Three days!

Why do the weekends always have to go by so fast? I feel like it was just Monday...and now it's Monday all over again. Such is life, I suppose.

Riley made it through her surgery without too much trauma. She was not happy with me at all when the vet tech came to take her from me. She struggled and whined and then looked at me like I was a traitor. Gracie actually got spayed on the same day and the vets were very nice and let the girls stay together before their surgeries. They all kept telling my dad and me how cute they were together snuggling in their blankies. And they all wanted to know if they were related somehow! :) I'm glad that everything went well, but goodness gracious is it hard to keep a rambunctious 7 month old from jumping and running for 10 days. She acts like she didn't just have major surgery (I blame that partly on the pain medicine) and all she wants to do is play. She's gotten pretty good at listening to all the "No!" and "Down!" commands that are coming at her every two seconds ;) I have pictures of her all groggy and cute after the surgery but they're on my camera that is dead right now...so those will have to wait until later!

I had SO much fun at the wedding yesterday. You have no idea how happy I get when you put a camera in my hands and give me permission to stick my lens in peoples faces and flash away. I felt a little more at ease yesterday and not so nervous that I was going to have horrible pictures (even though that was still in the back of my mind). I think I'm even starting to understand how my speed light works (the external flash that you attach to the camera...the one that stands up real high). There is something strange that happens to me during weddings...I feel like I really get to know the wedding party (even though I'm not actually talking with them, just observing them)...and I almost always get near tears when they're leaving...except no where near as bad as I did at my own wedding!! The bride yesterday actually had a similar reaction as I did when Greg and I were leaving - you know, the whole bawling and hugging everyone reaction that is pretty funny to look back at in pictures. It made me feel better to know that I'm not the only girl who was sad to leave her family and her party. I think it's a mix of things...the fact that you're going on little to no sleep, the whole symbolism of leaving your mother and father, and knowing that one of the best days of your life is actually over. That will certainly push you over the edge ;)

Halloween is on Wednesday!! I am so excited! Greg, Riley, and I are going over to my parent's house to have dinner and hang out. My dad has to go to California because of all the fires (he's in insurance...definitely not fun to deal with all that!) so we're gonna have a nice dinner and I get to pass out candy to all the cute trick-or-treaters. Greg and I never actually carved pumpkins this year and I'm kind of sad about that. I had a lot of fun doing it last year (my first time to actually carve the pumpkin by myself!)...maybe next year we'll be less busy, but for some reason, I highly doubt that! To get in the Halloween mood we rented Vacancy on Friday night. I was so scared I almost peed my pants. We had to stop it on Friday (because it was dark and I was scared) and we finished it this morning...I definitely didn't like it. Apparently I was squeezing Greg's hand so hard that I made it numb...so there is my warning - don't watch Vacancy if you get scared easily!

I hope you guys have a safe week! I am praying for you!

It's October!!

I'm so excited that it's October. And it's officially fall - my favorite time and month of the year! Greg and I were at Target on Friday night and we saw all these cute costumes in the Halloween section at the back of the store. They even had costumes for dogs! I really was hoping that they'd have a hot dog...I'm the mean mom that wants to put my "weenie" dog in a hot dog costume for Halloween! She would be too precious in it though. I may have to go search some more for one :)

This weekend was really fun. But definitely not long enough (are they ever?) My run on Saturday morning went REALLY well. We only did 4 miles because it was a track workout. The exercise we did was called the Magic Mile. You basically run a mile as fast as you can (but still stopping to take your walk breaks) and it tells you what a realistic time goal is to run the marathon in. My magic mile pace was 10:14 and according to that, a realistic time goal for me to run the marathon in is 5 hrs 44 min. I'm really not focused at ALL on time...just on finishing. But it was cool to think that if I do everything right in my training I could run a marathon in under 6 hours relatively easy.

I baked, took pictures, and cuddled with my husband pretty much all weekend. It was wonderful and SO relaxing! I was planning on making fall sugar cookies...but did you know that it's nearly impossible to make red icing? So I have yellow cookies, orange cookies, and pink cookies...and then since I couldn't make red I decided to just make a pretty blue instead. Greg says they're Easter cookies now. I say I don't care what they are, they're yummy! I'm really starting to understand settings on my camera well and it's becoming more "instinct" than me having to sit there and think "hmm...which way do I need to turn this dial now?" We watched Knocked Up too...which was funny. But had a lot of bad language and several scenes that definitely did not need to be in there! I really like Katherine Heigel...she's also on Grey's Anatomy (she plays Izzy) which I also really like.

I've been doing much better with contentment these past couple days. Every time I catch myself thinking, Ahh, I just want to be in a house already!! I think of how much easier it is for us to live in an apartment right now. There is no lawn to mow, no mortgage to pay, more reasonable electric prices, and our puppy can pee on the carpet and shred the carpet without us being too distraught over it all. Life is good and so is God!

Class is getting ready to start...I found out that I made a 94.8% on my first test (yay!!!) and I'm waiting to see what I made on my second. I think I did alright, but I definitely did not put 100% into it.

You are all in my prayers!