Ferguson Went Home

Today was just...insane. After a rough night of Will waking up and going back to sleep and me having weird dreams due to watching The Dark Knight and afraid that Will was going to make me get up again, I started my day out at about 7. No wait, I started it out at like 8:30 really because I have this morning ritual since my son and I disagree about what time is good to get up. Will wakes up and fusses or plays or something for as long as I can manage to get away with staying in bed. Then I begrudgingly get up, regretful for staying up too late AGAIN (every night actually) and I quietly retrieve him from the crib, change his diaper, and then plop him on the living room floor with the toys. I fish out the official brown fuzzy "living room blanket" and snuggle up on the couch for another hour of bad sleep. Will is usually pretty good about entertaining himself and sometimes I let him watch the weirdest kids' show next to Yo Gabba Gabba ("I wanna go to the party in your tummy!") called Crazy Town or something. After I finally decide to wake up, I feed Will some cereal and then put him to bed for his morning nap.

Anyway, that was this morning, followed by me doing random activities until about 1 pm, when I had to start getting ready for the afternoon errands: 1) go to post office to mail packages to David and Rachel and 2) take Will to his first ever dentist appointment. More on that later. Well, Aaron had come home from school during lunch to leave the car with me so I could do said errands and then caught a ride back to school. So as I go to load up the car, I discover that there are no car keys to be found! I know for a fact that I had hung up my keys by the entryway so I thought maybe Aaron had taken them and now had both sets of keys. So I texted him at school, called him twice, no reply. I thought about who I could possibly turn to for a ride, as they needed to possess a car seat as well. Finally I thought of a girl in my ward, Chelsi. She'd just had a baby so I knew she'd probably be home and not going anywhere. Fortunately she WAS home and had a car seat for me as well as a car. The only problem was that the car seat was set for her tiny little newborn baby and Will is NOT so tiny anymore, so even as much as we pulled out the straps, they weren't long enough. Fortunately she also had a front-facing car seat for her older son so I just put Will in there. Yes, I am aware that it's not safe to have your kid under a year and facing forward, but I figured it was safer in there than in the rear-facing seat and not buckled in at all.

We drive to Aaron's school and go inside, hoping that Aaron will finally respond to a text, and he does. So we get my keys back from him, take the car back to Chelsi, get into our car, and go BACK to Aaron's school for the dentist appointment. Whew. After filling out a bunch of paperwork, our student doc named Lauren came and got us, and she was awesome. She checked out Will's two little teethies and gave him a toothbrush and a finger puppet and he was admired all around. The trip made me excited for when Aaron can be our dentist. She also told me how much more laid-back the third year of dental school is, and there's virtually no homework and a lot more down time. Plus you are in the clinic almost the whole time so it's basically like being a dentist already. But then she told me the fourth year there will be rotations (which I knew about) but she said they go for 6 weeks (which I didn't know) and it's possible that he would have to be in another state for 6 weeks...sheesh. I hope that doesn't happen. But there are a bunch of rotations in the Phoenix area as well as in Utah. And you can apparently set up your own private rotation wherever you want. So lots to look forward to.

After the dentist, we loaded back up to go to the post office, which in retrospect, I am so happy that we did afterwards. Because the line was ginormous...there were probably 25 people in front of me. I stood in line for an hour before I finally got to the front. I don't know, maybe some of you people have me beat but lets remember I was toting along an increasingly hungry+tired=whiny little boy and I was tired and hungry myself. Overall, it was a pretty tiring day, complete with headache.

I regret to say that we have spent a lot of money on presents this Christmas. It is kind of hard not to when you have a kid to buy for, it makes shopping more fun. But I'm thinking that next year we're going to definitely make cutbacks in our Christmas spending. This Christmas has just been weird. It doesn't feel much like Christmas because my entire life Christmas has been associated with final exams, snow, and crazy shoppers. And growing up, my mom always did some fun traditions that always made it feel like Christmas: decorating sugar cookies, caroling, driving around to look at holiday lights, etc. This year there is no snow, no final exams, and less crazy shoppers because I think Utah has more than Arizona. Also I'm not making sugar cookies because I would be too tempted to eat them, no caroling because we don't really know the neighbors, and no driving around to look at lights because we're all recovering from our bajillionth cold this year.

