HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We carved pumpkins for a neighborhood pumpkin carving contest. It was pretty fun! I never liked carving pumpkins when I was little, because I hated the feeling of the pumpkin under my nails, but it was so fun! We went to Collin's and dropped Halloween bags off to the boys. I didn't have my camera to take pictures, but I have a picture of Ford that I took at his birthday in his penguin costume. Then I went over to Apple Village to see how Grandma did with the trick or treaters there. She was so cute! Here are some pictures!

This is Mom's pumpkin. She won "The Battiest" award!

Mine won "The Goofiest"

Isn't he the cutest little penguin, you've ever seen?

Here's Grandma with her princess hat on passing out candy!

Falls, Flats and an Emeregency Room...

So, since coming home, it's been kind of an adventure. Wednesday night I was taking Grandma's laundry to her and instead of carrying the laundry basket in front of me to go down our stairs, I was holding it on my hip. Duh! It's a big basket, and we had a wreath hanging on the railing, so with all of those widths added up, I bumped the basket into one of those things, and ended up falling down four stairs, hitting my back pretty hard on the wood railing. I thought I cracked a rib, but I think it just ended up being bruised.

The weekend was pretty wonderful. Mom was called as Stake Young Womens President. It was an enjoyable, spiritual experience.

Then, yesterday, I was driving around looking for different design sources up in this area, talking to ALee on my phone, and I heard this weird noise. I couldn't feel anything, but it sounded weird, so I pulled off the side of the road. I had a flat tire. After contemplating what to do, Mom was in school, Collin was in Florida, I called Amy. Thank heavens she wasn't too busy. Then I got out all of the equipment to change my flat, and couldn't get the lug nuts to even move. I was jumping up and down on the thing, and it wasn't budging. So, I sat on the curb, thinking of another plan, when a truck pulled over. It was so sad, my first thought was please don't kill me. It was this cute old man, that was so nice. We tried pumping it back up, with two different pumps, and then Amy got there. The pumps weren't doing a thing. So, Amy and the guy changed my tire, and somehow I was the one with grease on my forehead, face, and ear. Don't ask me how that happened. So, I ended up having to get two new tires.

Then last night, I was working out at the gym, and I was working on a weight machine for abs, and I started to get this horrible pain in my back and chest. I thought back to what might have happened and figured I really had broken a rib when I fell, and that's what all of the pain was. So, we went home when we were done, and the pain got worse and worse. I tried to sleep, but laying down made it worse and sitting wasn't helping, and standing up wasn't helping, so after about three hours of pain, I finally decided I'd better get to the ER. Everyone knows I'm sick a lot, but this was my first time ever to the ER, and usually I don't go to the doctor. Anyways, we got there and my blood pressure was really high for me, maybe for anybody, I know the bottom number was causing concern at 159/113. They did a whole bunch of blood work, an EKG, and x-rays. Everything turned out to be just fine. He gave me some heavy duty acid reflux medicine, and told me I might have an ulcer, but nothing life threatening. I was so scared it was a heart attack, and Dad had his first at 29, so I'm almost there. The doctor said your enzymes should be under eight, to be considered healthy. Mine were zero! My blood pressure, also, got way better 107/60. Back where it should be.

So, all in all, I've had a very expensive couple of days!

More of D.C.

We got back to D.C. on Saturday. We met Jilly at our hotel, and got to meet her cute husband, Tom.

It had been about seven years since we'd seen each other, and in the meantime, she got married without me there. We only had one afternoon/evening with them, but it was so much fun. Well, we first started at the Holocaust museum, so that wasn't so fun, but it was interesting and heartbreaking. We got there pretty late in the day, and ended up getting kicked out, because they were closing, and we weren't even a quarter of the way through. I can tell you that I really didn't like the feeling there, and I tend to depend on my feelings a lot, so going off of that, I decided I didn't want to go finish up the next day. I'd seen enough.

We then went and met up with Tom at the Washington Memorial. (He didn't get to go into the museum, because he had a pocket knife.) Anyways, we walked over to the Korean monument.

Isn't it beautiful? We had a good time hanging out and laughing a ton! We went to a yummy seafood place in Georgetown. I was the only one who got seafood, it was delicious!

Sunday, we went to a ward in Arlington, VA. We called up a ward in the morning, and found out what time the next Sacrament meeting was. It was a beautiful chapel, done in kind of a Georgian/Federal style mix, which was really fun to see. There were about ten oriental people with headphones on to translate the meeting. All of these people had kids with them, so it was a large group of people. We later found out that the sister missionaries who had brought all of these people were from Mongolia. What a neat experience to be called on a mission to Washington, D.C. and end up converting about two dozen Mongolians! Jackie Leavitt, the former first lady of Utah, sang the musical number. The spirit there was so strong! I'm so glad we picked that ward.

After church we went to the Arlington Cemetery. It was a great way to spend the Sabbath! We then went and saw the White House. Isn't it amazing that we have all of our freedoms, and those freedoms make it possible for someone to sit outside of the White House and protest? Yet the protesters want to take others freedoms away. We, also, went to the Vietnam Memorial, and found a relative on the Nicholes' side on it. It was neat to come home and find how he was related to us.

I have to tell you, I absolutely loved DC and NYC! I had my fears after hearing stories about how dirty and unsafe these two cities were. I was amazed at how friendly all of the people were that we came in contact with! People were so helpful! I loved that everywhere we were in DC, people were out running and playing in the parks and on the side of the streets! It was so fun!!!