Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

"Hold on, man. We don't go anywhere with 'scary',
'spooky', 'haunted', or 'forbidden' in the title. Zoiks!"
--Shaggy, From Scooby-Doo

The holiday season is upon us. I only say that because commercialism pushes it upon us, whether we are ready or not. I try to block out the candy, cheesy knick-knacks, costumes and blow-up lawn ornaments, but unless you turn to your food storage and forgo eating anything fresh, avoiding these things can be a very hard task. So, thus the holiday season begins.

Blake and Noah's school, Beacon Heights, had a carnival last Friday (October 24) for students and their families. It was a chance for all the kids to dress up in their Halloween costumes and have some fun. There was a Haunted House, a bouncy castle, face painting, cotton candy (bubble gum flavor...icky!), snow cones, tacos and quesadillas (though they didn't consult me on the food choices, they definitely decided with me in mind ;), and a ton of little carnival games. The boys dressed up--Noah as an Army guy and Blake as Boba Fet. Rob and Cristina dressed up as well, while Kary and I decided to dress up as ourselves. The kids had a great time. I actually enjoyed the adventure too.

After the carnival, Noah, Blake, Kary and I made our way back to Ogden to the closest Arctic Circle. Kary had conveniently found 4 (or maybe more ;) coupons for free ice cream cones. We got our ice creams and sat down for an intense trivia session. Kary tested Noah and Blake on their Star Wars knowledge. I'm pretty sure that the boys impressed him with the plethora of knowledge they possess. Overall, it was a great night!

Last Saturday (October 25) was a new adventure. Noah came and snuggled me around 8am and Blake followed shortly after. Blake and I started playing Mancala around 9am. Noah, half asleep, decided that he would start playing for me. One of the first things he said was, "Mom. What are we doing with Kary today? We didn't get to spend enough time with him yesterday." We didn't have plans because Kary is a tad bit obsessed with mowing a certain lawn. In addition to that, he is charitable with his time and volunteers at Thanksgiving Point. The last few weeks he's been helping with the children's Halloween festivities such as running carnival games and helping out with the pony rides. I called to see if the lawn did indeed grow this week. Kary just said he would go out the back and try not to look at the lawn that would be calling his name to trim it. I hate that I may have interupted the normal Saturday flow for Kary, but I have never seen Noah take to another guy, other than Rob before. So we quickly decided on Hogle Zoo.

The zoo was a mad house! We weren't aware that it was trick-or-treating day for the whole state of Utah at the zoo. There were so many people it was hard to move in any one direction. At first, I was a little irritated--mainly because of the number of people and my slight problem with being claustrophobic, but by the end of our time there I had mellowed out. Once we explained to the boys that we weren't going to stand in every forever long line for a piece of candy we had a wonderful time. My favorite animal moment happened while we were in one of the monkey enclosures. They were a smaller breed of monkey, orange in color, about the size of small cats. There were two sitting together facing the crowd. One held his hand up over the others eyes, as if there was something he wasn't allowed to see! Funny!

Now to the current week. Oh what a week. The weather has been beautiful! Mid to upper 60's the whole week. Too bad I've been sick! Not only have I been sick the last 2 weeks, but I'm pretty sure I got Kary and Mary sick too. I spent the majority of my week sleeping at Kary's after work. Kary gave me extra special treatment on Wednesday night. I got off a little early and went to Kary's house. Alice (Kary's mom) had made chicken soup. Mmmm...Then Kary took me down to the family room. He made a bed on the ground in front of the TV. Gave me a pair of snuggy pants to change into. Put his robe on me, then his beanie. He made me lay down. The next thing I knew I was waking up to multiple cups of hot chocolate--all different flavors. You see, Kary has an extensive hot chocolate collection. Not just one brand, one flavor, but every brand you can think of and then some! I don't know how many cups of chocolate I had, but I can tell you the Stephen's brand hot chocolate is the best! Kary did a wonderful job of taking care of me.

Friday (Halloween) was a great day. Very chill day at work. Most of the office staff dressed up. We had a scantily clad eskimo, a biker chick, a conehead, a cowgirl, a jailbird, and a wolf--about 7 feet tall! We ate way too much and then got off early. Rob had the boys for some early trick-or-treating so I hitched a ride with the wolf to Lindon to meet Kary. Kary and I went to his house, had some dinner and talked with his parents. We then went and picked the boys up to take them to Ogden to trick-or-treat at GUB and Joni's and Uncle Joe and Aunt Kathy's. That's about all we had time for because it was clear it was bedtime.

Overall, a great couple of weeks!!!