Which brings me to this weekend. It was supposed to be a great weekend. We had decided to celebrate our own Christmas in Arizona so we wouldn't have to lug as many gifts up to Utah and so we could enjoy them a little bit since we'll be up there for two weeks. I was excited to do our own little Christmas Eve, and spent the whole day on Friday preparing for it. I made a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, and a pistachio pudding/cream cheese dessert. Unfortunately, Aaron came home from school at 5 and collapsed on the couch, feeling like death. Will had also come down with a cough and runny nose. I still felt good, though. That is, until I spent the weekend taking care of two sickies, cooking the Christmas Eve dinner, cleaning the trashed house, and running all my errands. I came down with a mild cold on Saturday night but felt much worse on Sunday. Aaron and Will were worse than I, however, and were quarantined at home. We had to start giving Will the albuterol again (the medicine that makes him incredibly hyper and have insomnia) to get rid of his cough and while it has helped his cough go away, last night he woke up at 2 and then again at 3 and wouldn't go back to bed. So I was playing with my baby at 3 am last night. Let's just say it was a rough night. And now that he's almost better, I'm not giving him any more meds so maybe we'll have a normal night tonight.

Back to "Christmas Eve." The dinner wasn't ready until 7, so Aaron gave Will a bath and put him to bed while I finished cooking. I wanted Will to be there for the dinner, but he was not in a good mood and it just made our lives easier. The dinner tasted pretty good, but Aaron's taste buds were weird since he was sick. But I have to say it was a really good chicken recipe. We were going to read from the scriptures and watch Christmas movies while we finished wrapping presents, but we just were so exhausted that I think we just ended up watching "Home Alone" and went to bed. So it wasn't a very exciting Christmas morning, because we slept in late and hadn't filled our stockings or anything. I'm hoping that maybe next year will run more smoothly. But we still did take a few minutes to help Will open some of his presents. And Aaron gave me some clothes (that I bought myself) and a surprise: the AE Pride and Prejudice, which as any fan knows, is the best one. But we're saving most of our gift-giving for Utah.Will's favorite part was the wrapping paper, as you can tell from the video.



So now that we're starting to feel better, we have decided to limit our social outings to the absolutely necessary ones until we're past this. I guess moving to a new state makes you catch all the new viruses that are there, so hopefully we won't be as sick next year. But I have to say, being sick actually has made it feel more like winter here!

Since I have been having trouble coming up with something to blog about and my audience is sure to be nagging me soon enough, I have decided to come up with a "Challenge" tag. Meaning that I am going to single out a few people who I know read my blog occasionally and ask them to blog about something specifically.

Kent: I would like to hear your top 5 biggest pet peeves (at work? at home? you choose!)
Sunnie: Write your 5 best tips for traveling with little kids
Rachel: Write the details about your new little adventure!
Nate: Please write the 5 things you are most looking forward to in the next few months
Jo: I would like to hear your thoughts on the best Christmas you had both in Alabama and in Utah
Liesl: Write your top 5 things you learned about college life and being a student
Britnee: Write the most unexpected things you learned about Matt after getting married to him
Tracie: I want to hear the 5 best things about working from home
Pete: Please write about the top 5 things you miss about the United States

For most of you, I chose the number 5 because it's a pretty easy number to fulfill, but don't feel tied to it. Anyway, I hope that you will take my challenge because I really do want to read all the things I asked about!

Happy Birthday to my Dad who turned retirement age yesterday! But yet he is not going to retire because he actually likes his job. Here he is graduating, a million years ago. He was so skinny! Or as my mom once said, "He has the smallest head I've ever seen!"

So Christmas seems to be sneaking up on us really quickly this year, is that the case for anyone else? We have decided to have our own little Christmas celebration here in Arizona before we go back to Utah for the real thing. And that Christmas is going to happen next weekend! That's crazy to me. Maybe because it's finally cooling down here...I'm tempted to actually wear a jacket outside.
So in our Christmas preparations, I finished putting up the Christmas decorations. It's such a big chore and this is the second time I've done it in two weeks. I'm always a bit overwhelmed at the beginning, thinking 'how on earth are all these things going to get put together to make my house beautiful?" but yet somehow it comes together and I'm happy to say that my tree looks great!
My decorations are the same as the last few years, but somehow it just looks so much prettier in this new apartment. Maybe it's because I'm not three inches away from it (our last place was tiny.) I've wrapped a few of Will's presents, and he's already so excited that he's been trying to sneak a peek.Speaking of that little person, I wanted to include this cute picture of him going to bed. We give him a little bottle and his stuffed froggy and he hugs it so close while he drinks his bottle.
That's about all we've been up to. Just truckin' along.

