Ryan and Brittney

Saturday was quite a spooky night at the Martin home! We had a Halloween party that included a lot of family and friends, "scary" food, creative costumes, trick-or-treating (for the kids) and fun games like Halloween Feud and the Werewolf game. Everyone pitched in here and there in different ways and it was a lot of fun. This was our first Halloween party, but it was so fun that it might have to be an annual event from now on! Happy Halloween!!!

Sandwich toppings on a skull (Ryan's mom got the skull from work and made this masterpiece!), the best-ever sugar cookies, worm-infested punch, and a pumpkin cheeseball:

*side note: Congrats to Jonathan & Rachael on this!

This is Joe (Craig's roommate), but last night he was Tom. And he peeps. Peeping Tom. Watch out girls of S.B.! Just kidding....

And because we had so much fun making last year's costumes, we decided to do something homemade again this year, only we were smarter and did it more than just the night before! Ryan spent so much time and effort on our costumes, so here's a little bit of the progression... from cutting out cardboard, to covering it with posters, to spray painting-- and taking safety precautions from inhaling too much spray paint, to figuring out how to be able to walk and see in them!

Well, that's all folks. Hope your Halloween was as spook-tacular as ours was! Now I can't wait for Thanksgiving and then Christmas! I love the holidays.

Call it what you want, but it's all the same thing and applies to me.

That's right... I'm a product of the economy. Nothing like returning to work on Monday for the first time after a 5 week leave and only 5 minutes into the morning get the call saying that my position is being eliminated. My company was bought out by another company and as soon as everything was official on October 1st, somewhere between 1500-1800 people were laid off due to both budget cuts and overlapping or eliminated positions. I'm amongst that lucky group, but at least they waited until I returned from leave to notify me.

I cried for probably a total of 3.5 minutes yesterday and then I realized that I felt more of a relief than anything. First of all, my position won't be eliminated for a couple months, and then severance kicks in; therefore, I have full salary until the middle of February. Also, a few months ago Ryan and I felt the need to start budgeting more carefully, saving a little more, stocking up our food cupboards, and not yet booking that trip in November that we really wanted to take. We feel very, very blessed that we had these promptings several months ago and followed them!

As I mentioned, I really feel slightly relieved. I have loved this job and loved the experiences it provided me with that will hopefully help springboard me into something else, but I have been itching to get out of my tiny apartment all day, every day. Not only that, but I really dislike the company we were merging with and the way they did things, and I have been dreading coming back from my leave and having to switch over to their systems, policies, and overall culture.

Also, the timing couldn't have been better (for me). The company just forked out thousands for me to get my professional HR certification, to send me to consulting conferences and workshops, and to pay for both my surgery and my leave. A few weeks later and I would have been in big trouble!

Anyway, enough about all of this. It's boring and I'm sick of thinking/talking about it. All I know is that I can't ignore the constant feeling I have that this was for the best, so I am anticipating what the near-future holds for us!!

**In the meantime, if anyone has any good HR connections, send them my way! :)

This weekend was the peak weekend so far for the changing colors in the mountains by us, so before the storm rolled in (and, let's be honest, before the Giant's game started) Ry-guy and I hopped in the car for a quick jaunt up to the Draper temple. That temple is seriously prime location! Here is some of the prettiness we enjoyed...

I didn't realize that any time I asked for more meds, paged a nurse, blinked or exhaled I would be charged another $1,000. Maybe that's normal, but I call it outrageous! Thank goodness for insurance, because I paid next to nothing considering the overall bill!

Nothing like some home decorating, pumpkin carving, and apple carmeling to put you in a Halloween mood! Are you working on your costumes? We are (read: Ryan is)... but it's a surprise!

So my legs are crossed in this picture, but you can't really tell and so it makes my feet look like they are backwards. Ha!

We always forget tea light candles for our pumpkins and have to resort to something else.

I love apples. I love them so much that I usually eat at least one a day. So when the owner of the two apple trees at a house on my grandma's street put up a sign letting people know that they can pick as many apples as they'd like, I got excited and immediately informed Ryan that he had to go pick us some. Which he willingly did. My parents saw a couple bring their pick-up truck last year and filled the entire bed with apples, so we didn't feel too greedy taking a few bags full! Anyway, on Sunday after General Conference, Ryan and Brandon took out a ladder and picked us out some good apples, which made it feel more like fall than anything else we've done yet this year. People pay big bucks for these organic kind, right? Not us! Free is my favorite! Now I can make a bunch of stuff like apple pie, apple crisp... treats that I can't eat... which is probably a good thing. :)

We even had options... green apples on the left tree, red on the right.

All these ripe, good apples that we couldn't even reach.... too bad! Also, it was about to rain, so we (read: Ryan & Brandon- I just stood and complained when they dropped a really good one and smashed it) had to move quick.

Want an apple? Why, yes I do!

I love fall! Today even felt like fall since it was in the mid-60's most of the day... I surprisingly kind of liked it!

All of our free apples. Anyone have any good apple recipes? Send them my way, please!!