Last night Doug and I had date night. Because of our busy schedules (mainly mine this week) and our schedules not overlapping (So when I get home from school he has to go to work), we barely saw each other this week. So I asked Doug out on a date via our chalkboard in our entryway. And he said yes :)

First, we went for a picnic to the park that is down the street from us.

Cooking the food. Doug went down to the community grills to make the meat and I made the mashed potatoes and peas.

Walking to the park at sunset

The sunset was really pretty last night

The park with the fountain. So relaxing.

Our food. The meat was delicious! We also had grape martinelli's in champagne glasses I got from the dollar store.

My amazing husband!

Our set up in the park

More of the sunset as we walked back home.

Then we went to the cheap theatres and saw Inception. It was really good and we had a lot of debates afterwards. We even had Allison over to debate with us about it! Haha it was a lot of fun though. I wanna see it again though, even though there doesn't seem to be a right answer.

We stopped at Target on the way home to get caramel to make caramel apples. Last year the caramel came with craft sticks to stick in the apples. But this year they didn't...and a box of 60 craft sticks (and we only needed 5) cost more than the caramel did. Last year Doug had gotten bamboo skewers when he didn't know that the caramel came with sticks...so we used those this year. We just had to cut them in half.

The apples ready to be dipped

The caramel trying to melt. It took a really long time for it to melt completely. And you had to stir it constantly, so my arm got tired pretty quick

I got bored while stirring, so I started taking pictures of the apples again

Starting to melt now...

And more...

It's almost there!

Yay! Time for dipping!

Caramel Apples! They were good!

Yummmm

It was such a fun night! I love date nights! Can't wait for the next one!

Kundalini Yoga

I went to a yoga class tonight. Now, I've done yoga before when I went to Bally's gym. Our apartment gym offers yoga classes Tuesday and Thursday nights for free (what a deal!). When I saw my doctor this past week she gave me a prescription to relax an hour a day. To take some time out and focus on me and make myself a priority (she was telling me how as women we tend to be pretty hard on ourselves and put almost everything else above ourselves to the point of harm). So tonight I did that. I studied for about two hours and then went down to yoga class.

This was a different kind of yoga class. I don't know what kind I did at Bally's (I just call it "normal"). It's called Kundalini I think? In this one there is a much bigger focus on meditation, breathing, and spirituality (secular spirituality.) Here are two of the new techniques I learned:

"Breath of Fire": pretty much you hyperventilate. Seriously. You blow puffs of air really fast and rely on your body to naturally inhale again before you're spewing the air back out. While doing big fast arm circles or rocking like a rocking chair on your stomach.

"Third Eye": Now, I've looked in the mirror and I know I only have two. It's just what you're supposed to focus on while you do the breathing and physical exercise. Almost like a focusing point when you're balancing.

Most of the spirituality stuff didn't bother me too much. So much of it had so much truth to it, yet the focus was completely off. Like I said, there was chanting. I have no clue what we were supposed to be pronouncing but the translation went something like, "I acknowledge the divine that is within me and is me." I couldn't help but think "Hi Jesus!" Of course we have a divinity within us once we've asked Christ into our heart! During some of the chanting/singing along with the music (which for me seemed like worship in church, except there were only 3 of us in the class) the line that they were singing while we held our hands over our heart was "I look for the light in me." And in my head I'm screaming "I've found it!" The teacher even described the light as the unconditional love that we are able to feel and give to others. Gah! Another song had the line that they repeated of: "I am peace and peace is within me." Really? I know I'm not peace. I am violent and hurtful and selfish. I only have peace through the One who is the Prince of Peace! I couldn't help but thinking of Jesus saying that to me. "My peace I give you."

The only thing that I could not remedy to Jesus was when the blatantly said: "No one is going to save you or me. Only you and me can save ourselves." Again, in my head I acknowledged the One person that DID save me and saved them too!

The crazy thing? It was the most time I'd spent with Jesus in a really long time. For an hour I was able to meditate on him, what he did for me, and what he still is doing in my life. During that hour of mediation I got to pray for the three women around me. I prayed that they'd find the spiritual fulfillment that they were looking for in the One that could fulfill it. It broke my heart to see how bad they wanted it. At the end a girl was crying because of all the emotion involved (probably not to mention endorphins.)

I'm going to continue to pray for those women. And I'll probably keep going to the class. Who knows what opportunities I may have? Plus, I get to spend time with my God! Complete fixation!

Not to mention it was an awesome work out. I can already tell I am going to be sore!

We've been singing a new song at church and it came to my head tonight. The chorus goes:

"Our God is greater

Our God is stronger

God, you are higher than any other!

Our God is healer

Awesome in Power

Our God, Our God"

It is such a comfort to remember that!

Autumn Baking and Halloween Birthdays

On Friday I made the iced pumpkin cookies! They were sooo good. Kind of tasted like the pumpkin scones at Starbucks, but Starbucks' is a little more dry.

The dry ingredients

The wet ingredients

In the oven!

Cooling

Iced!

