Today: Temple Trip and All Hallows Eve

Today has been such a long day! Myself, Toni and Matt, and their kids left early this morning (about 7:20 am) to go to the Winter Quarters Temple near Omaha, Nebraska, which is about 3 to 3 1/2 hours away. It's a long trip but always worth the drive. Shane did baptisms (proxy baptisms for the dead) and I helped with the youth by handing out towels. Our youth group is such a great group of strong spirits and I love to see them doing this work for others. This is such a selfless act and requires the sacrifice of a day that could have been spent numerous other ways.

It strengthens my own testimony of what I believe is true each time I experience this. Everytime I go to the temple I feel so incredibly sprititually fulfilled and uplifted. I love it! If it didn't take such planning and a full day I'd try to be there much more often. There is a temple planned for the Kansas City area sometime in the near future. I'm looking forward to that one as it will only be about 2 1/2 hours away and in an area I'm more familiar with. Both Omaha and Kansas City offer a lot of options for shopping and family fun so either one is great for a fast family vacation as well.

I just realized a couple days ago that our 3-day family trip to Omaha was over three years ago! That was the first "family vacation" we took that was just the four of us (without going to visit other family for family events such as graduations and weddings). It's past time for us to do it again! I'm hoping that this winter, as long as the baby and I are doing well, we will get to go to Colorado again. We were able to go last year for a week and a half and it was perfect. I'm crossing my fingers! At this point our house has not been rented for the dates we could possibly go (anytime while I'm on maternity leave and Shaun is slow at work).

Tonight, Halloween, Shane has met up with a couple friends to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood while Shaun and Logan headed the opposite direction in our neighborhood. Logan is REALLY wishing that he had a friend his age to trick-or-treat with but with as busy as we've been we didn't plan for him to do so. Shaun is having fun watching Logan bounce house to house (and bring in a treasure chest of candy). Our neighborhood has a large majority of elderly couples so I made sure the boys all started in our neighborhood first. Next they plan to hit one of Shane's friend's neighborhoods were the houses are closer together and that neighborhood is also known for good candy. It was fun to let Shane go with this friends this year rather than sticking with Shaun and Logan. Since he's 12 (13 in 6 days!!!) this is his last year of trick-or-treating. He's known this is our rule but I can tell he's going to miss it. I told him earlier this evening that he's welcome to bring Logan around next year and that if he does so I'm sure Logan will share the candy. They really don't eat much of it anyway and it seems to last all year so it's more about the fun than the sweets. Maybe next year Shane and I can visit a few haunted houses!

Costumes:

Logan- Thursday night (church party and "trunk or treat") Logan was a sith (from Star Wars). Tonight Logan is a cowboy wearing a denim shirt, jeans, his cowboy boots, a bandana on his head, and one of Shaun's old hats.

Shane- Both nights he's been a Jedi (also Star Wars, as if you didn't know!).

Me- Thursday night and all day yesterday I wore jeans and a VERY cute pregnant skeleton shirt which a friend at work recently bought for me at a local craft fair. I think I should get in contact with the lady who made them and see if she wants to start a business. EVERYWHERE we went yesterday people were loving the shirt and commenting on it. It's a black shirt with the skeleton (including baby skeleton) bleached onto it. The bones are a brown color. It's perfect for someone as far along as I am! It could also be a great way to surprise friends if you are pregnant or a great way to freak people out to let them think you are even if you aren't. :) I even had a couple people ask me if I'm pregnant. Hmmm, you think? One of them said that if I wasn't I had the perfect sized and shaped belly for it! Yep! I'm not wearing the shirt right now. I'm still in my dress clothes from the temple trip. I'm too exhausted to change into another outfit which wouldn't be seen by anyone other than the very few kids knocking on doors in our neighborhood.

Shaun- No costume, just being himself, which can be scary enough! Hehe.

I'll try to post pictures of the kids in their costumes and me in my shirt within the next couple days. We still need to take the pictures before the boys head off to their next destination.

I forgot to mention- I'm at home passing out the candy! The perfect job to end the day. I get to sit here playing on my computer and answering the rare knocking/doorbell ringing. As I think I said above, we do not get many visitors!