Who wants a ride?

I got a new MINI VAN!! YAY!! I'm SOOO excited! Pete had to take my white car in for a check-up and test drove a mini-van. It was the color I wanted and had the DVD player. He was nervous about telling me about it because he knew that I would want to get it. It's a 2007 Honda Odyssey and is in great condition and has low milage. It was also a LOT cheaper than the new ones we looked at. Pete's Acura was on it's last leg and we thought we would take the plunge before another winter season. So now I am ROCKIN' the suburbs! Soccer car pool anyone? Need to car pool to salt lake? How about some big junk exchanges?! And as a disclaimer ... I am not pregnant. Ha! I've already had 3 people ask me if I was pregnant since we have invested in a family wagon. Phillip loves the mini-van and Lily will have a little more room once we upgrade her car seat.

It's kind of sad that we don't have the Acura anymore. I didn't have a car in Philadelphia, and that was our main car for a while. It was a great car. Pete had the car since the year before he graduated from BYU. I first met the car in 2004.

Favorite Acura memories:

1. While we were dating, Pete would drive to pick me up and drop me off in the city almost everyday. He added lots of mileage driving down Kelly drive.

2. We had an eventful road trip to Boston when I was pregnant. We thought it was silly how people fly from Philadelphia to Boston. On the map it should only take 5 maybe 6 hours. But we hit construction, and accidents and it took us 12 hours to drive to Rhode Island from Philadelphia.

3. During the aftermath storms of Katrina there was flooding on Kelly drive. We were driving on it before they closed the road. There was a stream of water coming from the hill. The water was so high that the car actually floated for a few seconds. Scary!

Garage Sale! In November!?

Well, I think Al has a 6th sense. She has an uncanny ability to foretell a GREAT garage sale. I didn't think to check the ads in the middle of November, but I guess people are always getting rid of junk. The title of the ad was, "My mom had a lot of stuff."

It was an estate sale and we got a LOT of stuff for $20:

One garden hose container
One door flag
One flag pole with a flag (will use for our light show)
Box of old tractor toys and trucks
A bunch of amber glasses (I kept breaking our IKEA glasses so I told pete to be on the lookout for new glasses)
Some vintage platters - They will be great for 7-layer dip
Two vintage Mr. Potato Heads
Two hand-made metallic airplane music boxes
1950's lamp
Old church magazines - Young Women Improvement (1910) Friend (1915) and some Relief Society magazines (see the picture below). I wish I got more, but I thought that a few of each would be enough. They are fun to read through it.

Happy Birthday Pete!

Pete had his birthday on Thursday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! In the words of Phillip, "You are THE MAZING!" Thank you for all of your hard work, fun times, and remarkable penmanship! Ha! I am glad that I can be with someone who likes to have fun and be silly as much as I do :-)

We had a fun night out together. We went to Texas Roadhouse and got the two meals for $16.95 (it's a GREAT deal) and watched "Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde" at Rodgers Memorial theater in Bountiful. We even had time to stop at DI and found a cool Oreo cookie jar. It was great time to celebrate. Pete's favorite present was the remote control helicopter. It's already broken, but since it has only been a few weeks we will return it to the store and get a new one. Good thing I bought the protection plan!!

I tried out a new recipe which was actually pretty good. It is from Nigella Feasts. Alton Brown (from FoodNetwork) would classify this cake as a "Butter Cake" which is a modification of a pound cake. You don't need cake flour or anything special. You just need to have the ingredients at room temperature. Dump it all in the food processor and then bake. My bake time was about 12 minutes. You just have to watch and see how fast they cook. They were really moist. I think it would be interesting to try substituting one of the tsp of vanilla for lemon juice.

Well, this is the last of our fall birthdays. Now we have our wedding anniversary and Christmas. I'll start keeping my eye out for a mini-van for my birthday next year! When I ask Phillip if I should get a new car he says, "YEAH, you be good, you get points for a prize."
So... If a point has a monetary value of about 10 to 25 cents, how many points do I need for a mini van? What should I do to earn points? ha!

Halloween is OVER!

Well,

We had quite the "Halloween Season" this year.  Here is a summary of our Halloween festivities:

1) Went to the Trick-Or-Treat event at GreenField Village during our trip to Michigan

2) Hosted a Halloween party

3) Went to the Bountiful Rec Center Halloween Party

4) Phillip went trick-Or-treating at Bountiful High School to all of the classes.

5) Actual Trick-Or-Treating on Halloween!!

You'd think by the end of the month that I would get sick of Halloween.  But NO!  I put on my trusty Pumpkin outfit and clown wig and walked around the neighborhood with the family.  Even when it started to sprinkle, it didn't stop ME!  It was fun to see everyone's decorations and all of the other people in the neighborhood.  We got some good reviews of our halloween display from all of the kids.

Phillip got 95 pieces of candy.  Yay!  After a while he got tired and sat in the jogger.  When we got to the door I would say, "Come on Phillip!" and he would say, "You go and get it."  ha!  I don't think anyone was as excited as me.  :-)  Phillip got about 4 or 5 regular size candy and one HUGE crunch bar (thanks to the Dodds!)

Well, when the clock strikes midnight on Halloween Night, the preparations for Christmas begins!  Pete got up the next morning to put up Christmas lights.  We will have another light show planned for Christmas and don't want to get stuck putting up lights in the snow.