Finally put some pictures on my computer

Here's an update in pictures.

Here's me on my actual birthday. I got some scrubs for my new job.

And some shoes (woo hoo!). I counted and I have 29 pairs. Who wants to make it an even 30?

We went to Bartram's Garden for a picnic with Savanna and Jesse on my birthday. Here I am in from of Bartram's house.

Blowing out the candles

This was from free museum day that I wrote about previously. Here's me in front of the giant heart at the Franklin Institute.

Here's Zack at the aorta while we were walking through the giant heart.

Me with the T-rex at the Acadmey of Natural Sciences.

Scary!

Um, gorgeous. Enough said.

Maurice Sendack's original artwork for Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are

Megan with the Waterworks, Art Museum, and Skyline.

Eastern State Penitentiary

Megan at the junk garden

Megan at Christ Church

Megan on Elfreth's Alley

We've had fun.

October lovin'

I saw this on Facebook. I didn't carve it. I have no idea who did. But I thought it was pretty much awesome.

Staying up past my bedtime tonight to watch the World Series. The Phillies better win to make it worth it when I am dead tired tomorrow. Go Phils!

Someone loves us!

Yay! Megan, Zack's sister, came and put up with us for a few days. We are so glad she did because we sure had a good time.

She arrived last Friday, and we just spent the evening kinda vegging out. Okay, maybe not kinda. We watched like 7 hours of TV. Yeah, we really know how to start a vacation in Philly off with a bang.

Megan lives in rainy Tacoma and was probably hoping to escape some of that rain while she was here. Saturday wasn't very helpful in that regard. It rained all day and was pretty darn cold. We made the best of it anyway and saw some good stuff. We went to the Rosenbach, which is an historic mansion/rare book library. They own all of Maurice Sendack's (Where the Wild Things Are) original artwork and were having a display of that in honor of the release of the movie last weekend. That was pretty cool. Who didn't love that book growing up? They also had a number of other rare books/manuscripts, including Ulysses, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and we even spotted a 1st edition Book of Mormon on the tour. After that, we tromped through the rain to Rittenhouse Square just to check that out. Since it was so cold and wet, we made a stop at Naked Chocolate Cafe-- yummy! Megan said it was the best hot chocolate she has ever had. Ever. I am with her there. If you ever come visit, don't miss this one. We could even take you there in the summer. Their frozen hot chocolate is delicious too. After a wee bit of shopping, we went to Macy's, which was once Wannamaker's, Philadelphia's first department store. I think I have mentioned it before. It is a gorgeous building, and they have the largest playable pipe organ in the world there. They have free concerts every day, so we caught that, which was pretty sweet. We polished off the day with some delicious Mexican at El Azteca, and a play at the Walnut Street Theatre. We saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was funny. We made it home that evening, tired and glad to get outta the rain.

On Sunday, church was cancelled and a special meeting was called at the stake center for our ward and a few others. We knew something big was in store. There were 4 wards and a branch when we arrived there, and 3 wards and a branch by the time we left. Our ward lost a small chunk (which starts just 1 block away from us... Phew, that was close), but mostly we picked up some areas, which is so great. We really needed some manpower in our ward. We won't be at church this Sunday because we are going on a weekend getaway, but we are excited to meet all the new people and see how the changes affect our ward for the better. (Just as a side note: the young women's president was in the small chunk we lost, so it looks like change is in the air as far as my calling goes). So that was all very exciting for us. Probably much less so for Megan. Sunday was another take it easy sort of day. We drove around in search of beautiful fall leaves, and just kinda bundled up inside (it was cold and rainy again).

Monday was finally rain free (although still somewhat cold). I had to work so Megan and Zack had some fun without me. I can't fill you in on the details but they went to Eastern State Penitentiary (the daytime tour, which is excellent by the way), and they explored a couple parts of the city like South Street and Old City. That evening, we got some delicious gelato and we went on a ghost tour. Tuesday was just gorgeous weather-wise. I worked again. While I was working, Zack and Megan went to the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, got some lunch at Reading Terminal Market, and toured the Betsy Ross House. That evening, we tried a restaurant that some of our friends have recommended called Scannicchios (it's Italian food). My opinion-- meh. Maybe I just ordered the wrong thing or something, but I thought Zack's food was just meh too. I think I could pass on going there again. I just don't see what all the hype is about. It was fine. It just didn't knock my socks off like people said it would. I think we'll stick to High Note Cafe in the future. I think that's my South Philly Italian of choice. After dinner, we went to Eastern State Penitentiary for their haunted house, which is called "Terror Behind the Walls". It is very well done, and I had a good time. Finally, we got some water ice. We had to get Philly Flavors since we couldn't find an open Rita's, and it's just not as good, but it was still yummy and we couldn't let Megan leave without having that.

We hope Megan had a good time, and we hope others might consider coming to see us in the future.

We took very few pictures, but I will try to post some soon.

ShaNae and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Wednesday.

Woke up at 5:45 AM.

At work, I shadowed the wound care specialist- most boring thing ever. She would flit around looking for supplies for 20 minutes, dress the wound in like 2 minutes, and then write a note about it for like half and hour. It went on and on. The clock seemed not to move. It dragged. But I survived it, and I went home feeling elated, knowing that my troubles were over for the day.

Zack had class that evening. I thought I might be a nice wife and drop him off.

I forgot my house keys.

And I was in my pajamas.

And I left my cell phone at home.

I remembered that I had forgotten my house keys soon after dropping Zack off so I went back to the building where his class is. There is only on-street parking, and none of that was available, so I just pulled up to the curb in a non-legal spot and flipped my hazards on while I figured out what to do.

