Free Pie Night!

So the Village Inn serves up free pie every Wednesday night if you buy something from the menu. Meg, Meredith, and I HAD to check it out!

Making Promises I Might Not Be Able to Keep and Vegas, Baby!

I agreed to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge this year with Tuima, Eredolyn, and a few other friends. However, I was under the impression that NaNoWriMo required only 20,000 words in order to declare yourself champion. So agreeing to pay for dinner at The Chef's Table if I failed to make this goal seemed easy enough. I agreed to the deal only to find out moments later that NaNoWriMo requires 50,000 words, not 20,000! So I'm getting my rear in gear and trying to write a little everyday. The hard part (For me at least) is that the whole point of NaNoWriMo is writing. Just sitting down and writing your 50,000 words. This means NO EDITING. Just barrel through your writer's block and keep writing. My inner editor is writhing in agony at some of the junk I am coming up with and consequently ignoring. What keeps me going is at the end of Novemeber I will let her loose and she can have her way with the words I've typed.
I'm on a tight writing schedule since I lost a weekend due to a Vegas trip-but SO worth it. I will also lose next weekend due to another road trip (Portland, WA this time and then over Thanksgiving weekend when I leave for Idaho.) This is going to be interesting!
I headed down to Vegas with the family to celebrate a cousin's baptism. She looked BEAUTIFUL! Here are some highlights of the trip!

Our traveling fellows.

Snacks are a must!

Mikelle being all college-y and working on a paper at 10:00 at night in the car.

Doesn't she look beautiful?

FOOD COMA!

A BUNDLE of energy! I only got him to sit still enough to flash the photo!

The whole family posing for pictures.

We also made it to the Las Vegas Temple. Seriously one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen. It's GIGANTIC!

We went to the Bellagio that night to see the sights. I LOVE their garden room! Perfect for Thanksgiving.

These flower pumpkins were my favorites! I believe this one was made of carnations.

LOVE the rose pumpkin. They were HUGE!

Me and Grandma!

A talking tree (with the lovely flower pumpkins in the background!)

3-D artwork! So cool!

The ceiling at the Bellagio! Glass artwork! I could have stared at it all night!

A quick trip to Paris never hurt anyone!

KISSY KISSY!!!!!!

Making our way to the Strip!

Our view! And finally, the Bellagio Water Fountain! SO pretty! Here's a video of the one we watched up front!

All in all we had a fabulous time and were sad to leave. Good thing Thanksgiving is just around the corner where we'll all get together again! Until then!

Halloween recaps!

I ALMOST got this posted back in October, but SO many things happened! (Celebrating Halloween all weekend long for one, then the start of NaNoWriMo and a quick trip to Vegas for one thing!) So, I'll catch you up on all those, but we'll start with Halloween.
First of all, NO ONE (save for Nan and Eredolyn) knew who I was! Amy Pond people! Come ON! I guess I need to hang out with nerdier people like myself.

For you non-nerds out there, Amy Pond is a character from the British TV show Doctor Who. In one episode they run into aliens that make you forget you've seen them, which is why Amy, Rory, River, and the Doctor carry around sharpie markers, making tallies when they see the aliens. The aliens are called The Silence, and are said to be the scariest aliens of all time on Doctor Who, but I think the Weeping Angels are FAR more terrifying. Rumor was there was one wandering around Provo on Halloween, but we couldn't find it. (Which, all things considered, was probably a good thing! Here's a clip from the episode with the Weeping Angels if you're interested: Don't Blink.)
Ere and I hung out and she looked great in her steam punk costume as well! We also ran into someone dressed as River Song and they kindly let me pose with their sonic screwdriver! It was a fabulous evening.

The other awesome thing I did for Halloween was go to the Haunted Village at This is the Place Monument. This is the ONLY haunted house/village/forest/corn maze thing I will visit since I HATE being scared. Don't get me wrong, it's still scary, but you go, you get scared and you go home. End of story. There's no lingering scare once you leave which is what I love. Resolution. Closure. It's what I do.
The setup was different than last owing to the fact that there was a story line of a grave robber wandering around with terrified village people looking for him. Oh, and I vastly improved since last year. I think I left Ere behind three or four times the year before, too scared to stay behind as the actors chased after us and tried to corner us. I'd turn tail and run, leaving Ere behind to deal with them. This year I did not leave her once, but I may have used her as a human shield at one point. :) Someone jumped down from the ceiling (FOR REAL!) and I instinctively grabbed Ere and pulled her in front of me. Sorry!