Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

For the past few years some friends of ours have had a Halloween costume party. We have gone and dressed up...or should I say we have gone, I have dressed up, and Ross has been a really good sport to dress up with me. :) Here's our history of Halloween costumes:

2009:  Grapes. This was the easiest and cheapest costume! We bought a package of green balloons and a package of purple balloons, blew them up, pinned them to our shirts, and our costumes were finished. Cost of costume:  $5!



2010:  A bed bug and a bride. Being that 2010 was our wedding year, I couldn't think of anything else to be, and I wanted to wear my wedding dress again, a bride was the costume for me! We had trouble coming up with and idea for Ross, but at the last minute he came up with the idea to be a bed bug. It was a very simple costume. He pinned a black sheet around him, made "antennas" out of aluminum foil, attached them to a headband, and he was a bed bug.
Cost of costume:  $0!


2011:  A hot air balloon and The Price Is Right contestant. I loved, loved, loved our costumes! I found the hot air balloon costume on Pinterst.com, and my sister gave me The Price is Right idea. For the hot air balloon, I took a basket that I already and had cut out the bottom. Luckily it fit perfectly over my hips so it stayed in place and I didn't have to worry about how it would stay up. I filled brown paper bags with stuffing and tied them to the basket with string for sand bags. I bought a 36" balloon and had it filled with helium. I actually got it home and found that it was just too big, so brought it back to the store to have air taken out. I taped ribbon to the balloon to give it some color, and then tied the balloon to the basket with string. I bought aviator glasses at a Halloween costume store to complete the look. The glasses were a bit expensive, but totally worth it!
Cost of costume:  $18 (the glasses were most of this cost)

Ross' The Price is Right contestant costume was pretty easy. I used a piece of foam board and taped green poster board to it using black electrical tape and spelled out the bid number with yellow duct tape. I cut up a wire hanger and wrapped it with black pipe cleaners and electrical tape to make the microphone. I found a template for the name tag online and printed it out. We found that we had to explain what Ross' costume was to a lot of people at the party we went to. This kind of surprised me.
Cost of costume: $8




One of my friends, Natalie, is a SUPERB math teacher. Her costume was X - a variable X, like in algebra. She had several math questions taped to her giant X, all using the variable X. She gave little boxes of Nerds candies to anyone who answered the questions correctly.

 Pam was a 70's chic. Love the wig, Pam!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

In Sickness and In Health

Ross and I have been married for almost 1 1/2 years and just last weekend had our first experience with the "in sickness and in health" portion of the wedding vows we made to each other.

Friday afternoon I started having very bad stomach pains/cramps that would come and go in waves. There was no real pattern to them, they would just come and go. I was able to sleep okay that night and woke up feeling somewhat okay, so decided to go ahead with my 20-mile run. That wasn't such a good idea. I got a little over one mile in and had to stop and walk; I just wasn't feeling well at all. I kept going but when I got to mile four I decided I needed to turn around and go back home. I tried running, but that made my stomach hurt, so I walked the four miles back home.

I got home, took a shower, and then took a nap. I woke up to more stomach pains that just kept coming and going. I went downstairs and laid on the couch, my resting place for the rest of the day, the rest of the weekend even. I was just miserable the whole weekend with the pains coming and going. We asked my Dad for advice, and even went in to Urgent Care Saturday night and then the ER Sunday night because the pains just wouldn't stop. They ran a bunch of tests on me, but everything came back okay. The ER doctor prescribed some medication that helped cut the pain in half and eventually it was gone by late Monday afternoon. I was so thankful for that medicine. That stomach pain was so bad and there was nothing I could do to make it stop. I guess I just had a very bad case of the stomach flu. It was not fun and I would not wish that on anyone.

But back to my title, "In Sickness and In Health"

Ross was such a good husband to me over the weekend. He cleaned up the kitchen, changed our sheets, did all of the wash, got me whatever I needed whenever I needed it, went to the store to get Sprint and cracker, made me go to the doctor when I didn't want to because he was concerned there was something serious wrong, kept my parents updated on what was going on, got up with me in the middle of the night Saturday when I threw up, and he even brought me flowers and a get well card! I am so thankful to have him and am just so amazed at the way he took care of me. I've always known he loves me, but last weekend he showed his love for me in a whole different way and I am so thankful for him. Thank you Ross for taking such good care of me. I love you!

Get well card and roses!

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A Pearl Poem

By now you know I love pearls. I've blogged about pearls here. And here.

This year my Mom gave us a very special gift for our anniversary:  A poem she wrote along with a glass bottle filled with rocks and a bag of pearls tied to it. The rocks in the bottle represent God, the foundation of our marriage. The pearls represent the treasure we have found in each other through our marriage. The poem tells us that each year on our anniversary we are to take a pearl from the bag and place it in the bottle, saying "Happy Anniversary, I love you dear!" The pearls will represent the years that we share together and help us remember all of the memories we've made.

She explains in the poem that pearls are:
  • A hard object, derived from a living creature
  • An object of beauty, the oldest of gems
  • Considered to be very fine and rare
  • A symbol of purity and innocence
 She concludes the poem saying: "May you have hardness and strength to stay life's strong storms, yet never forgetting to keep the beating heart soft and warm. Your years clearly seen through the bottle of glass, pearls holding your secrets of an intimate love unsurpassed."

This is such a neat gift! It will be so much fun to put a pearl in the bottle each year on our anniversary. I look at the bottle every day and see the one little pearl in it. I'm sure before I know it, though, the one pearl will become five, then twenty, then fifty!



The pearl among the rocks.
The rock and pearl bottle and framed poem are hanging on the wall in our bedroom so we see it every day! The heart hanging below the shelf is also from my Mom. She gave this to me as part of my wedding gift, along with a very touching letter and poem from her to me. My Mom is great!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Taylor Swift Concert

Last Saturday I saw Taylor Swift in concert at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City with three of my girlfriends. I've been a fan of Taylor Swift's music for a while and when I found out she was coming to Kansas City, and saw the price of the tickets, I couldn't pass it up! Three of my friends, Angela, Pam, and Natalie went to the concert with me and we had a great time being girls and singing to all of Taylor's songs!

It was a pretty good concert with three opening acts, one of them being Need To Breathe, a new Christian rock band that is really pretty good. Taylor came on stage around 8:30 and played for a good 2-2 1/2 hours. Our seats were pretty high up and it was a bit chilly with the wind that night, but all in all it was a great time and good concert!


Natalie and Libby

Pam, Angela, Natalie, Libby - the four of us have been doing a Bible study together on Monday nights for two years now. Great friends!