From Mike:
Well, it's been a typical Colorado fall lately. At first I was worried that we would go straight from warm summer days to frigid cold winter ones, but the mild weather that I love so much finally decided to show up.
Kelly was in beautiful, sunny Orlando for a conference last week, but she got a cold, snowy blast of wintery horribleness when she returned last Tuesday night from a wicked storm blowing through the state and blanketing everything in that powdery white substance we know so well. (and no, I don't mean drugs, you weirdos!) When all was said and done, Erie got about 16 inches of snow! Luckily Kelly made it home before we got the worst of it, and had the next day off. We spent the rest of the week staying warm and working from home. Well, Kelly worked anyway. My office was closed, so I basically got two days off! The snow days were nice, until we realized we had no food. The sun came out that Friday and melted most of the snow so Kelly went back to the office and I finally changed out of my sweat pants, shaved my "snow day beard," showered and miraculously transformed back into a fully functioning member of society.
On Saturday, we celebrated Halloween in the typical fashion-- driving all over creation to various gatherings and parties donning our latest costumes. This year, we were dressed as a couple of hippies. I wore a bright yellow CU t-shirt, so some (mainly CSU fans) lovingly referred to me as a "dirty hippie." That afternoon, our church was hosting a HarvestFest celebration where kids could come and play games, get sugared up on candy, jump around in a giant inflatable bouncy castle, throw up the aforementioned candy, and have a "sugar crash" before dinnertime. It was fantastic. Kelly and I ran one of the games where you swung a tennis ball at a stack of blocks and tried to get the letters W-I-N to face upwards after knocking the blocks down. As you can imagine, it was riotous fun and we basically handed out an entire crate full of candy by the time our shift was over. Adam and Carolyn brought Brianna, who was adorably dressed in a 1950's sock hop costume, complete with a little pink poodle skirt, polka-dot ascot, wing-tipped mary janes, and horn-rimmed glasses. I realize that I'm a little biased, but she was by far the cutest kid there!
After HarvestFest, we came home and got ready for our big kid parties. We drove to Denver, met up with Anna and Beth, and carpooled to our friends Paige and Micah's house downtown. We greeted Paige and Micah, then spent the rest of our time talking amongst ourselves while devouring the delicious food they had set out. After a while, we returned to the car and drove to the Argyll in Cherry Creek for party #2. This was the annual Halloween party thrown by our friends Greg and Misty and, as usual, it did not disappoint. We danced the night away with our friends Carter (dressed as Nuggets player Chris "Birdman" Andersen), Justin and his girlfriend Bridget (all in green, connected at the hip, and going as two peas in a pod), Beth (the Guitar Hero, sporting a custom-made cape and a familiar guitar-shaped Wii controller), Anna, (in a flowing white gown and gold headband, dressed as Athena the goddess of war) and Amy (mysteriously dressed as a fortune teller; complete with a sparkly crystal ball). Overall, it was a fun, eventful day and we're looking forward to next year!
I spent Sunday watching football and monitoring my fantasy football team as they secured their 7th win of the season. (I happen to be first place in my league at the moment with a 7-1 record) Kelly spent that time taking down the Halloween decorations and packing for her trip the next day. That afternoon Beth came over and took pictures of us for our Christmas card, which I'm sure you'll all see soon.
As previously mentioned, Kelly is out of town on business this week. She spent Monday-Wednesday in Tulsa and is now in DC until Sunday. Meanwhile, I have reverted back to bachelorhood and consequently, have not eaten well or taken care of myself since Kelly left. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to her return.
That's it for now. I hope you all are well. Until next time!
