It's never too late to be thankful......

We are grateful for our wonderful families (and how they work really hard to still include us in their lives), our amazing neighbors and friends, a place to live, school, the church, and our health. It is crazy to think we have lived here for a year and a half. I'm grateful for the people we have met and for the way that they have changed our lives for the better. I'm grateful for the new ways we grow when we are forced to "step outside of our comfort zones" and yet, it doesn't make it any easier to do so.

Mmmmm Bop!!

Last weekend we had the opportunity to chaperone a church dance, a task that took us back to our youth. As it turns out we did not get to walk the dance floor, prying couples apart or breaking out our killer break-dancing moves. We were happy to get stationed at the coat/bag check (I never had a coat check when I went to dances!), which was pretty much the social hub of the evening.

Anyhoo, when we weren't taking peoples' coats or making wish lists, we decided to compile the top 8 songs that they played at the dance (it was going to be 10, but not enough songs made the cut):

8. YMCA (The Village People)
7. Thriller (Michael Jackson)
6. Hero (Enrique Iglesias)
5. Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice)
4. Bye Bye Bye (N'Sync)
3. Best of Both Worlds (Hannah Montana)
2. Bye Bye Bye (N'Sync...yes they actually played it twice!..I was reminded of Tyler Hedin knowing every step of the music video and his wonderful performances back in high school)

1. Mmm Bop (Hanson....where have they gone?!)

So, we got a great laugh of re-living our church dance days and are extremely grateful that those days are behind us.

Happy Halloween

The weekend before Halloween, Linzi and I carved pumpkins with the Dodds Friday night, then the Pinkstons, Hilliers and Hawes on Saturday night. We actually got one of those kits with little saws and such to do some high class carving, and I think it shows (especially with the Best In Show displayed above). Before this year it had always been awkward looking jack-o-lanterns made by the biggest knife I could find in my parent's kitchen.


Then there was the actual night of Halloween...we had a great time watching some Halloween episodes of The Office, playing our annual match of Halloween Scrabble (sorry you couldn't be there with us Colleen), then throwing together these awesome costumes before we went over to the Andersons where we were introduced to that classic vampire flick, "The Lost Boys". It was pretty funny to see Keifer Sutherland in his pre-Jack Bauer days.

We only had about 10 trick-or-treaters come to our door, including the few teenagers not dressed up at all holding out their backpack. It's a tradition here to ask the trick-or-treaters to tell you a joke when they come to your door, so we were hoping that one of these teenagers could earn the candy they wanted. We asked one for a joke, and he just started saying "Oh man, I don't know" and pacing back and forth. We tried to help him by asking for any simple knock-knock joke, but even that was too much for him (remember, he's probably 15 years old) and he went back to his group of friends. That was totally not our intention, but it did kind of give us a chuckle...just one more reason to always have a good joke ready.

This makes us happy, very happy..........

Chris Brown vs. Kenny Rogers

Good......................... Better ........................... Best
Our favorite radio station (93.7 The Bull) was having a contest the other day asking for people with famous names to call in and win a free lunch. Linzi heard about it on her way to school and called and told me that I should call in and try to win. I decided to give it a shot, and after about 83 tries (and to my great surprise) I ended up on the radio. Too bad it was a country station and the host didn't even know who Chris Brown is ("Is that some new young music artist?" he asked me...lame)...some doofus named Kenny Rogers won.

Michael Stops By

How's this for friendship? Driving 1300+ miles across the country twice over the span of a week to visit for a couple of days....crazy, huh? Well, Michael did just that, stopping by our humble little abode over conference weekend. It was so much fun to have him here and show him some of the great things that St. Louis has to offer. I did feel bad that we made him get up at about 6 on Saturday morning (he drove in about 9 the night before) to come out to a 5K we were helping with to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He actually ran in the race while we were volunteering.

But we did do some fun sightseeing: The famous Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour (it was pretty interesting to see the beer making process, and crazy how much beer they supply), the Arch, the Farmer's Market at Soulard and Pappy's Smokehouse (a great little barbeque place right by school). Hopefully he had fun out here with us.

Highlights of the Brewery Tour, complete with Michael showing us how "The Masher" works.

It was great to see you Michael! Thanks for coming out to visit (and Linzi LOVED the chocolate milk, by the way...we'll have a gallon waiting for you to try next time you come out). And for the rest of you out there, hopefully you see that we are exceptional hosts and book your stay as soon as possible. :)

Isn't this how everyone kills spiders?