Yes, I know it has been an abnormally long time for me to not post. To that I say: tough beans. I feel that it is occasionally okay for me to step away from blogging to have a vacation. But now I am back, so my duty binds me to let you all know what on earth we've been up to.

First, the trip home. All I can say is wow. Why on earth did we think it would be fun to drive 11 hours to Utah, then 11 hours back only to go 11 hours BACK to Utah three weeks later?! The drive just feels SO long. Especially since we left later in the day so that Will would hopefully sleep more. That part worked, thankfully, and he was pretty good during the trips. The hard part was that we arrived at around midnight and it just made the trip feel like it took forever. So moving on, we arrived.

Sunday was church and all that. We ate at my family's house since we were celebrating my little brother's birthday. Monday Aaron and I visited the old alma mater to see the new buildings and stuff. We ended up spending a lot of time and money at the Bookstore buying BYU paraphernalia since we didn't have any and we need to represent out here in AZ. We also had lunch with Tyler at the new restaurant in Provo called Spark. It's in the Wells Fargo building. It's a pretty fun place, the food and drinks were good. A little bit overpriced for the portion we got, but still good. 4 stars. We spent the rest of the day driving to Aaron's friends' houses to make quick visits.Will with Grandpa John in their Sundee clothes. Will has learned that when a camera is in front of him it means Smile!

Tuesday we went to lunch with Aaron's friends Ammon and Nate at Aaron's favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant, Tacos Guanajuatos. Will snuck some al pastor pork and we reaped the consequences later for that. He's quite the little vulture or 'grubhook' as my mom would say. Just wants everything we're eating. Or wants everything we have. Basically just wants what he can't have. I guess he's setting himself up for a lifetime of disappointment! Anyway, afterwards we shopped around before depositing Will back at John & Libbie's so we could go to the temple. It was great to go, especially since we also took the opportunity to go out to eat (since we obviously had not done that enough that week) and visit my friends Tracie and Austin.

Wednesday I went shopping with my mom since she wanted my help decorating her house for Christmas this year. Of course I was glad to oblige, since it was her money and I love to decorate. Then Shera came over and hung out while we got ready to do family pictures, which she took later up in Alpine. Will was fine during his solo shots but was very grumpy during the family pictures so we had to cut the session short, but we still got some good ones. I was wearing this shiny necklace at first that he could not get out of his mind, even when I hid it from him. We finally ended up giving it to him to play with since he's just a stubborn little boy. And he's learning that if he grumbles loud enough he will get his way. And I'm thinkin'...that's gotta stop.

After the photo shoot, we all went and got stuff for makin' pies and spent the whole evening (I mean until 11 pm) baking pies. I made two key lime and two pumpkin and Shera made two pumpkin and one key lime. I was SO exhausted by the time I fell into bed, but it was fun to hang out with Shera.
Thursday of course was Thanksgiving. We had breakfast in the morning with Aaron's brother John and his wife Leah. Jenny and Alex were there too of course and so all of John and Libbie's grandkids were all together. Alex is a big big boy and it was cute to watch him do his little pushups to go from his belly to sitting up. Will has not demonstrated any interest in crawling, despite all my sister's best efforts. I am satisfied that is is just a slow mover. He is definitely a smart boy and can do all kinds of things, but he will just take his time getting around. Although I think he'll figure it out. He usually does. Which is totally okay with me because I've been pretty lazy with the baby proofing and stuff.
After breakfast we headed to my sister's house where Thanksgiving dinner was held in her newly finished addition. Here are some pictures for those of you who are interested. It looked really great and now has a beautiful view of Timpanogos. Dinner was delish and Will enjoyed his mashed potatoes and peas. He mostly enjoyed playing with the spoon. These pictures are of my brother and my nieces. And of course Will and Aaron.This is Camille, my sister's premature baby who was born at 23 weeks. She's 13 months now! She's at about Will's developmental level or so and doing great. She's got very chubby cheeks! My sister's very silly daughter Mindy. She is hilarious and says the funniest things. She reminds me of myself when I was little: always trying to be the center of attention by getting in everyone's face and doing flips on the furniture. We hung out for a bit and then headed over to Jack and Michele Ferguson's house to see Aaron's family. We stayed there for awhile, but Will was just SO ready for bed, so we just went back to John and Libbie's house and watched a movie.

