I've got the Halloweenies!!

I cannot tell you all how much I enjoy Halloween, and how happy I am for a dressing-up-and-trick-or-treating excuse in the form of having a one-year-old son. Because, you know, of course now we have to buy him a funny lion costume with a huge mane hood on it and take him out with a big plastic pumpkin for candy that he can't really eat, and so then R and I will have to help him. So while I'm doing all this helping, I might as well dress up as a witch and get my own plastic pumpkin, right? Not to mention my responsibility to decorate the whole apartment with orange and black things in order to "teach M about Halloween" several weeks in advance. Actually, that one is real. I DO feel like I should be more vocab-savvy with my M time. And now he can identify and say "pumpkin", or at least something like "pa-pin". So there. I'm am now justified in my bordering on nerdy excitement for this holiday.

My love for Halloween may only be (almost) rivaled by Christmas. Christmas is also coming up soon, and now that M is old enough to appreciate it, I'm looking forward to that too. I think this might be one of the greatest perks of having a child: getting to be a child again and having a great excuse! Plus, R and I aren't travelling anywhere this year, so we'll just have our own little family vacation complete with snow and a Christmas tree. I can't believe that next year we'll all be in Phoenix with the palm trees and the flip flops during these holidays. Weird.

And this goes out to my pal M: I have not jumped in any piles of leaves. But I can't promise anything before autumn is over. In fact, R's family (parents, youngest sister, brother and wife and child) are coming in a few weeks, and so we're all going to drive out in the country and pick apples and pumpkins and eat hot cinnamon donuts and cider. I cannot wait to see those two little ones pick apples off of a Michigan tree and then chomp them right there in the orchard. I'm already feeling like Anne of Green Gables just thinking about it. So basically I'm saying that leaf pile jumping is a distinct possibility :)

happy birth to me!

once, only one year after I met R and was currently engaged to him and therefore knew his family pretty well by then, i received a card from his younger brother. he wrote something to the effect of: well, i can't really wish you a happy birthday since it's not a happy day at all, but let's just say happy birth, and leave it at that. i still have the card somewhere. so yesterday was my birthday and i turned a whopping 26, which is "so old" compared to my younger sister's 18 years, as she told me so. but even though it was the 5 year anniversary of 9/11 i have to admit that it might have been one of my best birthday's yet :)

first of all, i got a package from my grandmother by a knock on the door from the mailman. then i went and checked my mail and got a few cards in the mail (one with money in it!), and then i checked the apartment offices and my mom's package had arrived. is it pretty amazing that everything i was sent for my birthday ACTUALLY ARRIVED ON MY BIRTHDAY!? also, my visiting teacher not only remembered, and not only came over to visit me on my birthday, but also made chocolate cookies and 2 cherry cupcakes. !!!

plus, the Birthday Fairy came to visit, and i came out of the deal with party picks (colored toothpicks), Silly Sweetie Putty (with the "sweetie" drawn in), neon straws, mini Snickers, Arrested Development (Season 3), and The Office (Season 1). and the real kicker was a Barbie birthday card from R declaring that i was a "special birthday girl".

then i got calls all day from various family members and friends. this might be the real reason i had such a good day. i have a talking addiction, and the best present is to have a really good, long gab-fest (as R can affirm and tease about). so i talked to my mom, my sister, my other sister, and my other sister, my sister-in-law, my other sister-in-law, my mother-in-law, and my wonderful huband. it was delightful, wonderful, birthday talking.

i then picked up r and we went to Potbelly's, which might make the best sandwhiches ever. if you ever go, get "The Wreck" WITH the peppers. yum! and if you ever happen to go the one by University of Michigan campus, AND it happens to be your birthday, AND you love Ben and Jerry's ice cream, stop by and demand a free birthday ice cream cone. double yum!

to top it all off, i LOVE FALL. especially here in Michigan where i could seriously live for the rest of my life just to be around all the misty mornings, bright leaves, cider mills, pumpkins, farmer's markets, and general amazing scenery and feeling. i challenge everyone to visit in the next few weeks to enjoy it with me. we can all stay in my 2 bedroom apartment.

also, as a strange side note: R went to football game last week (his first Michigan football game) and they have a new kicker named "Zoltan". i am NOT kidding. his name is Zoltan. and even though Michigan has only played 2-3 games this season thus far, there are already shirts out there on the fans declaring "Zoltan for Space Emperor". i almost peed my pants in the car when r told me this. i hope to acquire said t-shirt and share with all of you. the end.

Ann Arbor is very arbor-y

so M and R and I are back in Michigan, and I'm LOVING IT! everything is green and blowing around in the wind, and the wind itself is actually a little COLD. Cold people, cold. anyone who is reading this in Arizona can appreciate the difference. I bought a green, light jacket for fall last week while shopping in AZ and thought how it would be awhile until I wore it, but that I would love it when I finally could. Well, it turns out that i'm loving said jacket today, not later.

i really missed Ann Arbor. it's soo picturesque here, and i love where we live and I love the stores and the university grounds and the parks on every block. it just feels so different from the west. i can't believe that we're moving from here in less than a year :( which brings me to the next paragraph:

R got a job offer! and he took it! hooray! and i really like the firm and the people i've met. plus R will get to do transactional work like he was wanting to. plus we're going to live in Tempe (where we lived this summer) which i like loads more than when we've lived in Mesa. it's closer (to everything it seems!), more diverse, it has a splash park and a Whole Foods and great library and great shopping nearby :) basically i like it, with a strong possibility for loving it. and we'll probably be renting an apartment there for the first two years of working.

so thems the news. i've probably been a little too vague, but alas, i am writing you all at the library and have limited time before the waitlist kicks me off. so please forgive any misssspellings and "fragments" for any of you English teachers out there. the end.