15 and counting...

Jared and I celebrated our 15th anniversary on Saturday! Wow! On Friday morning I was surprised to find some beautiful roses and a note telling me to pack an overnight bag...my sister Annie and Travis were going to hold down the fort while we got away!

This was such a treat as it is not something we get to do (ever) with our medical "issues" we have around here. So we went to a very nice restaurant on the Boise River for dinner, then to see the new 007 movie, then spent the night in a hotel downtown. On Saturday morning we slept in...watched an episode of Law & Order...went to a delicious breakfast restaurant in Boise & to the Boise market and got some cute pottery. At breakfast we made some gift lists for the kids and decided we'd better get another movie in, so we went to Eagle Eye--loved it. Then a quick trip to Costco and it was time to head home. It was a much needed break. Thanks Annie & Travis!

I have to share part of my anniversary letter from Jared. He made a list of some of the things he loves about me in true Jared form. Here are a few:

• Four beautiful kids...no anesthesia to bring them into the world and heavy medication to keep them in it...
• Can be the most persistent person in the world when it comes to breaking high scores...
• Seen every sordid minute of every CSI episode regardless of location so that if called upon, she could bring down any criminal mastermind...or at the very least provide directions for folks lost in bad areas of Las Vegas or Miami.
• Her willingness to roll up her sleeves to rid the world of acne one zit at a time...
• Can sacrifice sleep to stay up to watch half a season of '24' or 'Alias' in one night...
• Some people collect stamps, others coins...she collects all 15 McDonald's Tarzan figurines (little people & star wars minis also applicable)
• A late night call from her in the midst of her standing up to a famous Hollywood producer and an entire production crew...refusing to let my son's movie debut come at the expense of our values...

He can always make me smile! I'm so grateful he's been able to tolerate me this long!

The "High Point Scorer" and Seth's Rihanna obsession...

Last night the boys were getting into my tub. I walked into my bathroom as Luke was coming out of the commode and he exclaimed, "Yes! I'm the high point scorer!" When I asked him exactly what that meant he explained..."I stood back farther than I ever have before!" So this explains why I have to clean my bathrooms almost every day! Boys.

Seth loves the Rihanna song "Don't Stop the Music". I'm still not certain where it is he heard it, because I don't think we even have it on the iPod, but anyway...

He sings the chorus ALL the time, and now adapts it to what ever he wants to say like this morning he sang to me...

"I want some cho-oclate milk. I-I wa-a-ant some choclate mi-ilk..."

I'm not sure how to address this problem. I guess I should let it go...except for when he is singing in church asking when the bread will be coming...

Every party has a pooper...

We have had the most beautiful fall here. The trees have been just breathtaking. I love it! I was noticing this morning that the tree in our front yard was the same color as my cute red bottle I have on the window sill in my laundry room. It looks much prettier in person, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Halloween was eventful! The kids did not have school, so we just played all morning and then in the afternoon headed to do some trick-or-treating at HP...ran downtown to the hospital for a Halloween Party (no food involved) for the 13 kids in Boise who are on the Ketogenic Diet. The kids had a good time and we came home with more Chinese finger traps than you could possibly ever need and several coolers courtesy of the Epilepsy Foundation. Also, they gave us some bracelets with the EF motto "Not another moment lost" which made me cry, so we won't talk about that...

After the Par-tay...we rushed over to see Grandma & Grandpa Hansen and show them the kids costumes. Fun times. Then back home for some pizza and trick-or treating preparations.

Does it seem strange to anyone else that we have this "custom" where we buy up bags of little candy, parade our kids door to door to get candy from strangers homes and give our candy away to rude teenagers who are probably also going to steal my cute pumpkins? In my opinion it seems to have gotten a little out of hand. I'm just sayin'.

Rachel in a 50's car hop getup with her friend Shydon...

Jonah opted to go for the least complicated ghost. Whatever.

All in all we had a great day. I've been asked a million times what we do in a home with Rachel and Luke's situations...Since Rachel was big enough to understand Halloween, we have always let the kids pick out some of their favorites and then bought the rest of the kids candy from them after they went trick-or-treating. This year Jonah and Seth didn't want anything to do with the cash. They are in it for the chocolate. Rachel got rid of most of hers and for Luke there was no keeping option this year (although I did get him some treats he could have) so he turned in all of his candy for a Star Wars ship he's had his eye on for some time. Everyone is happy. So maybe this is where my tendency to be a Halloween scrooge stems from...I'll look into some therapy for next year.