Friday I spent most of the day at my parents' house helping them decorate. It was a lot of work! However my family helped me a lot so it went a lot quicker. I can't believe I used to do it by myself for years. After that me, Aaron, and Will went to dinner at CPK with my parents. And then did a little more strolling around the mall. And then Walmart. And of course ended up buying more stuff.

Saturday we just hung out at the Ferguson's and had a quiet day. Of course I did have to step out with Libbie to visit Taipan but we didn't get anything there but a little fatter, since we had to sample their fudge. We celebrated Aaron's birthday that night with a delicious home cooked dinner and birthday cookies. And Sunday we drove home.

Okay, for those of you who are still reading this, I am amazed. Even if you skimmed, you deserve a cookie.

Monday was Aaron's 26th birthday! I wanted it to be a good day for him since he always has to go to school and study a lot. Not to mention that I had to go grocery shopping, laundry, etc. I had all his presents, fortunately. I decided to make his favorite foods this week: pizza, steak with portobellos, tortellini, chicken alfredo. So yes, we're not recovering from last week's overeating, we're just piling it on. But it was fun getting all ready. We invited Spongebob over for the celebration. This is us waiting for Aaron, with the traditional Hansen birthday wrapping: plastic bags. We gave Aaron the Harry Potter books 1-6, The Office season 1 (we have the others), Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit, a Camila CD (a Spanish band), and a BYU t-shirt. And we had Aaron's favorite cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory for his birthday cake since he actually doesn't like cake.Happy Birthday Aaron! You are a great husband and father and work so hard in school to be able to provide a good future for our family. I'm so glad I married you! I love you!

All in all, it was a very fun and busy trip but I'm glad to be home. It always takes me awhile to recover from a trip, so I'm trying not to think too much about our Christmas trip coming up in another few weeks...yikes.

So this photo tag didn't exactly work out like everyone else's. It seems like everyone's fourth folder/fourth picture tag was this beautiful family picture. This was mine:This was taken when I used to work for the radio station 101.9 doing remotes. This was was fun but freezing. It was like January and they turned on the water slides for people who were brave enough to slide down the frigid water.
Anyway, since this was kind of a lame picture, I decided to take the fourth picture of several other picture folders (my pictures are not very well organized, sorry.)
Our first year married: I planted this Gerbera daisy that was a centerpiece at our wedding dinner and it sat outside our first apartment.What?! Another flower picture? Yes, people, let's not forget what I do (or did) for a living. This was from a wedding I did last year, it's the bride's bouquet. Sorry it's not a great picture.So I know this picture is hard to see, but this was the 4th picture from my Photo Booth. It's Aaron being silly.I love this picture. It's me, brushing my teeth. For some reason I always hold my hand back, like a Deacon passing the Sacrament. My friend AJ thought it was funny so she took a picture. This is my favorite picture in the bunch. Will, only about 2 weeks old. Look how tiny he is! That binky is eating his face. It's weird to think of him that little...he hasn't sucked on a pacifier for months and his hair is a lot longer and crazier. I love my Will-bear!

Thanks for tagging me Leah, this was fun. It's a unique way to get to know someone.

