TRAV'S BACK!!

Yeah - Travis got home from China on Sunday around 10:00am. After one cancelled flight, one night in a crummy Japanese airport hotel, and long hours waiting for flights in foreign airports he's finally home!

Okay, really he was only gone for 2 weeks and 3 days. It went by really fast and we were both really busy during that time. We've loved being back together though. Trav was pretty useless for a couple days - the time changes just killed him. He went to work each day and then slept much of the evenings. He's finally back to normal though. I think he was almost more excited to eat my cooking than to see me. He didn't enjoy authentic Chinese food.

Here are a few pics from his trip! He brought me home some carved jade souveniers and some amazing finger paintings! Search for "Chinese Finger Painting" on youtube.com! I've never seen anything like it!

P.S. Baby Oldham is the length of a banana this week - 10 inches from head to feet!

Trav rode a tram up the mountain overlooking Hong Kong.

Another picture overlooking Hong Kong! Trav says it's a beautiful city!

Travis found Aslan on the steps of a Chinese bank!

Here's a picture of the airplane he was working on over there.

All Dressed Up...Well Kinda

I work at the Boys & Girls Club and for Halloween on Friday we had a big carnival for all the kids. Last year I didn't dress up and I never heard the end of it, so this year I decided to make an attempt. For some reason, the kids thought I was sooo funny. They called me the "fat farmer."

I was actually going for cute cowgirl, but didn't pull that off very well. The overalls turned me into a farmer I guess. Here - judge for yourself!

These overalls are for a full-term pregnant woman so they were pretty huge on me ;-)

Hey Trav - thanks for the use of your shirt and hat. We had fun and my kids at work thought I was just the coolest!

Halloween and Pumpkin Carving!

Those who know me, know that I'm not a big fan of Halloween. From the looks of these pictures you'd never know it though. Travis loved carving pumpkins and this year we went and picked out the "perfect" one along with a fancy pumpkin carving kit (you know, the kind with all the patterns and little tools).

Well, then Travis got called to China and the pumpkin was left uncarved on our balcony.

So for Family Home Evening the Monday after Travis left, Pepper (the baby) and I got ambitious and carved a "cool pumpkin" like daddy wanted. If it were left up to me I probably would have cut out some triangles for eyes and a large O for the mouth. Simple and easy. But, in honor of dad, we tried our hand at intricate pattern pumpkin carving (say that 5x fast). Here's a look at our attempt.

The pre-carved pumpkin!

The carved pumpkin. It's much harder than it looks, really - it took me almost 2 hours!

However, it did look pretty cool all lit up! Trav, I hope you're proud! We thought of you the whole time!

In honor of Travis, we also watched "The Burbs." Great Halloween movie (and not too scary to watch by myself).

Me (and Pepper) after 2 1/2 hours of sitting on the floor carving a pumpkin. I was pretty proud of our effort (though I was sore and quite tired).