I'm dreaming of a white.... Thanksgiving?!?

The day before Thanksgiving and we're getting plenty of snow (and rain later in the day)! Hmmmm... there seems to be a connection between holidays and snow storms.

Anyways, Jane and I took advantage of the snow before heading off to work: Snow Frisbee!!

All that practice teaching Jane fetch is paying off! Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Birthday weekend #2

Saturday night we went to a Mat Kearney concert for Brian's birthday present #2. Pat's Pizza in the Old Port for dinner, then we walked over to the State Theatre for the show. Lots of fun and he sounds exactly the same live as he does on the radio (imagine that!?). He traveled through the crowd while singing, enjoyed some popcorn from someone in the front row, and made up a little song on the spot about Portland and what had happened during the show - just a good time. Was very happy when he came back for the encore to sing my new favorite song of his, Ships in the Night!

Halloween x3

Halloween was busy again this year. We dressed as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger for one party. Then we wore our "fashionable" matching sweaters for a party the next night (costumes were optional for that party and there was the option to carve pumpkins, so we didn't want to get our costumes messy). Mel competed in the "eat a donut on a string" contest...

... and won!It snowed 3-4 inches that Saturday night, so when we got back from the party we let Jane experience her first real snow (I already posted pictures of this... it's only snowed once, luckily!!)

And then we had a great turnout of Trick or Treaters on Monday night. We had many more young kids than teenagers, so that made it more enjoyable. We saw some great costumes too. We even got Christmas Carolers who sang us Silent Night! And this year I decided to make the older kids "earn" their candy, so we asked for a joke, song, whatever... and got some entertaining responses. And, per our Halloween tradition, we made guesses of how many kids would come and Joe won. He was closest to our Trick-or-Treater total of 135 for the night.
Horray for a Halloween full of treats without any tricks!

Birthday weekend #1

Birthday gift #1 for Brian was an afternoon at a Ropes Course about an hour from here. Unfortunately, no photos of us, but we had a blast. About 3 hours up in the trees making our way through obstacles to get to the next platform: climbing rope ladders, whizzing on mini zip lines, crossing wobbly bridges, crossing hanging tires... very fun and quite challenging. The upper levels of the course (about 30-40 feet up the trees) were definitely designed for adults and tested your strength. Then we finished the afternoon with 3 long zip lines (I think they said it was 2,000 feet long) to go from the top of the hill to the bottom. I thought the height thing might me an issue, but it was just plain fun.

Bring your Tokens

For Brian's Birthday, we surprised him with a little arcade-themed fun with pinball, air hockey, guitar hero, foosball, and bag-o..... we sent him out to get pizza and set up quickly!


Scott had Brian open up his gift so he could wear it right away.... nothing better than brotherly love ;) (Gorgar is a character from a pinball machine).
Then we played some games...

Brian shared the spotlight with someone who looked extra cute in her party hat!

Then we ate birthday dessert! I made a 4-layer ice cream cake (with golden oreo crumbs in between layers- yum!) and brownies for my Pacman and ghosts theme.
Then Brian opened presents with a little help from Jane.

Happy 31st Brian. Thanks to everyone who helped make it special.

It's your Birthday... Hit the Road!

Brian signed up for his first road race on the morning of his birthday. So we were up early and off to Portland for possibly the yummiest sounding race ever, as well as one that spoke to the Engineer in Brian:

Easy as Pi (remember math class...Pi = 3.14 and 3.14 miles = just over a 5k). Plus... the promise of pie for everyone who runs! Apparently Darth Vader is a big fan of road races... or pie maybe.
Waiting for the start,then off he goes.

And the reward! Brian finished 30th out of 124 with a time of 25:48 which beat his goal time, so he was happy with his first race. What a great way to start year 31!