So I guess it's been a little while since I've blogged about what's happening in our actual lives. In truth, it has been kind of busy, but nothing that's too exciting. We're getting ready for our trip home for Thanksgiving and looking forward to seeing the snow and wearing winter clothes. I bought some things for Will that I'm excited to dress him in. One is a snow suit kind of like the one that kid wears on A Christmas Story.
Will has been up and down with his health...he's had a cold, hence the hyper-causing medicine. Then last night he woke up at about 10 crying and we couldn't soothe him for almost an hour, which has never happened. We didn't know what was wrong with him, thinking maybe he'd had a bad dream or maybe a headache or even maybe a sore throat. So we gave him some tylenol and Aaron gave him a blessing and he finally settled down. And was completely fine after that. No idea what was wrong.
In other news, he's eating a lot more solids and eating his little cracker/cereal treats like a pro, grasping them between his finger and thumb in the pincer grasp. We have to teach him 'no spitting' though because otherwise we both need a bath afterwards. But I think he's learning, he did much better today. He's also learning how to wave hello/goodbye. His bottom two teeth are completely up and are very cute. He's very ticklish, in the exact same places as me. So of course I torture him by pinning his arms up and digging into his armpits, much like my brothers did to me. He's confident with his sitting up, but still refuses to roll. I think he'll be a slow crawler. But most of the time he's pretty easy to take care of, plays well by himself, and is a lot more interested in us. I played the guitar for him the other day and he was delighted.
Speaking of guitar, I played the guitar today with my friend Tiffany. I haven't played with anyone in forever, and it's actually kind of hard to find people to play guitar with, despite the number of people who play the guitar. I'm married to someone who can play the guitar but we never play together because of various reasons. Anyway, it is nice to have someone to jam with now, so we're going to do it a lot more. Plus it's nice because she has a daughter (Will's girlfriend, remember?) so we just let them hang out while we hang out.
So I've been busy with pretty mundane stuff: visiting teaching, going to the gym, enrichment, grocery shopping, etc. One thing I'm trying to work on is food storage. It's actually a lot harder to do this than I thought. There are a lot of things that you need but don't keep that well. So I'm going to have to learn how to can, because apparently there are tons of things you can can. Like butter.
Aaron has been studying as usual but spending a lot of time watching NCIS and playing with Will. Our date nights have been pretty chill lately, although last weekend we went Christmas shopping, which is still fun because it's not super hectic yet. Other than that we're just enjoying the cooler weather (although today it was like 90 degrees) and looking forward to Thanksgiving break.

Have you guys seen Over the Hedge? You know that part towards the end when the Squirrel drinks the Red Bull knock-off and is moving so fast that he seemingly freezes time? Well we've got a Squirrel on Red Bull in our house.

Will got my nasty cold last week and since he doesn't know how to clear his throat, all the lovely gunk in his throat has gone deep down there, close to being in his lungs. The PA said it was in his lungs, but Aaron said it probably really wasn't since that would be pneumonia. So whatever, I'm staying out of this one. Nevertheless, she prescribed something for Will, so we got him started on the medication to clear out his mucus.

Little did I know the side effects. Will is mimicking a wind-up toy that is wound up and ready to be put on the floor to take off. His hyperactivity is insane, it's like he's running a marathon. And it also causes insomnia, which means that our wonderful night sleeper is getting up several times a night, completely wide awake. It's not THAT bad, since once we finally let him cry himself to sleep at around 11 pm (there was no other way to get him to sleep) he slept until morning. Mostly it's just entertaining, since he's so hyper. He's happier than ever and laughs a lot more.


He seriously did this for like an hour straight.

I, as many of you are, am a blog stalker. I read tons of blogs of people who I don't know very well, but I DO, in fact, know them. But they might be people that I haven't seen since high school or friends of my siblings, but I am now confessing this because I just made a blogroll. So don't get weirded out if you see your own blog link on the list, because you know you do it too.

Next item on the agenda: I hate to have to do this, but I think we're going to make our blog private. I have been thinking about this for a long time since my counter has been hitting some abnormally high numbers. Finally, I added a map to see where some of these hits were coming from and it was a little freaky. I hate to think of some weirdo out there eyeing my little boy [Weirdos: this means you!] And I have had some random comments on my blog from time to time, so yes there are plenty of people who I don't know reading my blog. I fully expected this when I started my blog, since it wasn't private and was on the internet. I wanted old friends to be able to find my blog and stuff, which has happened. But the novelty has worn off, and I'm ready to make my life belong to just people I actually know.

So the point is, (collective sigh from my family) that you actually have to email me or leave a comment of your email address so I can invite you to read my blog. And I am encouraging all of you lurkers (who know me or my family) who read my blog to email me as well because I don't want to leave you out in the cold. Please accept my invitation, sign in, and continue leaving your comments on my blog! My email is hhferguson@gmail.com.

Thanks, and I apologize because I know this is a major pain.

Tonight Aaron was watching the history channel and it was all about Star Wars. This is what I learned:

"In case you were wondering why you never see Darth Vader snacking on Empire cuisine, he is fed all the nutrients he needs through a feeding tube that goes through his suit."

At last I know. And yes, Darth Vader is doing his genealogy, so you should too.

So I was lying in bed, trying to help my body recover from this cold, but all my mind could think of was this particular issue, which I want to now blog about.