I got out of the car a couple of times in my red and white striped pajama bottoms, big fuzzy socks, and bright pink shoes to try and borrow a cell phone to call Zack. A few people got outta there as fast as they could. A couple of kind souls let me use their phones, but Zack was in class so he did not answer.

After 15 or 20 minutes, I decided that I couldn't just sit there forever. I thought about maybe driving to the church (just a few blocks away) where the other ward was having their mutual activities and see if I could convince someone to send a text message to Zack for me. He might look at a text in class. He'd definitely do that before he'd answer a call. So I started the car. Or I tried to at least.

The battery was dead.

At that point, I was basically stuck. I could not leave the car and walk anywhere because it was not in a legal parking space. I could not call anyone for help because I did not have a phone, people walking by were getting more scarce, and I was tired of people looking at me like a looney bin in my ridiculous outfit. So I had to just wait it out.

Zack's class was 3 hours long.

During those 3 hours, I went through a range of emotions- anger, freaked out, bitter, amused, calm, wound up, relaxed, crying, laughing- you name it. Mostly it didn't seem very funny at the time.

Zack finally got out of class, listened to a voice mail I had left, found me, we got a jump start, and we finally made it home.

I went to bed.

I was ready for that day to be over.

Of course, in retrospect, it just seems funny.

Haunted mini golf

Our favorite mini golf course in the whole world (check it out HERE) got even better, if that's possible. Last night, we went with Jesse and Savanna for some haunted mini golf! The course was decorated all Halloween-ish, with spiderwebs and such. There was a fog machine, Halloween music playing, and a creepy dude with a pumpkin head wandering around. Wow, it was pretty much a total blast. Even better-- we all got our tickets for half price! We all golfed exceptionally well and the game ended in a 3-way tie with one outlier (sorry honey, you'll win next time). I can't even tell you how much fun I thought that was. Who comes up with these amazing ideas?

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I pretty much love Halloween. I am almost done decorating my house. My cute friend Savanna is throwing an awesome bash this year.

The other night, we went to Haunted Poe. It was basically a haunted house style thing, except for you stopped for little theatre-like portrayals of Poe's works throughout. It was actually very well done, and we thought it was a fun way to kick off the month of October. It helps that we got discount tickets.

Stuff I love about Halloween:

- DECORATIONS! Oh my goodness... keep me away from stores right now. I already have a small collection of adorable Halloween decorations. I think my very favorite is my ghost oven mitt. My next wish is for bathroom decorations (glow in the dark shower curtain, candy corn shower rings, that kind of thing), dishes so I can throw a spooky Halloween dinner in the future, and an amazing Halloween village. Someone in our ward had us for dinner recently and they had this awesome haunted house thing that lit up and made scary noises. Yup, I want it.

- Candy- It's no secret that I have a sweet tooth. Just take a look at my figure. That gives it away. Not that I need an excuse like Halloween to stuff my face full of candy.

- Baby Halloween costumes. I think I've mentioned this before but Zack always says that we'll have a baby in July (9 months after October) because I think the little Halloween costumes are the most adorable thing and he thinks that one of these years, they will make me baby hungry. This year? Don't bet on it. I just committed 18 months full-time to my new job.

- Cemeteries- Okay, okay, I admit it, I like cemeteries all year round. But this is the month to proclaim that love loudly without people thinking that I am ultra morbid.

- Jack o lanterns- i like them

- Phillies world series parade. That was last year on Halloween. Hopefully we can do it again this year.

- Glow in the dark stuff- I mean c'mon. Who doesn't love it?

- The color orange- You know, most of my life I have grouped orange at the bottom of the color barrel with other putrid colors like yellow, but I think it's growing on me. Or maybe I just like it in October.

- Halloween socks- I have officially outgrown my sock phase, which began sometime in high school (or possibly before) and lasted until semi-recently. But I still break out the goofy socks for this time of year.

- Halloween scrubs- Scooby Doo is on the agenda for tomorrow. Wish I had more. Do they make glow in the dark scrubs? That'd be awesome.

-Halloween music- I honestly think that the theme song for the movie Halloween is the scariest song ever written. It sends chills down my spine any time I hear it. I can't turn it on now because I am home alone. Other favorites on my soundtrack: Thriller, Casper the Friendly Ghost, the track from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland/world, oh my goodness, there are just too many to name (not really but a list of my Halloween soundtrack would be boring... not that this list isn't).

- Halloween movies. I have to be patient to see a lot of these because I have to wait for them to come on TV edited (gotta avoid that R rating you know). I just saw Friday the 13th for the first time. I was kinda disappointed. Turns out that he doesn't become the iconic Jason with the hockey mask until the 3rd movie. Still pretty scary. I love the movie Halloween. *shiver* And Nightmare on Elm Street is just terrifying. Don't worry, I also like the lighter fare like Hocus Pocus and The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

Stuff I don't like as much about Halloween:

- I don't really like to get dressed up. Kids in costumes=cute. Me in costume= waste of time and/or money.

- The goo inside of pumpkins makes my hands and arms itch.

- Speaking of pumpkins, I am not a huge fan of pumpkin foods (pie, for example) and this kicks off the season of such things.

- The doorbell ringing every 5 seconds. Call me a pooper sport. Fortunately, I live in a place where I don't really deal with that. At least I think so. I didn't get any trick-or-treaters at either of my other locked down apartment buildings. But I also didn't live in such a residential neighborhood and I never had a door to the outside before.

- Cold weather. Not always though. Last year on Halloween, it wasn't even jacket weather in the daytime.

Despite those dislikes, I still think it's a pretty great holiday.