Here Come the Holidays!

Marianna's small pumpkin

We have officially entered the holiday season and excitement is in the air! We kicked off the holiday season by celebrating my birthday a few days early with a group of friends at our favorite bar, Ale House. It was great fun and no one threw up, so all in all it was a successful night! The following Tuesday Brian took me to the Space Needle's revolving restaurant for an intimate, romantic dinner. It was delicious and a great time, I would highly recommend eating there to anyone living in or visiting the Seattle area. Wednesday, October 20th is my real birthday, I spent the day riding bikes with my friend, Rachael, and then returned home and sat in a bubble bath with cake and champagne and spent a few hours catching up with my mom. Brian had to work an insane day, so we did not spend hardly any of my actual birthday together. I'm hoping next year I will get to spend at least some of the day with him.

The big news from October 20 is that my cousin, Kate, had her baby boy, Jack! He is a cute little booger and I am so happy for her and her husband (also named Brian).

Brian's small pumpkin: Darth Vader

Next up was Halloween, which was kind of low key, but still fun. We went to Ale House the night before...of course in costume...and enjoyed a few drinks. We took off before the costume contest, but we are confident that we would have won. Brian and I dressed up as Mario and Luigi (we made our costumes) and everyone was excited to see us! We were really excited about having Trick-or-Treaters for our first Halloween in our first house. It was great, we bought just the right amount of candy and even have a little bit left over for ourselves! We dressed up as Mario and Luigi again and every time we answered the door we were greeted with "ITS MARIO AND LUIGI!!! TRICK OR TREAT!!" Another highlight of the night was the number of compliments we received on our pumpkins. At first Brian was just going to carve a face into his, but I gave him a lesson on how we will be doing Halloween. We picked out some intricate patterns and carved them into the pumpkins, coming away with only one stabbing to a thumb. Here are a few shots of the finished products:

Marianna's large pumpkin: Mario

Brian's large pumpkin: Autobot

Brian's birthday is coming up on Sunday, I have some plans for him, but those are for the next post!

In other news, I have been working on the FRG basket for the holiday bazaar. I was supposed to get donations from members of the FRG, but no one except for 3 people wanted to participate, so I ended up spending quite a bit of money to make our basket the best. It looks great, hopefully it will bring in some big cash for the Lewis Community Spouses Club (LCSC). I also found out that one of my very best friends is going to have a baby boy sometime in March! I'm so excited for Franny and Christian! Seems like everyone is having babies, getting pregnant, or trying to get pregnant. That is still a ways down the road for us, so no worries Mom!!

Well, that's all for now!

Marianna