pumpkin guts, anyone?

Tonight we went to a pumpkin-carving party at my friend Heather's house. She went all out—tons of food, two pumpkin carving tables, and games for the kids. One of the games was a guessing game, where they blindfolded the kids and had them put their hands in "mystery" bowls. Some of the items were lima beans, oatmeal, and grapes, but I made sure to tell Daulton it was all eyeballs and intestines before he tried. He made the funniest face each time he put his hand in a new bowl.

Chris, Daulton and I all carved a pumpkin. I don't know about Chris, but that was the first time I had carved a pumpkin in several years! Everyone's came out really well. In the photo mine is on the left and Chris's is on the right. Halloween is just a few nights away, I hope they last that long!

Happy Birthday to Chris!

Chris's birthday fell on Friday this year, so he opened cards and gifts that afternoon and we all headed to the Olive Garden—our old stomping grounds—for dinner. It took three hours, but we were all properly stuffed afterwards (with plenty of leftovers for the next day!). We decided to forego the ice cream we were going to finish with and plan it for another day. I took this picture of Chris and Daulton in our booth with Chris's phone.

We visited with one of our old managers and a few servers who are still around, including Juan, a nationally ranked pool player with a thick Peruvian accent and extremely nice personality.

Saturday we made a big breakfast at home that consisted mostly of waffles and big fat pieces of bacon—what could be better? I think Saturday night we finished yet another chapter of the final Harry Potter book. We've been getting a chapter done per night, so even though we don't read every night, we're making pretty good progress.

Sunday Chris and I headed to the casino, and we walked away with fat pockets! We blew it all on candy and cigarettes—no, just kidding! But I did buy a tank top and Chris helped himself to some goodies at the store as well.

We seem to enjoy spreading out birthday celebrations to entire weekends, or if you're lucky, weeks! Which I think is what it's all about—spread the love, spread the love.

Tournament Time

This past Saturday Daulton participated in another Tae Kwon Do tournament. He competed in forms, breaking, and also for the Grand Champion. The Grand Champion was a bracket format, where each person did their form against one other person and one of the two was eliminated, until all but one remained. In past tournaments he's brought home trophies, so he was pretty disappointed this time around when nothing came up. But there were a lot of kids competing at the black belt level this time around, and we explained to him that he'll just need to put in more hard work.

Later that day we headed downtown to the Eerie Horror Festival. The main movie they were showing was called Netherbeast Incorporated, but it was actually a comedy. It was pretty funny, and the creators and one of the actors were there to answer questions after, which became quite a lively discussion. It's quite a well organized event for Erie, they put on a great show.