Thanksgiving week

We had a great Thanksgiving week in Utah. We flew in last Monday morning (11/19) and stayed at Jared's mom's house until Sunday. We spent Tuesday in "Happy Valley" to visit my sister, Kiki, and her kids and have lunch with Jared's former boss and co-workers but the rest of the week was spent with his family. Everyone in Jared's family stayed at his mom's house, except for his sister Stephanie, who lives in Florida and couldn't get off of work to come for Thanksgiving. We missed her VERY much!!! Here are some of the highlights from the week:

We were all hanging out Monday night and Mariya helped her grandma decorate the Christmas tree:

Tuesday night, Judson and Carma winking for us:

Gift Exchange Day breakfast (i.e. early Christmas since we won't be with this family for Christmas): Our present to Hailey:

Our present to Hunter:

Our present to Justin:

Our present to Benson (he was LOVING it!):

The Crittenden grandkids:

We went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City Friday night to see the Christmas lights. It was really crowded but SO BEAUTIFUL:

The Assembly Hall on Temple Square:

More views of the temple:

Jared with his brother and grandpa, who we went to visit Sat. morning:

Jared and Jason on the frozen Provo River Sat. afternoon:
The Upper Provo River Falls:
Carma in some princess garb Sunday night:

Renaissance Festival, LSU, HILARIOUS video

Jared and I went with my mom and Ben, Becky, & Belle to the Renaissance Festival yesterday.

We saw The Duelists:

A Magician:
The Dog & Pony Show (so cute!!!):
A bird show (falcons, hawks, and owls):
A jausting match:

And a juggler:

We left the festival to go watch the LSU game at my parents' house. LSU beat Ole Miss 41-24. GEAUX TIGERS!!!

And, since my dad wanted me to put this on the blog so bad, here's a video of my mom getting scared from that Scary Maze Game after the game on Sat. We got her to play it but she wasn't able to get far enough to get scared, so we had her sit and watch while Ben played it--she still got scared pretty bad and we were all laughing hyesterically! Here's the video:

You can go to this link to see for yourself what the game looks like (or send it to other people to scare them! *evil grin*): http://www.wimp.com/maze/

We should be packing right now but Jared is watching the NASCAR race (he's probably actually sleeping, ha ha!) and I'm just goofing off here on the computer. We're leaving at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow to fly to Utah (flight leaves at 6am). YAY!!! Not sure if I'll be able to post while I'm in Utah, so I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Train story

A funny story I wanted to share--instead of typing the whole thing out, I recorded it. Just press play:
boomp3.com

Oh, and give me your honest opinion--would you rather listen to a recorded story or have it written out for you to read? Just wondering for next time.

Choir Concert, Raised Fish Pond

I joined the Livingston Parish Adult Community Choir a couple months ago and our concert was this past Sunday. We did a couple of patriotic songs, in honor of Veteran's Day, and some Christmas music. The Apprentice Choir (kindergarten through 2nd grade) sang a few songs and joined us in our final song, as well; they were so cute! I played the snare drum for one of the songs, "Pat-a-Pan". It was so fun to be able to play percussion again, even though it was a very simple part. My mom, dad, brother, SIL, and niece all came to see me sing and play. So sweet of them! Here are some pics from the concert and after:

I'm in the second row up, on the left end: Jared and Belle, after the concert:
Belle just wanted to play with my drum sticks:
My concert guests (Mom, Dad, SIL, brother, niece):
My sweetie and I:

And here's a video of part of the song for which I played the snare drum:

A friend of mine just moved from a house where she had a coi pond to a house that doesn't have a pond yet. Her daughter is one of my piano students. She was afraid the fish and plants wouldn't make it through the winter in the kiddie pool she had them in, and we were looking to get more fish (had bought 3 coi and several goldfish but only 1 coi, 1 goldfish, and one "boggle-eyed" fish survived), so we worked out a deal to exchange three piano lessons for all of her fish and plants. I think there are 7 or 8 coi and another little fish of some kind. There are three potted plants and two different kinds of floating plants (still need to learn the plant names). The main pump broke, so we will work on getting that fixed but, in the meantime, this is what it looks like:

The log and plants on top of the waterfall, as well as the tube running into the water and the electric cord running out, are part of an aquarium filter and will not be there once we get the main pump fixed:

The floating plants bloom these gorgeous purple flowers:
The fish are SUPER hard to get good pics of. Here's the best I could do for now:
I'm excited to have the pond up and running and to have more fish to look at. One of the first things I do in the morning is go and look at the pond. We've had the windows open for most of the past three weeks and it is so relaxing to hear the water flowing down into the pond. I'm glad to get all the water plants, too, to help keep the fish warm and alive through the winter (if it ever actually cools down here!).

Today is the coolest it's been in weeks (in the 60's today and may get down to the 50's tonight). Yesterday was pretty warm and humid, so today was a nice change--beautiful, low-humidity, breezy day. I need to gear up for the next two weeks of Utah weather, though! Speaking of which, we fly out really early on Monday. I'm super excited to see our family there!!!

Halloween Night

Last night was really fun, except the fact that Jared had to work. I went to a party at the Barker's house. There was lots of people, tons of food, and a fun hay ride to go trick-or-treating. I dressed up as the Statue of Liberty again. Here are some of the other costumes:

Belle as JoJo from JoJo's Circus (how cute is she?!):

The Barker family dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz--they all look great but I have to say that The Lollipop Guild and the flying monkey were my faves:

My mom dressed up as Raggedy Ann:

There were two trailers full of people for our hayride trick-or-treating. They would drop us off and we'd walk to a couple of houses, then they'd drive to the next house (this is in a rural area and the house were a little further apart than in an actual subdivision). It was a cool way to trick-or-treat! Here are some shots from the hayride:

Deb (Auntie Em), Zoe (Cowardly Lion), Amy (Dorothy):

Flo (my SIL's mom) and Me:

The other trailer:

Belle scoring some candy:

What a CUTE trick-or-treater!:

Ben, Belle, Becky--Ben got there late because of work but was able to join us on the hayride:

Ben and Belle gettin' hooked up:

Belle and Becky enjoying the ride:

It was a fun night and the weather was great. I just wish Jared could have been there. I hope you all had a great Halloween! Looking forward to Thanksgiving in Utah now! I can't believe it's November already!!!