We ate dinner outside and we were using the citronella candle to keep bugs away and I didn't take it inside...This is what happens when you leave a candle outside during a hot summer day. OOOPPPSSS. I guess I'll remember to take the candle inside next time.

A funny side note: I had to ask Doug what kind of candle it was because I kept wanting to call it a Salmonella candle. We'd have much bigger problems if that's what it was. HA!

Cleaning and Cleaning

I can't believe how big our donation pile is getting:

I also wonder where all this stuff comes from... I know I go through our things and clean a lot, but sheesh, it's a never ending piles of bags.

New Doors. Check.

The security doors we bought last month were installed yesterday.

Our $400 project turned into $1000 because we have stucco pop-outs around our front door. We had to hire a contractor to install the doors because the pop-outs were in the way by about 1/4 inch on each side. Sucky!! Here is a picture while they were cutting around the doorway:
Our new doors are up:
The contractor is coming back on Monday to finish. He still needs to paint the stucco so everything matches. We painted the doors to match our existing doors so the HOA won't notice we put new security doors on the house :). I wish we would have gotten these doors installed a few months ago during the summer months to help cool the house/garage down, but I'm glad this project is finally done and I can check it off our list of to-do's. We're going to have him give us an estimate to install the linoleum in our bathroom too. Hopefully that project will get done soon too - the linoluem has been sitting in the garage for a year now.

Crafting Kids

We had Caleb, Aaron and Lydia over for another sleep over. I stopped at Michael's to get some crafts for the evening.

They painted masks and pumpkins and we also did a few melty beads Halloween projects too. It was fun having them over for the night. I wish my nephews lived close so we could hang out with them too.