Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!! We had a great week, and an especially great weekend!

Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of everything, but we have some that turned out pretty nice.

All week we watched scary movies after Joslyn went to bed. But after watching Insidious on Wednesday night, Kim couldn't sleep. So on Thursday night instead of watching a scary movie, we watched Warm Bodies and carved pumpkins.

Kim's is a Haunted House, and Isaac's is Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting in the lava cave. 

On Friday we let Joslyn color on her pumpkin, and it turned out great!

On Friday night we had our ward Halloween party. It was really fun. We didn't get any pictures of our costumes, but Kim and I were both skeletons, and Kim had a baby skeleton on her belly. Joslyn was a ghost. They had a chili and cornbread cook-off, and then different families in the ward set up fall games and activities for all the kids. After the kids participated in the activity, they got to trick or treat for candy in that room! Some of the rooms were really neat. There were campfire stories, a cake walk, mini pie making, and Joslyn's favorite was the Halloween dance party room! She probably could have stayed there all night dancing and staring at the lights.

Also on Friday night Jarom and Paige came and stayed the weekend with us while they were going to a business conference here. It was a lot of fun meeting Paige and having them here.

We really wanted to do a lot of Halloween decorating and make Halloween foods.  So, we decided to throw a party.  Unfortunately, we only got a couple of pictures, but it was a lot of fun.  Here are some of the decorations.  

Custom made electric chairs for people of all ages.  

Joslyn just wanted to watch the movies.  

Kim made a cool spiderweb on the door.  

 There were a lot of other decorations that we tore down before photographing.  All kinds of bats and zombies and spiders.

Miniature pumpkins

The best part was probably all of the fun foods we made.  

Eyeballs

Monster Munch

We cut a huge pumpkin in half, cleaned it out, put a clear punch bowl in the bottom half, and used the top half as a platter for some seasoned pumpkin seeds.  There were many more foods that we don't have up here.  Our cabinet is now full of leftover pieces of skull, spider, and eyeball shaped foods.

Carnival

Tight rope walker

There was a carnival on campus this week to help all the students de-stress during midterms. So Kim and Joslyn came to school to hang out at the carnival for a while. It was pretty cool. They had jugglers, balancing people, tight rope, trapeze, and spinny top things on a string.

Balancing people

Trapeze artist

Spinny top thing

Isaac decided that he wants to join the carnival. He has a lot of tough midterms right now.

Goldy the mascot was there too!  Joslyn really liked him.

Joslyn and Goldy

We also had a sad experience with Joslyn's hair this week. Lately when we put her to bed or when she's upset, she's been pulling out all her hair and then she would eat it! We ended up having to shave it all off. :(

Before

After

Also after

For our recipe this week, we want to write about how you can make simple delicious ramen with ingredients we already had on hand.  For the broth we used 2 Tbsp vegetable oil, 2 Tbsp sesame dressing, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp ginger, 4 Tbsp soy sauce, 5 cups chicken stock.  Either the soy sauce or the chicken stock needs to be reduced sodium or it will be way too salty.  They should probably both be.  Then we fry up some vegetables, like carrots, onion, bell peppers, etc.  Cook the noodles in water, not in the broth.  If you can find yakisoba noodle in your store's refrigerated section that works best.  Otherwise just use 2 instant ramen noodle packets and throw away the seasoning that comes with it (or make your own noodles). Then put the cooked vegetables and noodles in the broth, add two eggs (don't stir), put the lid on and let it cook at a medium-low heat until the egg is as cooked as you like it.  Serves 2-3.

Birthday Fun

There was a special birthday this week! Can you guess who it is??

If you don't know us very well, and guessed Isaac, you were wrong!

If you guessed Joslyn, you were also wrong!

She loved holding the board, but didn't want to stand still for a picture!

Yup! That leaves Kim! She turned 25!!

The morning of Kim's birthday, Joslyn got up pretty early so we went out to Denny's for Kim's free breakfast really early. It was sooo cold when we left! All the windows were frosted over, and it's only mid-October!

We also went out to other free meals (not in the same day). We got Free Old Country Buffet, and Red Robin!

Kim got a new bed as a birthday present. We've been sleeping on two borrowed twin mattresses since we moved in, and figured it was about time to return them. So we got a queen size bed. But, when we went to take the box spring up the stairs in our apartment, it didn't fit! We got the mattress up fine, but no amount of pushing, prodding and pivoting could get the box spring around the small stairway corner. We tried to take the door off of the hinges to get some more room and a better angle to get it up the stairs, but the pins were stuck! So for now the box spring is just against the wall in our living room until we can figure out what to do with it.

 Oh, I almost forgot one more birthday picture.

