Happy Halloween!

Preparing to hand out candy:
Eating dinner is a little tricky with so much paint:

Our pumpkins (Brian carved the ghoul, I carved the stack of jack-o-lanterns):

The carving process:

Earlier this month at the Pumpkin Show in Circleville (this is where I got the pumpkins we carved):

Happy Birthday Brian

Hello readers. This weekend, we celebrated Brian's birthday. It was nice to relax and take a little break from writing for both of us. On Saturday, we went out for dinner with Brian's parents. Then we sang and had cake (see pics). Today we went to hear Brian's cousin's band and hung up Halloween decorations.

Brian is in this picture twice. Can you spot him?

Homecoming

Today (Saturday) was Wooster's homecoming, so Brian and I drove over to spend some time on campus this afternoon. We saw some people we hadn't seen in a while and walked around notinig the things that had changed since we were students. We also loitered by some doors so we could get into a few buildings and reminisce. (I really have no idea how to spell reminisce. Is that right?)


There was a small parade for the alums, featuring the Wooster marching band.

The band also put on a concert, which was great. They played all the old favorites you would hear at a football game. While traditional at homecoming events, there wasn't actually a football game on campus today. There were other sports to watch (cricket, soccer, lacrosse), but we weren't really interested.

Highland dancers with pipers behind:

Bagpipers playing a song:

The band:

Dam Visit

On Friday, Karen and I went to the Hoover Dam, which is on the east side of Columbus, for a walk. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed looking out at the water and walking over the dam. Here are a few pictures from that day:

After the water goes through the dam, it forms this little river.

Here is the water rushing out of the dam:

This is the other side of the dam, with the reservoir:

Like I said, it was a really nice day. This would be a really pretty spot to visit again once the trees get some fall color.

We saw this odd little thing on the water and were curious about what its purpose is. There is a logo on the side, but I couldn't make it out. It seemed too small for a boat, but too elaborate for a bouy. Brian thinkes that the black panel is a solar panel and that this device might be used to monitor water quality. Any other guesses? And does anyone recognize that round blue logo?

Unexpected ER Visit

Thanks to those who expressed concern last night. The ER doctor didn't know what caused the neck injury but it seems to have just come out of nowhere. The CAT scan didn't reveal anything in particular. I'm on a handful of medications for pain and to treat the injury. I'll see someone as soon as I can to try and get it sorted out. Although the pain medication keeps most of the pain down it still hurts a lot when I swallow. I'm going to try and keep the computer usage down in case the viewing angle or something contributed (I was using the computer when it happened after all).

I guess that health insurance turned out to be worth it immediately.

Soccer skills

Yesterday afternoon, we played at the playground of a local school. We spent a lot of time working on soccer skills, mainly shooting at the goal.

Josiah & Greta shooting at the goal, which Eli and I are defending (David & Brian looking on):

Eli and I defended the goal with spirit, but sometimes one got through.

Brian also took a turn helping Eli with defense.

Eli was the one most interested in soccer. Josiah eventually lost interest and went to play on the play structures with Greta. David was enjoying tossing a frisbee around. Uncle Brian stuck with Eli for a little one-on-one.

New house

Here is a tour of our new place! We have unpacked a lot of things, but not all. Still, it looks pretty nice I think.

When you enter the house, this is the view. This longish hallway has all the rooms branching off from it. On the left from front to back, you have the living room, bedroom, and ferret room. On the right, you have the dining room, kitchen, and main bathroom.

We will start with the living room. The glass door on the left leads to the little porch. The walls are still bare, but I hope we get pictures up soon.

Another view of the living room:

Next to the living room is the dining room and kitchen. There is a small stack of boxes in the dining room still that we are working on. The dining room has a great overhead lamp that makes it nice and bright.

Another view of the dining room: (The kitchen is right next to it, but there was already a post about that room.)

The bedroom is down the hall on the left. We have it mostly set up. There isn't a whole lot in there, just the bed and clothes mainly. That is all that is really needed in a bedroom anyway.
The awesome clothes shelves I built:

Across the hall from the bedroom is the main bathroom. The door on the left is a closet with the furnace etc. The door on the right is a storage closet. The orange curtain on the left of the room is the shower curtain.

Another view of the main bathroom:

Behind the bedroom is a larger room that we use as an office/ferret room. We spend a lot of time in this room, working and playing. We have a large desk set up to work at with all the computer cords elevated to keep the ferrets out of them. We also keep a lot of books in this room.

Another view of the ferret room: You can also see the short hallway which leads to the second bathroom. That hallway has a couple closets on either side.

Here is the second bathroom. This bathroom has the washer and dryer, which are really helpful to have in the house.