Toadfrogs and Elephants

This is our first Halloween in the new house. I bought a bag of candy at Sam’s, but thought I would be eating most of it. In our previous two houses we have not had a single trick or treater. A neighbor warned me that there might be a lot of kids so I did pick up another big bag of candy at Sam’s. The kids started knocking on the door at 5. Evidently we live in the “cool” neighborhood because there was a steady stream of parents in cars dropping the kids off. We had somewhere between 150 and 200 kids show up for treats. I ran out of candy at 7:30 and had to turn off our porch lights.

Here is Madison in her very cheap lobster outfit. I am not a fan of clothes on dogs, but I thought this was too funny. Wade said she was depressed and took it off. Looking at the picture, maybe he’s right.

My adorable neighbor Emma is a princess.

Wade and I even managed to carve some pumpkins in between handing out candy.

I made cookies again – with new baking soda and new baking powder. They were perfect. I no longer feel like a baking failure. The sad thing is I have made so many cookies lately that I am sick of them. At least I know I can make them if I want.

Our small group (aka bible study) meets on Monday nights at James and Kendall’s house in Greenville. Wade and I both had bad headaches, but we showed up with smiles on our faces. We were all downstairs talking when a pitcher of ice tea cracked in half. Suddenly Wade, me, the floor, the rug, the table, and the dog were all covered in ice tea. Talk about a wake up call! We got everything cleaned up and then sat down to begin the bible study. Then we discovered the DVD wasn’t in the case. We all decided to make it a social event – one couple was missing anyway – they had been to DC to run the Marine Corps Marathon. Here is a picture of the group minus the Wybengas.

Top Row – Jake Miller, Wesley Harden, Kendall Pickens, James Pickens
Bottom Row – Me, Kristi Miller, Caroline Harden, Wade

Happy Birthday Katrina!

I not only have an Aunt and Uncle in DC. I also have cousins. Tyler and Katrina spent the night at my Aunt’s and loved our costumes. This is the first year they have both not been really shy and taken time to warm up. Tyler loved all of the detailed work Wade was doing on his costume. Katrina just liked having a playmate.

Little cousins come to visit

Wade and I both slept in and got up just in time to get Marshall and his friends from the airport. Marshall and a few friends are in DC to run the Marine Corps Marathon. We managed to get all seven of us in our car and deliver them to their hotel, which is conveniently right down the road from my Aunt’s house. We had lunch with them and then headed home to finish up our costumes.

I made another airport run to deliver Jamie Richey to the official B and B Party House and then returned to my Aunt’s for dinner. Wade and I got dressed up and headed out the door. I think our costumes are self-evident, but I will explain. We are both working games. Mine is the simple Tic-Tac-Toe and Wade is Operation. Yes, Wade’s costume works. His nose lights up and he buzzes if you hit the metal while trying to get out the pieces.

Wade and I with our usual game theme

Wade had a great night. His costume held up and continued working all night and he won first prize in the costume contest. The prize is a mug picturing previous years’ winners and a bottle of alcohol. We don’t drink so I believe Jamie ended up with the bottle. Wade did finish the evening off with a try at the ice luge with Traci.

Wade and I left around 2 pm for our annual trip to Washington DC for a Halloween Party. This year we decided to drive instead of fly. The thinking was we now lived a little closer and our costumes wouldn’t have to be packed away and then repaired upon arrival. You know what they say about the greatest plans…. About 80 miles into our 500+ mile trip, a car ran into my back bumper. I don’t really fault the driver. The rain was bad. Everyone in front of me was stopping suddenly for another wreck. The red pickup truck directly behind me had to swerve to the side to avoid hitting me. The small car behind him had no idea what was going on. Thank goodness only my bumper is cracked and we can continue on the trip. The worst part was waiting 2 hours for the police to arrive.

The crazy part is Mandy, a girl from our church, recognized us on the side of the road and pulled over – this is about 2 minutes after the wreck. Before I was even off the phone with 911, other friends from church were calling to check on us. What a cool group!

A side note on the intelligence of policemen. A single cop handled all three accidents in our immediate area. He started with the wreck farthest away. To get to the second wreck, he backed up the interstate. I’m so glad we have fine law-abiding citizens to uphold the law!

The cops finally finished up our police report and we continued on our journey. It rained the entire way, which played havoc with the traffic. The 7.5 hour trip took a total of 12+ hours. We got to my Aunt and Uncle’s house a little after 1 am.

A voice from the past called to talk tonight. My old college boyfriend (and one of Wade and I’s good friends) called to say he was engaged. Marshall (some of you know him as Mitchell) has finally proposed to Tarver. Five years of dating and now he is ready for marriage! It was great to talk to him. We are all going to be in DC this weekend and try to meet up.

There is an ongoing war at my house between cookies and myself. In the last month, I have made all of my favorite cookies and they have turned out perfectly. However, something then went very very wrong. I have tried chocolate chip cookies (which I am known to have trouble with), chocolate chip cinnamon cookies (which always turn out), oatmeal cookies, and chocolate chip cookies again. The cookies come out very flat and appear unappetizing. Surprisingly, they still taste good. I have tried real butter, margarine, switching out my flour, cooking at a lower temperature, etc. My next guess is to buy some new baking soda and baking powder. I have no idea if it will make a difference, but I have had them since before Wade and I were married.

As a side bar, I used a wooden spoon fresh from the dishwasher to stir my cookies tonight. It was still warm, but that didn’t really register. I noticed the spoon seemed less rigid than normal and pretty soon it broke in half. Wade dislikes my plethora of wooden spoons so he was more than happy to see one bite the dust. Madison had fun with it though.

Now I am off to eat cookie dough – the only real reason to make cookies!

Today was just a bad day. Nothing seems to be going right – church stuff, work stuff, etc. Our internet even decided to go out for the day.

Actually, the internet going out is kind of funny. It went out at about 10 am and was out all day. I haven’t had any work lately so I wasn’t using the computer, but Wade looked at it when he got home. He diagnosed it as an error on the cable company’s side. We tried to call, but all of our account information is on the internet. We get paperless bills and pay the bills electronically. I had no idea what our account number was. Not to mention that they don’t like it when your phone (our old one) is in a different state than your address. When we finally got to a person (this is around 1 am), we realized that we weren’t paying for internet. I had requested it when we got cable service, a man even came out and set it up. I never looked at the itemized bill, I just paid it – bad on my part I know. The worst part was that I couldn’t sign up for internet service till the next morning at 7 am. I was up till 4 am messing with this. I got a couple hours of sleep….