A Fireman & His Dalmatian

A little (ok, a lot) slow on the Halloween post, but we had fun celebrating with the boys and they (mostly) had fun wearing their costumes. They got to go “trick or treating” at their grandparents’ house about a week before Halloween, then had fun at an MBA Halloween party. We weren’t sure how they would do trick or treating on Halloween, but they both seemed to have fun. Ryan figured things out pretty quickly and would go right for the candy bowl when they opened the door, and as soon as he got his candy, was ready to move on to the next house. Bennett apparently figured things out pretty well too - now every time he prays, he says "Bless that trick-or-treating comes up again". Here are a few pictures:

    

Carving Pumpkins {Oct 28}

From left to right: Camille’s, Bryce’s, Mine (Ryan’s), and Bennett’s. Bennett said he wanted a sad face on his pumpkin and demonstrated for us several times so we would know how to carve the pumpkin’s mouth – see the photo below for his example sad face.

Halloween Half Marathon {Oct 27}

I ran my first half marathon a few weeks ago. I was pretty nervous leading up to it – I had actually been pretty consistent in following my training schedule, but had a bad cold early in the week and it snowed 2 days before the race and was predicted to be really cold that morning. Despite all that, it went pretty well and I finished a little earlier than I expected. There was definitely a rough patch in the middle (I accidentally turned my ipod off and couldn’t get it back on, which meant I had no music and no way of tracking my time or distance) and the last mile was killer, but I survived! I trained with a few other MBA wives and it made the long runs so much better. I’m glad to be done with it, but it was a great experience and I’d love to do one again! Nate was out of town for a school thing and my sister Camille was kind enough to come over just before 6am and watch Bennett & Ryan while I ran. She and Bryce brought the boys over to watch me finish. Thanks Cam!

Bryce holding Ryan while they waited for me; the one shot of me running – waving at the kids; and my favorite face of Ryan’s :)