Last Halloween on the Mish :)

Here's Dan's Halloween entry! Enjoy!

11/02/10- "I have had no time to catch up in my journal at all! I have so much to write about! 1st of all a year ago today I was on the plane right now coming out here to the field! We were very tired from waking up at 3:30am but very excited to be leaving the MTC and coming to the real deal. Also Toy Story 3 is on DVD now... I know I've said it a million times but todays the day! :) Ok now onto the rest of Halloween!!! We went home after church for a quick snack and I took just a couple minutes to open a couple more things (the banner my mom made- I hung it up in the Byington's living room! And the candy corn tie from Brita so I could switch my ties halfway through the day! I'm gonna go into details of everything as a whole soon :) We made some visits and tracted until our 5:00pm dinner. It was at the Marshall's. They were nice. We had to get in by 6pm so we did. I was so excited to finish opening everything!! Now I can write about the contents of my spectacular packages!!!!! Oh my goodness!! I'm soooooo grateful!!! WOW!!! I was completely amazed by these. I had such a fun, festive time opening! Leave it to mom, dad and Brita to make my holiday out here so magical! In my parent's package to me I got: my Jack O Lantern tie (love it!! I got lots of compliments for it at church!) Shrek 4 soundtrack (thank you!! I listened to it while I was opening stuff! The cover is perfect for Halloween too! I noticed that detail mom :), "That Terrible Halloween Night" book (!! So classic! Helped bring the magic of home Halloween out here!! That was thoughtful and now I have that special hardcover version for my kids to enjoy someday! :), Pirates of the Caribbean Liar's Dice (!! That was such a cool surprise! I was like "Nooo way!" when I opened it! Very cool! I love that game!), a nice AE sweater and GAP jacket ( I love them!!!! You guys made such awesome choices and they fit perfectly! I tried them on right away! Perfect for fall!!), a dancing/singing Frankenstein (What a funny surprise! Where did he come from? We all got a kick out of that and the Byington's cracked up :) that was funny and festive!!), Halloween plates, cups and napkins (great choice! Is that what the family breakfast had? Thanks for making it more like home!!), Halloween cards (from mom, dad, Rob and Katie's fam! So cute!), fall brownies made by Jenny and Darin (So delicious! Thank you!) and Laurie's Halloween book so I could see it! I love it! I love stuff documented like that! So organized! I'm gonna do all sorts of stuff like that someday! Books, slideshows and home movies on DVD. Very cook! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING MOM AND DAD!!!! You have NO idea how grateful I am!!! It was sooo fun!!! You made my Halloween the best a missionary could ever have! Next year I'll be home!! I love you SOOOO much!! I'm just overwhelmed with love! Now onto Brita's spooktacular package!!!! Brita sent me: a candy corn tie (so cute! I love all the ties that mom and Brita find to go with the holidays! I'll have them for years to come! :), peach salsa (She knows I love that! That was so thoughtful!), gum and mints (I just ran out so perfect timing!), candy corn (such a classic Halloween candy! Yum!), popcorn ball (I've always loved those! :), pumpkin body wash (perfect timing once again! I was actually hoping for some of that! We're so connected!), Bath and Body candy corn hand sanitizer (smells so yummy! That was such a cool idea!), a pumpkin face cloth (I've used it the last couple of days! Thank you! So many fun/festive treats!), a Scrabble card game (I always love new games to play out here! Thank you! That should be fun! We'll probably play it today at lunch! :), crayons for kids to play with while we're teaching (great idea babe!! Thank you!!), homemade by Brita "Boo" blocks blocks (Sooooo cute and just our style!!! She did such an amazing job! They'll be in our house someday! That was such a cool idea! Thank you babe!) and ALL the stuff to make Ghosts in the Graveyard pudding!!! Yay!! Brita was so thoughtful! I've been making that with my fam since I can remember! That gave me something so fun to do since we had to be in! I have the best girlfriend EVER!!!!! Gosh! THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!!! I'm so incredibly grateful for you honey!! I love you all soooo much!! After I was done looking through everything and reading my cards/letters, I started the graveyard pudding! It was so fun and turned out perfectly! Mathis crushed all the Oreos and I did the rest. We all enjoyed it on festive plates I got from mom and dad! It was tasty!! Soooo fun! I even had story time with Mathis and the Byington's, I pulled up a chair in the living room and read them "That Terrible Halloween Night"! That was fun! They thought it was cute. I read it how I always remember mom reading it to me! I organized all my stuff and went to bed early- because we could! That was my amazing Halloween on the mish!! Thank you all again sooooo much!!"

It's already November!

Wow! Time is going by so fast! I'm always amazed how quickly the semesters go by! I had fun taking down my Halloween decorations and setting up my Thanksgiving decorations this morning ;)

My cute "Blessed" blocks that I made last Fall

Love baby Indian corn!

