Coozies. A Necessity

Happy Halloween!!! Oh, come on, I'm only 2 weeks behind!

This year Halloween was a blast! We missed my Aunt Linda's annual party while we were out on the east coast, so we had the opportunity to try something different. Our friends Brynn and Jason forwarded us an evite to a party in Grand Lake. Strangely enough, our friends John and Susie were invited to the same party through an entirely different and unrelated set of friends. By the end of it all, we knew at least eight other people. Life is weird, but sometimes it all works out for the best!

The girl who organized the party set up a block of rooms at a hotel, so before we went out, we had a potluck hotel party. It was a ton of fun. I ate way too much because everything was delicious (from powdered doughnuts to meatballs to green chili, I ate it all). It was also a lot of fun to get dressed up with all of the girls. I think at one point there were five of us in one room applying fake lashes and glitter. As you can see in the photo below, I had all of the essentials: a coozie and can of Sparks in one hand, and glitter and eyeliner in the other. If you can't tell, I was a mermaid. Josh was a hillbilly fisherman.

Catch of the Day!

Brent was Spock and Cat was a very lovely green alien.

The boa was supposed to be seaweed.
Michael Jackson and a frightened school boy!
The bar we all walked down to later was an old Saloon, complete with a live band, elk horns mounted on the wall, and a ton of people in costume. We danced and drank all night!!


It was a little scary how easily Josh pulled off this costume.Awesome Reno 911 costume!
Overall, it was a great weekend spent with fun friends!!!

October Update Round 2

During the second half of the month, we flew out east for Josh's cousin Rita's wedding. Josh actually spent an entire week out east for work and drove five hours to pick me, his parents, and his sister up from the airport in New York. From there we drove to his Grandma Lynn's house in Connecticut. Despite some rain, the weather was very nice and we got to see lots of fall colors. Somehow, I didn't take any pictures of the scenery except on my phone?? This is a pic from outside Lynn's window. She lives next to St. Mary's by the Sea and you can see the Long Island Sound. Josh went on a walk with his mom and grandma and came back with this (see below). It is a chestnut! I had no idea that is what they looked like??
While we were there we got to eat some delicious seafood. Lynn suggested a little place about 20 minutes from her house called Westfair Fish & Chips. It was a tiny, discrete place with about 7 tables and a big window to place your order. We all ordered way more food than we needed and it was all very good. I had fried shrimp, a crab cake, and a cup of lobster bisque. . . and I didn't need to eat for about 8 hours.

On the 24th we attended Eric and Rita's wedding. It was very pretty and the reception was a blast. We sat at the "cousin's table," so we got to catch up with some of Josh's family we haven't seen in about 2 years. We also got to do plenty of dancing. My favorite part of the night was when they announced the bride and the groom. The groom is a New York State Patrolman, so the DJ played the song from COPS, "bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do when they come for you?" Classic.

When we returned from the east coast Josh and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. We decided to mix up the evening by going out to dinner, but returning home to make our own dessert. It snowed 18" on our anniversary, so we braved the snow and went to dinner at a place near our house called Shazz. We thought we would be the only people out in the storm, but there were actually about 8 other people out and about too. The meal was very tasty and the wine was excellent. We ordered braised oxtail and butternut squash soup (with a seared scallop) to start. I had never at ox tail before, but I will again. It was soooo good! For dinner, Josh had a pork chop and I had the Ahi Tuna. Both were good, but Josh's was the best!! We will definitely go back sometime.

For dessert, we decided to try our hand at Red Velvet Bread Pudding. I found a Paula Dean recipe--so I was pretty sure it would be good. We made the red velvet cake from scratch--a first in my book. It was a lot of fun. We used the KitchenAid for the first time and I finally sifted something.


Josh thought it would be a good idea to taste the cocoa-food coloring mix, but it didn't turn out well for him.


Here is the tray of our fluffy cake, before we turned it into pudding. It was sooooo good!


Last year I bought Josh a small photo album for our anniversary. It has 25 slots for photos, so we decided to take one picture every year on our anniversary and add it to the album (our wedding picture is the cover). Then, on our 25th anniversary we can look back and see how we have changed over the years. This is the picture we will use for 2009. We tried to show the snow, but it was really dark.

The day following our anniversary we both got snow days (well Josh got a snow day and I got a delayed start that I turned into a snow day). It was the perfect day to catch up on laundry, watch movies, make snacks and snuggle. Here are the puppies sleeping on the lambie. The lambie is a lamb hair rug/blanket Josh got for his birthday this year. Supposedly, his parents had one while Josh and Nicole were growing up, and the kids would always sleep on it. They deemed it the "lammy." I guess it is irresistible.