Pre-Marital Bliss

9 years ago today, yes on Halloween, my beloved husband proposed to me. We took a picnic at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL. After driving around trying to find the perfect picnic spot (I think it was at least 45 minutes), we finally settled on a place under a tree. Imagine that, a good place under a tree at an arborteum. :-)

We first ate our lunch, then Brian gets out one of those pumpkin trick or treat bins to put your candy in. Inside it was a ton of candy corn, my favorite halloween candy of all time! I was like ooohhhh sweet, my favorite. All of a sudden, Brian gets out a sheet of paper and he says I wrote a poem for you. It was titled "Candy Corn" and was very sweet (haha get it, pun for dear Grandpa Fred). I had no idea Brian could write poems and good ones at that! He had managed to touch on our years in college together when we were just friends in our civil engineering classes and then the year we had spent together in Chicago. I shed quite a few tears and didn't even realize what was going on, until Brian said look in the candy corn. Buried in the candy corn was a ring box with my engagement ring in it. I was completely surprised and had no idea it was coming. Of course I said yes, and a year and few days later we entered "marital bliss" on November 4th, 2000.

Most people don't remember the specific day they got engaged, but thanks to my creative husband, I will never forget how it happened on Halloween. Thanks baby for the memories!

Crave to Carve

As some of you know, one thing we look forward to doing every year is carving pumpkins come Halloween time. This year we ended up getting one pumpkin for each member of the family from the Kroul farm.

Of course, have the fun is gutting the pumpkins and pulling out the seeds to bake later. The kids love this part!

It was a lot of fun this year as the kids were able to tell me what they wanted carved on their pumpkin. So, here are the results.....

Taylor wanted a pumpkin on her pumpkin with a bat balancing on top of the pumpkin, and of course what ever my girl wants I provide.

Carver decided to go with a scary type of ghost. Here is what I came up with.

Kinnick was the more challenging request as he wanted Bob the Builder on his pumpkin. Though I had some issues with Bob's overalls, all in all it came out pretty good.

Not only I do carve the pumpkins, but Amy is talented as well. Here is the pumpkin she chose and carved herself.

And finally, I decided to go the Star Wars route this year and carved a Darth Vader pumpkin. It was difficult but fun to see the end product. I was then able to take the Vader pumpkin to our church couples group as there are several Star Wars fanatics in our group.

All the pumpkins together!

Fun in Costumes

We had a dress rehearsal for trick or treat night as we took the kids to the Iowa City rec center to enjoy the Halloween festivities Friday night. They had numerous games, crafts, and of course treats for the kids to enjoy. Herky and the Hawkeye spirit squad was in attendance as well.

We Love Fall

Fall means a lot of things.......Iowa football, colorful leaves, cool weather, Amy's veggie beef soup, and our annual trip to the Kroul farm to pick out pumpkins and enjoy the many activities around the farm. Not only is this a great place to spend time with the kids, it is the home to a Hawkeye football player. How can it get any better!

Catching Up

It obviously has been a while since posting so I thought I would try to catch you up on all that is going on around here. You can start by seeing the previous post of our trip with the Iverson's to East Lansing, which was a ton of fun aside from the game results.



In the past few weeks we have been plenty busy by taking place in the following:

• West Branch Homecoming parade, in which Taylor participated by riding on a float.
• Iowa Homecoming parade, where we enjoyed watching and collecting candy with several of our friends and co-workers.
• Visit to the Wilson Apple Orchard. The kids loved the tractor ride out to the trees where we gather two buckets full of apples, enjoyed fabulous turnovers, and had a wonderful afternoon. Amy made some great homemade applesauce and we continue to enjoy apples with caramel from the orchard.
• Hosted the monthly Dinsanity party.
• And most recently, have been working hard in the yard. The kids had the opportunity to plant their very own Norway Pine trees, thanks to cousin Logan supplying the trees. Last Saturday was spent outside all day clearing and burning brush, cutting down trees, etc. On Sunday we were able to obtain four 6'-10' beautiful spruce trees thanks to our friend and my co-worker Rob Dykstra. I hope to get some pictures on in the next couple of days as the trees look great.

20 Minutes

Though the outcome wasn't what we were hoping for, Amy and I enjoyed a great weekend in East Lansing as we joined our faithful Hawks Bill and Katie for a roadtrip to the Iowa v. Michigan State game.

The campus was nice, weather good, and company great; but we really don't care if we visit the stadium again. Though it was a great view from the upper deck, the design was brutal and trips to the bathroom weren't exactly quick.

In addition to the brutal outcome of the game, it took us 20 minutes to get from our seats to the outside gates of the stadium. Sadly enough, we were so frustrated from the game that we actually timed this painful journey.

In our search for a parking spot prior to the Hawkeye Huddle and game, we couldn't help but notice this glorious parking ramp. Yes, that is brightly colored corrugate sheet metal over the steel structure itself. The pictures don't even do it justice.