Whirlwind holiday

The last week has blown by so quickly. We jumped in the car immediately after church on Sunday to meet my aunt Amy to hitch a ride with her to North Carolina to visit my parents. The journey there took FOREVER, but we managed to arrive before midnight. We spent Monday hunting for shopping deals on last-minute Halloween costumes (and collected a couple for next year, too!) Monday night, mom had a bunch of friends over to see Amy's fall CAbi clothing collection (Carol Anderson by invitation). After lunch on Tuesday with mom and dad, we jumped back in the car and returned to the central time zone. Yep! Quick trip!

Wednesday, I forced myself to hit the YMCA and then met with the Creative Planning Team at Otter Creek for lunch and a brainstorming session for Tim's upcoming series on Time. I'm really looking forward to his message this season. So much preparation and prayer goes into his message. I am grateful that we're blessed with his talent.

I made an early dinner for our family and we tried to get Avery out the door for some quick Trick-or-Treating before church. No such luck. The child didn't want to put on her costume. Chad had let her try it on that morning, so she was a bit freaked out by it. Marvelous. We thought we'd be able to bribe her to put it on for Jay, Melanie, Tori and Abby Brown before church, but they weren't home, so we just zipped off to Parade of Bible Characters. Rather than wear myself out (and the kiddo who'd have to actually wear the costume) we opted to be audience members at church. Surprisingly, Avery really enjoyed clapping and cheering for each kid that crossed the stage.

We headed home to see if any porch lights were still on in our neighborhood. We convinced Avery to put her costume on and we popped over to our next door neighbors' house. Here's our adorable pink poodle.

I'm also overdue for a post from our visit to Walden Farm. Avery had the most fun with the tractors and shopping cart. We brought home two "punk nins" that day that Avery is VERY proud of!