Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving passed quietly around here. I had to work, which is was unfortunate but necessary. Work was fine. Not a very tough day. A lot of my residents went out with family, which was nice for them I hope. When I got home, my husband had prepared a full Thanksgiving meal just for me (oh, and I guess for himself also). Isn't he just a sweetie? Since his first attempt at turkey brining didn't go so well last year, he was determined to try again this year and it was a smashing success. That was one delicious bird. Here he is making the first slice.

After dinner, we scoped out the ads for Black Friday and we put up our Christmas decorations. Since it is officially acceptable to listen to Christmas music after Thanksgiving dinner, we put on some tunes. Zack even tolerated some Bing Crosby to humor me. Our apartment now looks (and smells) very festive. Here's Zack placing the Liberty Bell on top of our tree.

Sadly, our Philly Phanatic ornament got broken while we were putting the ornaments on the tree. His nose popped off when he fell on the ground.

Never fear though. We bought a new one just like him the next day at the mall.

I had to work on Black Friday also, but Zack got up early to take me to work and then he got some of our Christmas shopping done. He even did my Rite Aid bargain shopping, coupons and all. Can I just say that I love Black Friday at the drug stores. We made a HAUL! Tons and tons of stuff for free. After work, he let me get in on the shopping fun. We went up to the outlet mall and walked through the entire thing (it's huge). We didn't really buy much but we enjoyed just walking and talking and people watching. I had a 3 day weekend, and we mostly just took it easy. We ran errands, took naps, I cleaned up the house (amazing what a huge dinner and a million store ads can do to our little apartment), and put the finishing touches on the Christmas decorations. It's back to work again tomorrow, but I do feel a little recharged and a lot more in the holiday mood. Hopefully we can have more family-filled Thanksgivings in the future, but I enjoyed our little celebration this year and I am thankful for my husband for always being so awesome and for putting so much work into a delicious dinner. You're the best babe.

TSO

On Saturday, we got to go to Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I went for the the first time with my sister several years back and I think I have been every year since except 1 because I love it so much. This year was no exception. The first time I saw TSO, the string director/violin soloist was Anna Phoebe,

and I really thought she was one of the highlights of the concert. She just got up there with her hot pink and black electric violin and rocked out. Since there is a west TSO group and an east TSO group, I was sorta sad when I saw TSO in Philly for the first time because I knew that there would be no Anna and her pink violin. But, to my surprise, there she was. It turns out that she switched to the east group. Woo hoo!

Unfortunately, this year, Anna decided to move on from TSO. I knew this before the concert so I wasn't surprised when I got there and it was just some dude. The concert was still excellent. The dude did an excellent job. And we had a great time. Here we are before the concert.

What a great way to kick off the Christmas season.

In honor of Anna, here's a youtube video of her rocking out at a TSO concert. It's not very long. Check it out.

Our 1 Halloween picture

Yes, I have FINALLY gotten around to uploading the latest round of photos from our camera to our computer. And I found the 1 picture that we took at our Halloween party.

Great quality eh? This was at the very beginning when just the Becks had arrived.

It's so foggy looking because of our most excellent fog machine.

I think this makes Michelle's ninja costume seem all the more awesome. You can't really even tell that she is in the picture because she blends in so well (she is crouching in the bottom left hand corner).

I'll try harder next year.....

A Sunday

I love love love my Sundays off work. I actually get to go to church, and I am always so happy to be there. You know, I'm not really too vain in the sense that I don't expect everyone at church to notice that I'm not there every other week and/or comment on it, but it was really nice last week when one of the sweet African sisters in our ward walked up and gave me a huge hug and asked me where I have been. It made my day even better. *sigh of contentment*

After church, we took the Becks with us to Bartram's Garden where we enjoyed the fabulous fall weather with a picnic. The leaves were gorgeous,

the setting was peaceful, the food was good, and the company was better.

I don't think I can imagine a much greater Sunday afternoon. And it really made me remember how much I can appreciate the simple things in life. We entertained ourselves for quite some time throwing rocks into the water and mud on the banks of the Schuylkill River, which borders Bartram's Garden.

And here's a picture of the mud after all our rock throwing.

The Beck's little boy had a heyday stomping around in the leaves, blowing those little white whispys off of the dandelions, and watching the mud splatter as we threw rocks.

He was so tired when we were finished that he crashed on the 5 minute car ride home. I felt the same way. But tired in the good way.

And, as if that weren't enough, we polished off our evening by watching the movie Clue and then playing a round of the game (which Weston won, but man, I was right on his heels). Of course, the end of Sunday meant the beginning of another work week, and an upcoming Sunday at work, but those things make me appreciate fabulous Sundays off all the more.

Questions a patient asked me today

One of my patients asked me the following questions throughout my shift today:

"Are you an atheist?"

"How old am I?"

"Where do you buy your clothes?"

"Can I do something? Can I stare at you?"

"Will you pray for me?"

"How much money do you make?"

"Are you English?"

"Do you think God is a woman?"

"Do you like hanky panky?"

ShaNae's favorite commercial

ShaNae and I really love this commercial. I remember the first time we saw it, ShaNae cracked up so bad that we had to pause the TV show we were watching while she recovered from the laughter. I'm sure you've all seen it, but here it is anyway.

Our Halloween bash

Well, welcome to the month of November. Halloween is over for another year. I think our bash went pretty well minus my couple of stress breakdowns beforehand. It really was a lot of work to have to go to work then come home and host a party. It was an especially tough day at work that day and I wanted to go home and nap so bad but I only had a short time to finish getting everything pulled together so there was no chance. Zack was very helpful through it all despite that I was awful to him. He really is the best.

The costumes were fun... we had a ninja, a tourist, a farmer, a cupcake, a baker, and a mad scientist. I only wish we had gotten some pictures. Maybe I will see if I can get a copy off some friends that took a couple. Zack and I, being the uncreative beings that we are, went as each other. Zack's nurse costume was a hit. My librarian costume was just boring. That's okay though. I love Halloween but I'm not really all about the costume production for whatever reason. So we just ate some dinner (soup; chips; apple slices; and of course plenty of candy, cupcakes, and cookies with a Halloween twist) and we played some games. We played a name that tune game, Halloween style of course. We also played a pictionary-type game (based on the game Telestrations for those of you familiar with that), also Halloween style, which people seemed to like. I sure had a good time. Now I am slowly working my way through the task of putting all my decorations away, including a few clearance finds that I made after Halloween. I think this is the year that I am going to have to break down and buy a new box to store my stuff in. I say that every year but somehow manage to squeeze it all in. I really don't think that'll happen again.

We also sent out a Halloween letter this year. We are trying to do what we can to simplify our Christmas season this year since we will be having company (yay!) so that seemed like a fun way to do it. I imagine that mostly everyone that reads this blog got a copy, but I'm going to post a picture/copy of it a little later when I am feeling a bit less lazy.

Mostly I just wanted to check in and make sure you all know that I'm still here since my writing has been a bit sparse lately.

I voted!