BBQs in the neighborhood

The neighborhood we live in is awesome. We live off of a street called Como, and the whole area around us is the Como neighborhood. Every fall they have a big neighborhood clean up and then bbq where you can get to know everyone who lives by you. They had live music, free food, games, cotton candy, and popcorn.  There was human Foosball, giant Jenga, a bouncy house, and face painting. And tons of groups in the community had booths set up so you could learn more about what is going on in the area.

Live band

Joslyn got a butterfly on her hand! She wouldn't let them get close to her face with the paint brush.

This week we had breakfast for dinner.
We baked some potatoes, and hollowed them out. Then we filled them with our favorite omelet makings. We put in some sausage, onion, bell pepper, and of course an egg. Then baked until the egg was fully cooked, and topped it with cheese. They turned out pretty well!
The only thing is, that our potatoes turned out to be too small for all of the fillings we wanted, so if you make it, make sure you use really big potatoes! Or just put in fewer fillings ;)

Sculpture Garden

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This week we went to the famous Minneapolis Sculpture Garden! If you've seen one picture from Minneapolis, it was probably a picture of the giant spoon and cherry sculpture bridge.  It was definitely my favorite exhibit there.  It was just a big park with tons of outdoor sculptures laying around.  Most of them were kind of weird.  I didn't really get what any of them were supposed to be, except the spoon and cherry. This one was a dome made of blue and purple wires.  Then there were tons of random objects woven throughout it.  It was interesting to stand under it and look up.  It was like a starry night sky.    

There is a museum right next to the sculpture garden, but we didn't go in.  

Also at the sculpture garden they had one of the coolest miniature golf courses I've ever seen.  Each whole had a different theme, and most of them were related to Minnesota in some way.  There was a curling one and one with a hot dog and fries.  Definitely worth checking out when you come visit Minneapolis.    

Since it was general conference weekend, we invited some friends over for our longstanding tradition.  We had waffles and ice cream for lunch between the sessions.  It was tons of fun.  You should consider adopting a similar tradition.

We will write again next week.  We'll just leave you with this adorable picture of Joslyn.

Starting School

Sorry we haven't posted in a few weeks. Things just got kind of crazy.
Isaac started school and is busy doing homework and studying most of the time. But Kim and Joslyn were able to go to school with him one day and see the mascot.

We also went to the art museum on campus. It's free to everyone, and they have free scheduled tours, to help you learn about all the art. We missed the tour, but it was still really cool! The building itself is super cool.  It was designed by architect Frank Gehry.  He's the guy that did the Guggenheim in Spain and the EMP in Seattle.  

There was a super weird exhibit that was just a bunch of metal feet on the ground.

Last week was Stake Conference for us, so we had church earlier in the day, during the time that Joslyn usually takes a nap. So, Joslyn wasn't really up to just sitting in a meeting for a couple hours. They had the nursery open, and after an hour or so of sitting in the conference, we ended up taking her to the nursery. She's too young to go during regular church, but this was open to pretty much everyone, because the parents were supposed to stay with the kids. Joslyn loved the nursery. She liked all the new toys, and she even made a couple friends! She had a great time.

Stone Arch Bridge

What I think is one of the coolest things about Minneapolis is that the Mississippi River runs right through the middle of it.  Every day when I walk to school and back I get to see this national landmark.  It's not nearly as wide as it is in the south, but it's still the biggest river around.

We went on a little "hike" as a family out to the river.  We walked from our house to a cool bridge they have called Stone Arch Bridge.  No cars go on the bridge.  It's only for pedestrians and bikers.  It's fun to walk across the Mississippi River on the bridge and read about the history of the town and the river.

The bridge is really close to St. Anthony Falls, the only natural falls on the Mississippi.  St. Anthony Falls is really the reason that Minneapolis is here.  This is the last easily navigable point on the Mississippi River.  Also, they built dams here and used the river to make Minneapolis a milling capital of the world.  (General Mills is based here!)

The falls are covered in concrete now because the river water was eroding the falls away and they use the falls for energy.  The crest of the falls was much farther downstream when it was originally discovered.

St. Anthony Falls as seen from Stone Arch Bridge

This week we tried making the scotch egg that we discovered at the fair last week.
For this recipe you need eggs, sausage, bread crumbs and oil.
First you hard boil the number of eggs you want to make, let them cool, then peel off the shells.
Next, make patties out of the sausage and wrap around the eggs (we used half a pound of sausage for four eggs).
Then dip the sausage wrapped eggs in some beaten eggs, and then in some bread crumbs.
Fry the eggs until golden brown, and then bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes (to finish cooking the sausage).
At the fair, they served it on a stick, but Kim ate hers with a fork, and Isaac just picked it up and ate it like an apple!