Trunk or Treat 2018

We're in the midst of a Halloween-palooza here! Today started off our crazy week with trunk-or-treating at church. We had hayrides, LOTS of candy, hot dogs and a ton of awesome costumes! Luke went as his trusty costume, a hobbit, and Charlie went as...??? Flashdance? An 80's Exercise Instructor? I'm not really sure how to classify it, but it was really funny and super cute. She hated the sweatband we bought for her so that was nixed, and we bribed her to keep the wristbands and leg warmers on. Both she and Luke had waaayyy too much candy tonight, but I guess that's the fun part of Halloween.

Costumes are continued this week at boy scouts, school (for Charlie) and then actual trick-or-treating on Wednesday night. By that point we'll have enough sugar in this house that all of our hair will be standing on end.

These past few weeks have seemed a little long. It's been hard around our house without Emma. That dog annoyed us to pieces when she was alive, but I miss her so much now. I never realized what a roomba she was until she was gone and there are snack pieces left about the house. Lola is so old she can't see crumbs lying around, but Emma was all over it. There's still a very empty place in my heart where she was.

We're back at it this week. Luke has a two hour early release on Wednesday and I'm going in to do parent volunteering that morning, too, so my day off to myself will be cut short. Our house seems to be in shambles, but I guess that's ok.  The laundry is piled up and my bathrooms are nasty. Wednesday may be a whirlwind of me trying to clean. I'm just tired. There doesn't seem to be much downtime lately and it's getting to me. We went on our vacation and came back to things piled up and deadlines to meet and the holidays are around the corner which has me a little frazzled. Oh well... Time to pull up the ole bootstraps and get a move on. No use in complaining. Happy Halloween!

We get about 2 days a year when the weather is perfect and the leaves are changing. I'm glad that one of those mornings was a weekend where we could enjoy it.

She has quite the personality these days!

10 Years Married

This has been a weird, weird week. Good in many ways, very sad in others.

For the past few weeks, our doggie, Emma, had been slowing down on her eating habits. She would drink water, lots of water, until she'd throw up, and she had obviously lost a little bit of weight. I hadn't realized how much weight she had lost until Tuesday when she got so sick that she couldn't make it back up the stairs and I noticed that her collar was hanging loose from her neck. I made a blanket for her, went on to work and asked my mom to check in on her that morning. My mom texted me and said she didn't think poor Emma was doing very well at all, so I called the vet, got an appointment and figured that this was it for our little dog. On the drive there, she didn't raise her head and just laid on my lap the entire time. She also didn't get excited when we went into the vet's office which was weird for her too. The vet offered us the option of running all sorts of tests to see what was wrong and if it would be treatable, but I could tell by the look in her eyes that she did not feel good and everything hurt. We decided to go forward with having her put to sleep. It was very, very sad and we miss her terribly, but I guess that's all part of having a dog. It's all very difficult and I miss her most when I'm laying on the couch or cooking in the kitchen (the two places that she was my shadow). Poor Lola is so disoriented about everything, I'm not even sure she realized that Emma is gone. It sure is different with just one dog.

Thursday was mine and Dillon's 10 year anniversary and we had a trip planned since January to go to Savannah and celebrate. It was an inopportune time for us to take a trip, but in a way I'm glad we got out of town. It was really hard to be in the house without our barking, peeing pup.

We had a lovely trip and some nice relaxation time. We ate when we wanted to (and WHERE we wanted to!), we took time to just walk and sit on park benches and hold hands. The weather was perfect and the food was fantastic. Savannah is such a beautiful city and everyone there was so incredibly nice. I'd go back in a heartbeat. We did miss the kiddoes and kept noticing things that they would like to do, but it was also nice to have some time to ourselves.

I read an article this year that talked about marriage and the author said something about it's not marriage that's difficult, it's life. It's the 4:30 am wake ups, births of babies, miscarriages, low bank accounts, having your dog put to sleep, long work weeks, school projects, buying and selling houses, paperwork, insurance, etc... you name it. Waking up to the same person day in and day out is easy. Walking in the park and taking trips is easy, too, but it's that real stuff that binds us together. The experiences in our lives that we've shared makes me happy to have Dill as my teammate. I like taking fancy trips with him as much as watching Netflix on the couch. Happy Anniversary, love.

We stayed at the Wilkes House on Jones Street. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever stayed.

We walked right out into the historic district!

But he really is!

Anniversary dinner at Garibaldi's!

Or "Forest Gump's Square"

Staying at the Wilkes House means that we got a free lunch at Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room. I've never seen so much food in my life! Also we sat in line starting at 9:00. We were the first one's in!

This was the line by the time we left. 

Ghost tour! 

The Olde Pink House

Does anyone else see the orb on our tour guide's shirt?!

Oh! And Dillon surprised me with a new ring at our anniversary dinner! It's a beautiful ring with sapphires and diamonds!

At the Jepson Center

This guy was a trip... We were just sitting next to the river and he came up to us and just started making me a flower. When he found out it was our anniversary, he made a huge heart with more flowers... Then he promptly asked for $15. HA! Dillon gave him the last $9 cash we had. 

We went for a walk on our street last night. They were also filming a remake of Lady and the Tramp on our street so it was kind of a mess. We couldn't park on our street, they were filming at 1:00 in the morning and we constantly had to have someone take us to our house. They finally finished up yesterday so we got to enjoy a quiet street.