My mom sent me this adorable garland! Love it!

And my cute little door hanger. This pic is actually from last year because I haven't hung it up yet, but you can still see what it looks like!

Happy Halloween!!

I made Ghosts in the Graveyard and it was soo yummy! Thanks Jenny for the recipe :)

Soo cute!! It's actually harder than it looks shaping cool whip into ghosts so I called it good after two lol

I had so much fun making Dan's Halloween care package!!

All packaged up!! I can't wait for him to be home for next Halloween!!

I hope everyone had a fun and magical Halloween!! :)

Good Times in Nursing Lab :)

Every week I attend Nursing Fundamentals Lab and I thought I'd post some pics so you can see what I'm up to! Each week we learn new nursing skills like...

Giving shots! We practiced giving intradermal (like what you get for a TB test) on hotdogs :) We also gave each other IM (intramuscular) shots, so I can say I've given my first shot!


Brother Atwood showing how to embarrass your patient while giving a suppository, just so you know the mask, gown and shoulder length gloves are unnecessary, but pretty funny!


Learning about giving asthma medication

Putting in eyedrops

I'm learning sooo much! The program is awesome and keeps me very busy :)

You Know You're Waiting For A Missionary When...

Dan's Hump Day was last week! YAY! I'm soooo glad he's halfway done and I can't wait for him to be home! I've been wanting to do this post for a while and I thought it would be fun to do it now, enjoy :)

*The postal workers know and recognize you and ask how he's doing. You've also memorized all the rates, you know exactly when he'll get you letter and when you'll get his and you go onto usps.com to see if there are any cute stamps coming out.

*You're obsessed with anything related to where he is serving (this is why I have Waking Up in Vegas on my iPod lol)

*You have a bunch of timers counting how long he's been out and countdowns for how much time he has left. Some of them are in months, others are in days and others go by semesters. You always look at all of them to see which seems like the least amount of time until he comes home.

*You check your email 500 times a day on P-day.

*Whenever you're out shopping, you always look for cute care package gifts and ideas. And you're suddenly a lot more interested in ties so you can find awesome ones to send him.

*During the day you think about what you're going to write him in the next letter.

*You plan out the outfit you'll wear when you finally get to see him again.

*You kiss the promise ring he gave you before he left every night before bed.

*It hurts your heart that all your friends (even those who are younger than you or only dated for 4 months) are getting married before you, but you know your time will come eventually and you don't want to marry anyone else but him so nothing else matters.

*You LOVE picturing how excited he is when he gets a letter from you.

*You take lots of pictures of yourself just to send to him because you know he'll love them.

*You wait to see movies that he's excited to see and you have a list of what you're gonna watch when he gets back.

*You're a little jealous of him mission companion because you wish that you could be with him 24/7.

*Whenever something fun happens, you ALWAYS wish he was there and can't wait to do that again with him.

*Your heart skips a beat when you see his letter in your mailbox and you drop whatever you're doing or need to do to read it.

I LOVE YOU DAN!!!!! I'm soooooooo proud of you for ALL your hard work!! You are the best and I'm the luckiest girl because you're mine!!! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Updates from Dan!!

Here are some excerpts from Dan's latest journal entries. I can't believe he is just a few days away from being halfway done!

9/30/10- "While we were tracting down the street, two 10 year old kids came up to us on bike. They said 'are you missionaries from a church?' I was surprised! 10 year olds don't know who we are. It turns out that one of them has an inactive grandma that he lives with that we found on the ward list. That kid said 'I really wanna learn more and go to church...' A 10 year old usually doesn't say that! We told him we would come by sometime to his house! The other kid said we knocked on his door one say and he heard his parents say they weren't interested. He was like 'you know people don't like you knocking on their doors' Lol thanks! We said 'we know' haha cool/funny kids though."

10/01/10- "Catherine is really progressing. We pretty much set her with a date! We were there for 3 1/2 hours and it was just amazing. We covered like everything because of all her questions...We talked about Oct 30th as a baptism date but then she mentioned Nov 28th because that's her birthday. But then when she found out that I may be leaving on the 15th if I get transfered, she wanted to set it earlier because she wants me to baptize her! How miraculous is all this!?"

October is spooktacular!!

So this weekend I took all my Halloween decorations out of my holiday bin and decorated my room! Soo fun :)

Candy corn is my very favorite Halloween candy :)

"All Hallow's Eve" The cute garland I got last year!

I made this pillow in homemaking class my first semester out here! It's on my chair right now, but it makes me happy to post a pic of Dan with it! I'm sooo excited for him to be home next year!!

I love Halloween! Fall is such a classic time of year and carving pumpkins and haunted houses and spooky stuff is just soo fun!!