Halloween is here

We started our Halloween festivities this week. Reagan and I made cupcakes to take to the kids at daycare yesterday. They were all chocolate with sprinkles. Tonight we carved a jack-o-lantern. Reagan helped with punching the holes through the design while I did most of the carving. She's been asking for awhile when it's going to be Halloween and we finally told her this week it's here! Friday night we're going to a weiner roast/hay-ride at our church in West Union. Then Saturday we'll do the trick or treating in Newton. Pictures to come....

Picture time

Yesterday we got some family pictures taken, hopefully for our upcoming Christmas card. If you're seeing these pics and you end up getting one later, you can act suprised! We knew we wanted to get a picture with our chickens since that's been our big thing this year. It took a little bit to get the chickens rounded up but we did it. Reagan even did really good holding hers! Then we decided that we'd better get a picture with our pups since they'll all be gone by this weekend. I loved these pictures, they turned out so good. I also do a yearly scrapbook and try to get a good family photo for it. I was really good and did one specific for Reagan for my pregnancy and for her first year but that was where I stopped with the scrapbooking. Then I decided I could surely keep up with doing one page per year. I get together my favorite photos throughout the year and write up a paragraph about things we did, places we went, where we worked, and sometimes little things like how much a gallon of milk or how much gasoline costs.

Covered Bridge Festival

Survived another trip to the covered bridge festival again this year. My mom, sister, and I made are annual outage to the festival again. It was pretty cold when we arrived bright and early at 7am but it turned out to be a pretty nice day by afternoon. I wouldn't say I got anything big and exciting in particular (last year my big item was a wooden trashcan), but I did come home with several home decorations. And as always the food was spectacular. We all had ribeye steak sandwhiches for lunch and we couldn't pass up the kettle corn and roasted almonds. It was pretty crowded at lunch but didn't seem as bad as last year. I'm not near as tired as I expected to be after being on my feet all day but I'm still looking forward to the massage I scheduled myself tomorrow evening!

Fire Drill

Yesterday was an exciting day at the nursing home. I was sitting in my office when I heard the fire alarms sound. Usually I'm told ahead of time when there is going to be a drill but I wasn't aware of any drill this time but yet I didn't think too much of it. I go down one of the halls and start checking rooms and closing the doors behind me. After the other staff and I had gone down the whole hall and hadn't found the flashlight (that's the fire you're supposed to find during a drill), we returned back to the dayroom to see if anyone on the other hall had found anything. As soon as we crossed the threshold, we smelled smoke. Then we realized that there was smoke coming from the ceiling! The decision was quickly made to evacuate all the residents. Knowing that there was a real fire was very scary and we immediately began running. The first room I went to, the resident refused to leave her room. She said staff had told her several times before that there was a fire and evacuation was needed but every time it was just a drill and she was not going to do it this time. No matter what I said, she planted her feet and said she wasn't going. Just as I was about to leave and come back to her later, I pressed on to say that the building was on fire, there was smoke, it smells, and she has GOT to get out of the building! She finally agreed. We got all the residents into the parking lot and luckily it had stopped raining by that point. The fire department arrived and after about 45 minutes, they told us that we could return into the building and that some "dust bunnies" in the duct work got too hot. We returned the residents to the building and went on with our day. At least we got our yearly evacuation drill completed! Most important, I'm just glad that the building and the residents were okay.

I finally did it

Well after 7 years of having dial up internet, I FINALLY broke down and got the high speed internet. Can't say I'm over the initial shock of what it costs to get it started, not to mention my internet bill tripling! But it is making my blogging and uploading of pictures actually possible from my home computer. Jessica says she expects to see more blogging from me so I'll do my best. The whole process of this wildblue stuff is a little ridiculous though. I didn't know they couldn't install it on our fascia and I certainly didn't want holes in my roof so the only other option was this $150 pole they wanted to put in the yard. Kevin has specifically made a point to say before that he did not want this dish in our yard. And since he was asleep when the installers came out, I was the one who got to make the decision. They kept pointing out spots in our yard that would be the best for a good signal and all of these areas were right smack in the middle of the yard or right by the front door, yeah right like I want it to be a decorative piece of my lawn! We had finally decided to place it out on the far side of the garage and they were getting started on it. I called my brother (my computer adivsor) and he told me I would never get a signal that far out. So as they were starting to drill a hole on my garage and had half dug the hole, I had to go running out to stop them. After another 15 minutes, we finally found a spot that would work. The only other thing I wish they'd told me is that I needed outlets next to where the modem would be on the inside of the house. We ran it into the bathroom closet and now I have cords strung across my bathroom to get to an outlet! All I can say is that this high speed better be worth it!

It's time for Covered Bridge!

On Oct. 12th (Columbus Day) my mom, sister, and I are making our annual trip to the Covered Bridge festival. We're so excited! But I'm guessing this year will be interesting between Mom's bad back and Jodi will be 7 months pregnant. Lucky for me, I've scheduled a massage to be done the next evening! Last year I got a hand-crafted wooded trash can for my kitchen which I absolutely love. I wish I'd had a camera for that one...we had to carry this trashcan clear from one side of the festival about a mile to our car! I also got a lot of pottery pieces for my kitchen and I plan on getting more of those again this year. There's nothing else specific I plan to get but hopefully I can find some cute things to decorate my house with and maybe get some Christmas shopping done. And of course there's all the food I'm sure we'll be sampling. We enjoy eating lunch and listening to the live music. Can't wait!!