Aspirations and Adjustment

This is life. For me, my life has always been a series of aspirations and plans and watching them not really work out the way I forsaw, and then adjusting to it. This isn't meant to sound depressing, because I think I've had a good life so far. But it is a common theme that I've noticed, and it's not just in my own life. I think everyone can attest to this. For example:

Me, last year when we were planning on living in Arizona, before I had Will:
"When I'm a stay at home mom and we're living in a warm place, we're going to do so much fun stuff! We're going to do constant activities and hang out with all these other new moms and it's going to be awesome!"

And then we moved, and I very quickly learned three things:
1) It was incredibly hot and I rarely wanted to be outside.
2) I had a 3-month-old baby who would rather stick to a strict schedule of eating and sleeping and could care less about doing 'fun' activities.
3) We just so happened to move to a place where there are very few couples with one small baby.

Was I disappointed? A little, maybe. But I found my rhythm, and I really don't do that many activities like I thought I would, but yet I am okay. Taking care of a baby is tiring, and when I get a little free time that doesn't include errands, chores, or housecleaning, the thought of shlepping baby, stuff, and me to some place that probably wouldn't be that great is sometimes not always what I want to do. And so I am fine with my daily routine, which rarely includes activities or hangouts with other new moms. Actually, I have found that when I do make plans like that, they sometimes become a burden because I have to work them into our schedule and it gets tricky.

My reason for discussing this is because I have made my peace with Obama. I realize that it is inevitable that once he has been the President for a little while, he will learn why Bush's 2004 platform was "Being President is hard work." Obama has some crazy ideas for change, but I'm sure that once he's actually in office, some of those plans won't work out the way he forsaw it, and some other plans might only work if they are tweaked a little bit. That is life.

And we Americans, who had such hopes and aspirations for a better future, will continue to be disappointed time and time again, and Obama is going to disappoint many people as well. So we will reach a level of compromise, in which the President realizes that not all his grand schemes can come to pass and we realize that not all our dreams can come true. We will continue to be whiny and sulky and that seems to make us happy, if only because it's so familiar.

Yes, I hope that our new Prez can fix some of the problems we are having, but I'm pretty sure he won't fix all of them. At least we can take comfort in the fact that we don't have to put all our trust and faith in the government, but we can put it in God, because He does not make mistakes. And at least we have a little more control over what goes on within our own daily lives and we can choose whether or not to try and be optimistic about our future.

That's all. I'll get off my box now.

In the interest of trying to not think about the outcome of today's election, here are a few high (and low) lights of the last several days:

Will
-Less liquids, more solids, please! (aka, too many wasted bottles.)
-Loves to say "mama, dada, and baba" (although probably not really knowing what they mean)
-His two bottom teeth have finally decided to cut through
-Napping routine has changed yet again
-Too many accidents with the Huggies "stops leaks" diapers, so trying out the expensive Huggies supreme...sigh
-But still as happy and cute as ever

Aaron
-Is recovering from yet another cold
-Is still enjoying the one-week subject schedule of his dental school
-Has started a new hobby of "building" a little Christmas village (yes that's right, Christmas. We do what we can to feel Christmasy here in AZ)

Me
-Is trying everything in order to be healthier (acai berry anyone?)
-yet still woke up with a fresh cold this morning
-and now is avoiding folding laundry and cleaning the bathrooms
-and finding it amusing how much Martha Stewart enjoys tooting her own horn

We can't vote since we don't have AZ drivers licenses and were too late for absentee voting, but we are anxiously crossing our fingers and praying for a good outcome! (if that's really possible.)

Yes it's November and yes I couldn't be happier. November here means slightly cooler weather (high 80's), end of Halloween which I'm a little sick of now, and in three weeks is Thanksgiving vacation! A whole week of Aaron not doing homework but hanging out with us! But before we launch into November, I must finish up October with the last of our Halloween pictures.

