Ghosts of Halloween Past

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to post some pictures of other pumpkins that our families, friends, Paul and I have carved over the years. I hope you enjoy!


Halloween 2006:

My duck pumpkin from the first time Paul and I carved pumpkins together.

Paul's pumpkin...I don't know what it is...his very first carved pumpkin!

Bethany's Pumpkin

Beth's Pumpkin

group of pumpkins....Bethany's (Paul's sister), Paul's, Beth's, and Mine.

Halloween 2007:

Carving with my brothers

hard at work!

Paul with Steven, Nick and Mark and our pumpkins



Pumpkins all lit up...mine, Paul's, Steven's, Mark's, and Nick's.

 Pumpkin carving is a great memory for Paul and I, and we look forward to continuing it from year to year.

Happy Halloween!!

So Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday as I hate all things scary and I am afraid of the dark; however, I do love carving pumpkins and decorating for it. I have been carving pumpkins since I can remember.  I even introduced Paul to his first pumpkin carving experience when we were in college.  When I was growing up my brothers and I always did the usual jack-o-lantern faces. Now, that we have grown up we have expanded into designs and scenes. Here are a few pictures of mine and Paul's jack-o-lanterns this year.  Paul had the idea to go with an OSU theme.

Getting ready to carve pumpkins...Dasher had never seen real pumpkins before and was quite perplexed..he wanted to eat the stems.

checking out the insides

He is Orange to the Bone

The finished product. I did the OSU and Dasher's Orange to the Bone. Paul did the Pistol Pete.

My outside fall decor is now complete.

This year was the first year that I saved the pumpkin seeds and roasted them. I got the idea from Paul's cousin who blogged about roasting several different flavors. I just did two...salty and spicy.  They turned out pretty good and I think this will be a new tradition of ours.

This was Dasher's first Halloween and in our neighborhood people sit in their driveway with a bucket of candy to pass out to trick or treaters instead of having them come to the door. This worked out great, because I was wondering how Dasher would react to the constant door knocking and/or doorbell rings. We couldn't leave our door open, because we don't have a screen door. Anyway, Dasher loved all the trick-or-treaters and attention he got wearing the costume my mom got for him. He is such a ham.

waiting for trick-or-treaters to come

He was tired after all the Halloween excitement.

Overall, it was a great Halloween, and I enjoyed passing out candy at my own house for the very first time. I hope everyone else had a great Halloween!

Psuedo Fall Break Fun

So apparently Texas not only refuses to recognize fall as a season, but because there is no fall there is no fall break. We do get a whole week off for Thanksgiving so I guess that makes up for it. Anyway, this past weekend was my little brother's fall break and my mom, dad and four little brothers all came down for a visit. We had a great time playing in the 90 degree weather. This visit was the first time two of my younger brothers had ever seen the ocean/gulf.

On Saturday we got up early for a Saturday, but not early enough for my little brother Brett to go fishing in the Gulf. We caught a lot of  interesting things.

The waves were really big this day

Paul caught a blue crab...he reeled it in from 30 yards out in the gulf. It was so cute. It held onto the shrimp he was using for bait and when he got done eating it off the hook he crawled away rather quickly.

When we were collecting shells for my mom by brother threw this one about 20 yards in from the bay area...a little while later I was wading around shore and found some small hermit crabs crawling around...it got me thinking to check my mom's big shells to see if any crabs were living in them...she had two of these shells by her chair and sure enough both had rather large hermit crabs in them...she would have died if she took them back to OK with her.

On Sunday we slept in a little and drove back down to the gulf to play at the beach. It was beautiful day and the waves were a bit calmer than Saturday.

fooball in the surf

baseball in the surf



Dasher had to show mark to dig a hole for a sand castle

boogy boarding

The Guys - Paul, Brett, Dad, Nick, Steven, Mark

 We all had a great time. No one had to go to the emergency room this time, but Steven did cut his foot open and scraped his side.  I scraped by with a blotchy sunburn.

I do miss fall, but it was fun to play at the beach in October with my family.

First Med School Course Completed

Last Friday, Paul took his first medical school final for his Gross Anatomy and Radiology 8 week course block. He is glad to be done with the course, but now that he is starting his new course, Molecules, Cells and Tissues, he is missing his old PBL group and professors. Med School seems to be flying by. It is weird to think that he learned all of the human body in 8 weeks. His results of his test came in and he remains in the top of his class which is good. 

I am still adjusting to the changes medical school has brought. For instance, Paul reads almost every night. In the 5 years I have known Paul I have never seen him study, now he studies every night. I have had more physicals in the past 8 weeks than I have had in my whole life. I am now fairly certain that I have extremely low blood pressure all the time. I find pictures of random body parts around the house. Conversatiosns center around all things medically related and I have learned somethings I never wanted to know. Also, Grey's anatomy is highly accurate except for when a lady spoke Portuguese wrong that one time.

Survival of Test #1!

So this post is a little late, but last Friday Paul took his first ever test in medical school. He spent the week before in intense study mode neglecting both me and Dasher just a little. I actually got a lot of the things I wanted to do done without Paul looking over my shoulder. Dasher just butted in like he always does and made himself at home next to Paul. He really likes to help.

In the end all the studying payed off because Paul scored in the top half of his class on his test! To celebrate we all went to the beach. Dasher is not a huge fan of the ocean and is terrified of the waves. He will tuck his tail and run away from them everytime. Paul and I make it our mission to break him of this fear and drag him out into the water anyway. 



Here he is body boarding...note the fear in his face.



Here he is swimming back to shore as fast as he can.

His favorite beach activity is skim boarding because it doesn't involve getting in the water.

Then Dasher decided to help us build a sand castle by digging a moat.

Here is the finished product. Dash didn't want to dig a hole all the way around so it just has a moat on one side.