Sooo good. Even Doug liked them! If you want to make them, here's the recipe! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Iced-Pumpkin-Cookies/Detail.aspx

Today we celebrated Doug's birthday with my parents. October's a busy month with my work (we bring out all of our holiday stuff next weekend), and my parents are taking a lot of trips (going to a wedding, them mom to Colorado, and then to Greece!), that we might not see both of them together until after Doug's birthday. My mom and I went and got Doug a red velvet cupcake (his favorite type of cake).

Happy Birthday!!

Make a wish!!

We finally found Pumpkin Pie coffeemate! This morning my coffee really tasted like fall. Too bad the weather isn't cooperating. Now to finish my homework. The next couple weeks are going to be BUSY. So if I don't update for a while, that's why :)

Little Housewife

Yesterday was a "little housewife" day for me. Or at least that's how I felt, which was a

good feeling. I love being a wife! In the morning I baked Banana Bread with a strudel topping. It made the whole apartment smell sooo good.

Then I applied some iron on patches to a pair of jeans that have some holes in them. Now, I bought them with the holes there, but the thing about destroyed jeans is that the holes get bigger. Again, this wouldn't relaly be a problem, except for the location of the holes. They're right on the upper thigh, so when you sit down or shift your weight to one leg...your healthy chub gushes out of the hole. Not. That. Flattering. So I got some patches from Michaels and went to work! This is the finished product!

Doug was impressed when I showed him later that night. He said, "They actually look good! A lot of times patches look dumb." Ok, so that's a paraphrase, but I was proud.

Today I don't have school because it's "Fall Break." Gee, thanks for the one day break...
I also have a professor who apparently has the Fall-Break-Means-More-Time-For-Homework mentality and assigned us to read a whole book and write something on it. He also has a Weekend-Means-More-Time-For-Homework mentality, so I'm kinda used to getting overloaded on the weekends. I guess he just doesn't understand that the jobs that college people get usually cater to the people who actually do have weekends off. Someone's got to do the job.

I do have my eye on both a Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie recipe and an Iced Pumpkin Cookie recipe. I don't know which one to make first!

Happy Birthday Reagan!

Reagan is now 2 years old. To celebrate, I thought I'd post the pictures from his birthday party that we had here a couple of weeks ago.

First here is a picture of him all dressed up and handsome for Emily and George's wedding. He loved posing and smiling for us.

His birthday cake that the adult enjoyed. The cars had cool spring loaded switches. So they don't have to be wound up, or pulled back. You just put it on the spring release, hit the button, and they zoom away!

Reagan's very own personal cake. It was supposed to be the free miniature one that Vons gives you with a coupon, but they messed up the order and made this one instead. So they gave it to us for free and Reagan had it all to himself.

Birthday boy! He was kinda tired cause we woke him up from his nap. Devonna, Joe, and Reagan only had a few more hours before they had to leave for the airport and we wanted to have the party! We also invited Nana and Papa via Skype so they got to sing with us and watch him eat his cake and open his presents. He didn't get to blow out any candles because it was too windy outside.

Enjoying his frosting. He mainly stuck to the frosting balloons. He ate two whole of them and then some of the top, with minimal cake.

Yum!

Opening up his card from his Aunt Rochelle and Uncle Doug. It was Spongebob singing Happy Birthday. He loooooves spongebob!

You can't tell from the picture, but he really liked this present. He looves Cars. I haven't heard if he liked the movie yet or not, but I guess he carried the movie around all over the place.

Opening presents. He got two really cool trucks from Mimi and Pappy. This is one of them.

He also got a Mr. Potato Head set. It has 50 pieces. A Mr. Potato Head, a Mrs. Potato Head, and two Sprouts. Plus lots and lots of accessories. He's gonna have so much fun with it!

So pleased with his new cars form the cake



Then he cooled off and went swimming with Mimi and Pappy. He tried out his new inflatable duck.

We are enjoying the weather lately as it begins to feel more like fall. I've been meaning to bake banana bread but just haven't had the time yet. Many nights this week I've been up late doing homework and then needing to take naps in the afternoon to keep up my health and get my needed rest. Oh the life of a college student! But oh how I love naps!

This is just to say...

That if I had the time I would have been an English major.

But considering that I have more homework from my English class,
Than all three psych classes combined;

I am a Psychology major,

And an English minor.

A domestic post...

So today I was cleaning my parents house and they ran out of bathroom cleaner. I went to Target to get the regular Kaboom that we always use (which works great by the way!). Unfortunately they were out of the normal one. Next to where it was supposed to be was a can that said that the cleaner "Changes color as it cleans!" So of course I had to get it (along with a new fall lantern and magnetic paper pad for the fridge).
I get home and clean one of the guest bathrooms first. It was soooo cool. I was really glad that I had the master bathroom left to clean! I decided that when I have kids I'm definitely getting this cleaner so that it's more fun (I mean, look how color changing sunblock made that more fun...or mood rings!). But for now I'm just having fun cleaning.

I just had to take a video of it to share. It's actually a much brighter/deeper blue than what shows up on the camera...It sprays on blue and then fades to white as time passes.