Thursday night we went up to Scottsdale to attend the Arizona Dental Association's halloween party. It turned out to be a party in a parking lot with barbeque'd food, but we saw lots of friends, including one of Aaron's friends who goes to Midwestern dental school. We dressed Will up and wore our 'firefighter' costumes (a hat) to complement his dalmation costume. But the party had lots of good costumes, including a group of people who were dressed up as the game of Tetris, meaning they wore cardboard boxes in the shapes of the various pieces of Tetris.
On Friday we dressed Will-E up and took some cute pictures on the green green grass outside our door.
I tried putting some eyeliner on his nose and around his eye for the true dog costume affect, but of course he rubbed most of it off, including a little onto his upper lip, making him look like a little baby Hitler. Or should I say Wilhelm?
That evening we went to the ward trunkertreat/chili cookoff. I'd never been to one of these, and I think it's a pretty good way to do the trick or treating, especially for little kids since they don't have to walk very far in order to get maximum candy. So we dressed Will up again but unfortunately forgot the part of our costumes that makes it a costume. But that was fine with me since it was still pretty hot outside and the plastic hats made me even hotter.
Below is a picture of Will with this guy who had a Great Dane dressed as a dalmation. So, not really, but I thought the dog was a dalmation with all the spots, and apparently the guy, dressed as a firefighter, thought it would be a good idea as well. Note how Will and the dog are eyeing each other...And finally, I ended the evening by picking up a chocolately Will. Turns out he'd grabbed a Twix while sitting on my lap when I was holding the candy tin. I thought he'd be okay, since it was wrapped up and all, but he really goes to town on pretty much anything, so the chocolate didn't stand a chance. Fortunately there was no allergic reactions or anything.So we went home, put Will to bed, and watched "Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit." It's a hilarious and very cute movie, we recommend it.

And that's all about Halloween small.

Yes, Harry Potter isn't exclusively for Halloween, but seeing as it's all about wizards and witches and magic and monsters, we find that we always want to watch Harry Potter a little more during Halloween time. I say 'a little more' because Aaron and I are self-confessed Harry Potter addicts...we watch one of the movies at least once every three or four weeks. So, in honor of Harry and Halloween, here is a list of things I love about Harry Potter (although more so about the HP movies for this post.)

The Books:
Probably one of the reasons that I've read the books and watched the movies so much is because part of me wishes that I could live in their magical world. It just seems like so much fun. And after reading about the characters for seven books, I was pretty sad that it was all over. It's like when you move away from friends and you wonder how they're doing and wish I could still hang out with them. I haven't read all the books recently, since we don't yet own them, except for the seventh. But that will change. Soon. And once that does, I'm sure I will blog again.

The Movies:
1. I loved the old Dumbledore. He was exactly like how I pictured him when I first read the books. I was sad that he died and they had to replace him, but I've slowly learned to appreciate the new actor playing Dumbledore. I also feel that he is a bit more active than the first one, which is more appropriate for the later books/movies.
2. I love Ron's lines. They always give him the best lines. My favorite line from all of the movies is on Harry Potter and Sorceror's Stone, when they're on the train to Hogwarts for the first time and the lady from the treat cart comes by.
"Anything from the trolley, dear?"
Ron looks at this little wad of food wrapped in plastic sitting in his hand and says, meekly, "No thanks, I'm all set."
Haha! I love this line because it reminds me of all the times I went on family outings and there was delicious and expensive food to buy, but no, my mom had always packed us food to take along with us. Food like peanut butter sandwiches that were inevitably a little smushed.

3. Voldemort: He is seriously cool. Normally I'm not one for villains like my brother Kurt is, but I love Voldemort. He is actually almost attractive to me, in an evil, noseless sort of way. I think Ralph Fiennes is an awesome actor and I never would have picked him to be a bad guy. My favorite Voldemort scene is at the end of the fifth movie, when he fights Dumbledore. After seeing that action, how could you not love him?4. I think the various directors have done a good job at recreating the magic world of Harry Potter. I love it when they go to Diagon Alley and to the Ministry of Magic and the Quidditch World Cup. But most of all, I love Hogwarts. The moving stairs, the enchanted ceiling, the moving pictures, and all the secrets it contains. I hope that when they open up Harry Potter Land in Florida next year that it will capture the magical feeling that the movies have.
5. I think, for the most part, the actors in Harry Potter were perfectly cast. Sure, the kids weren't great actors in the first couple of movies, but they've gotten much better, and they just fit exactly what I pictured. I mean seriously, isn't Hagrid perfect? And Snape? And Peter Pettigrew. He actually LOOKS like a rat.
6. I love the music that was composed for these movies. That's probably one of the things that helps it feel so magical and spooky at times. Especially the music in the third movie, it's very eerie.

So here's what I have to say about the movies: Don't read the book right before you watch the movie, because you will, no doubt, be disappointed. You will remember the book very well and be upset that everything is happening out of order and that they're leaving so much stuff out. And here is the new trailer for Harry Potter 6, and they have added a scene that wasn't in the book at all, which may disappoint some people, but I just take the movies for movies, not adaptations from a book. But overall, it still looks great, and we only have to wait until next July! Sheesh.