October - will the days ever be less hectic?

October has been a crazy busy month for us, but then again what month isn't. Rick's sister Bekah and her husband Shaun came to visit with us a few weeks ago. We were so excited to spend some time with them. We connected Shaun with a few of our friends who work at Dreamworks and Pixar. They stayed at our house for one night and then stayed in the city for a few nights. We met up with them for dinner at Maya which was fabulous. I had lobster and shrimp with a sweet corn puree, avocados and watercress salad. It was so full of flavor, a little spice with some sweetness from the corn and seafood. I loved it! 

Last week was crazy busy. Every night that week we were doing something for church. On Monday night I picked up my 4 girls that I cook with. We made homemade pumpkin cookies with maple frosting (my favorite cookies in the world - thanks Caisa for the recipe) Halloween sugar cookies and frosting as well as some Halloween decorations. It was fun. On Tuesday night I grabbed our homemade cookies and decorations and picked up the girls. We headed over to a nursing home in Oakland to visit our new friend Sally. Sally is an older lady in our ward that Rick and a friend visit. She is very lonely and her family is on the east coast. She doesn't get out of bed and needs some company. I thought she might enjoy having some girls visit, some halloween decorations and some sweets rather than just having a visit from the boys - Rick and Jesse. Rick was planning on meeting us over there after work. However, there were some bart delays with the bay bridge breaking so he was a little late. We headed in by ourselves and introduced ourselves. She didn't say much to us. We decorated her walls and each told her a little about ourselves. The second Rick walked in and said hi she lite right up and got a huge smile on her face, boy does she love Rick. She was so happy to see him. She started talking and was happy as can be. She loved the cookies too. Usually she is just suppose to have one per day but she grabbed for that box and ate another one before anyone could stop her.

We enjoyed visiting with her and we will visit with her again sometime soon. This is a good opportunity for the girls to see how wonderful service can be and how they can make a difference in someone's life. I also love to see how wonderful my husband is and all the great things he does for the members in our ward. He is a wonderful, thoughtful EQP and I am very lucky he is mine.

On Wednesday night we had YW and we made caramel apples with the girls and played games. Rick had his EQ meeting as usual. On Thursday night, my only free night, Rick was gone at a stake meeting so we didn't get to spend much time together. 

On Friday night we took our young friend James out to dinner to celebrate with him. He didn't pass his state required high school exam and wasn't able to graduate from high school. Rick spent all summer tutoring him at nights to help him with his math. Towards the end of the summer he took the test over and passed. He is now a HS graduate. We took him to his favorite Hawaiian restaurant in Alameda and then to ice cream. Way to go James!

On Saturday we headed to the church to run one of the Halloween booths and hand out candy for the trunker treat. We had a car load of people from the ward that we brought with us. We need a bigger car just to give people in the ward rides all the time. I think we did a pretty good job of coming up with last minute costumes this year for Halloween. My pregnant belly made for a good lady bug. As I was trying to put my costume together, Rick was wearing a yellow shirt so I suggested he be a bumble bee. Minutes before the ward party we threw together our bug costumes and were pretty happy we had something to wear as we were managing our Halloween booth and passing out candy.

Me at 35 weeks

And finally the last day of the week - Sunday. We spent about 5-6 hours at church in meetings and then headed home to check out our new crib that arrived this weekend. Sadly enough one of the legs was damaged in shipping and we can't put it together yet. This week is going to be almost as busy. However we do have a night free - yahoo!