Halloween 2007

Nightmare on Calvary!!

Usually the real scare of Halloween is the legend of ghosts and witches, the mystery in the air and the visions of vampires and werewolves roaming the night. For me this year, it was losing one of my diamonds from my wedding ring!

We had taken the boys to a church festival at Calvary, a church down a block from our house. They had large inflatables, free pizza, a christian rock band and clowns making cool spiders & ghosts out of balloons. Not to mention a big bag of candy for each kid with a few treasures inside. It was pretty cool and much better for the adults then the alternative-releasing the children into the wild to romp around and then have me worry about the stupid candy being contaminated with something.

Anyhow, I was pulling Elmo & Cookie Monster in a over sized wagon around the festival, we were waiting in line to get a balloon and I as I looked down at my hand, I noticed one of my diamonds missing. {And yes, I do very often look down at my hand, and hold it out in front of me and just gander at my ring finger and think about all that is summed up in such a small item. The intention, the love, the proposal and purpose, the wedding, the years invested, the children, the good times, hard times, the past & future...} I slowly regained my exposure, picked my heart up and quickly accepted & came to terms with the truth. It was gone. It happens, and it happened to me.

Tim was great about it, he quickly assured me it wouldn't be a problem to get it replaced and fixed. BUT I WANT THAT DIAMOND!- the original one!! It's just not he same, but yes it can be replaced and life goes on.

Guess what happens the next day....
I get to work and I'm sitting at the computer and a co-worker is standing next to me talking. She gets quiet and I notice she is really investigating something. I casually ask her, "what is it"? She says, "I don't know, I want to say a diamond, but surely not".
I leap to my feet...and sure enough...it's my diamond!!

You have to understand the circumstances this diamond was found, and then you'll understand why they say I'm the luckiest in the world around here. I work in a research lab with rodents...MANY cute, fury rodents. We have carts stacked with the animals cages, massive amounts stacked up to 6 ft. tall. On the top of the cages are lids that have grated vents on them. There laying in one of the crevices, on top of the animals cage lid, laid my little lost diamond. The chances that one cage was stacked on top at eye level where she could see it and that she looked down at that precise moment (cause things move quickly in the lab) is a miracle. I mean, I could of lost it in the animal bedding and my diamond could of very easily ended up in one of my little buddies belly! I was extremely excited and very thankful that it found it's way back to me. Thank you animal 1087 for being my keeping my treasure over night and thank you Blair for finding it!

So back to the real halloween post, here are my boys, in all their spooky glory...



Elmo (kyler) & Cookie Monster (brady)







Jake, i guess, is getting too old to dress up. And if he can make a face like that, who needs a costume?



Jake and some of his skateboard moves....