Hallelujah Harvest

This past Friday night at our church was Hallelujah Harvest. This is a yearly event that our church has every year. They have horse rides, moon bounces, games, face painting, and trunk or treating! It's always so fun. I have volunteered to pass our candy at my trunk for the past 6 or 7 years. It is always so awesome to see the children dressed up in their costumes!

A lot of people decorate their trunks by theme. Jonathan and I have never really gone all out with the decorations (neither one of us are creative like that) but we had our football pumpkins out and we wore our Redskins gear. We even brough Einstein out with his Redskins bandana!

My sister in law Brittney decided to help us out at our trunk this year. She is an Eagle's fan, so to keep with the theme, she wore her Philadelphia Eagles jersey. She even brought her dog, Baxter, in an Eagles jersey as well!

The dogs were so well behaved and they were a huge hit with the kids...and their parents too!! Einstein was even caught shaking some of the children's hands :)

Some of you might be wondering why we did not bring Chubbs. Chubbs is scared of EVERYTHING!! When he gets scared, he gets defensive and mean. Therefore, we decided to leave him at home for the night. Before we left, Jonathan spent some one on one time with Chubbs and gave him a special bone to let him know we still love him! Well, when we got home, the bone was untouched.....Chubbs was mad at us!!!! We ended up putting Einstein to bed early and let Chubbs stay up with us. He was craving attention. Just like kids huh? :)

Friday night Auction

Thursday night, Jonathan and I were talking about our plans for the weekend. We were frustrated because there were no new movies in the theater that we were interested in seeing....Usually on friday nights, we do dinner and a movie.

Well, Thursday night I got an e mail from my dad that said that there is a surfer (pete smith) from virginia beach who was retiring and they were auctioning off some of his stuff that he has collected through the years. Now, you might wonder why we would be interested in going to this since neither Jonathan or I surf. Well, one of the items being auctioned off was a turtle shell from Costa Rica.

Let me back up just a bit. When Jonathan and I got married in 2007 in the Cayman Islands, we ate at a restaurant there. In this restaurant they had a HUGE turtle shell hanging up on the wall. Jonathan was fascinated by it right away (these turtle shells are beautiful!). He said that he wanted one, and was going to offer to buy the one right off the wall of the restaurant. When he talked to the waiter about the shell, he informed us that it is illegal for them to preserve the shells now. They are afraid that if people start demanding the turtle shells, then more and more people will be poaching the turtles to get them. They even have a turtle farm in the cayman islands where they just breed the turtles for food purposes....however, the shells all have to be grinded. After we heard this, we realized that it was unlikely that we would ever have an authentic turtle shell hanging on our wall.

Now, back to the auction. This guy had purchased his shell back in 1968, when it was still legal. Now he was auctioning it off....this will probably be Jonathan's only shot at ever owning one. When we got to the auction, the starting bid on the turtle shell was $1200 (silent auction). The shell was beautiful, however it had been cracked and you could see where it was replaced with some tape before it was polished up. Jonathan was a little upset at that, but figured he could probably get it fixed for a couple hundred dollars. We got to the auction at 7 and the auctions did not close until 10:30. So, after we ate dinner there we walked down to 31st street and had some coffee and desert at Starbucks. We decided to head back to the auction about 9:30. The bidding had gone up a little bit, and we had it narrowed down to the guy who was going to fighting for this turtle shell with jonathan. During the last couple minutes of the auction, Jonathan and his competition were just guarding this turtle shell. Jonathan, would write down a bit and right away the other guy would write down a higher bid. When the shell got up to $1750, Jonathan decided to stop. So needless to say, we came home without a turtle shell.....but Jonathan still had $1750 in his pocket :)

It ended up being a really fun night. I enjoyed the time that we had at starbucks to just sit and talk to each other in a quiet environment. I love my husband so much, and I always look forward to the time we get to spend together on the weekends!!

So, to end this blog...if you know of anyone trying to get rid of a turtle shell, let us know!! :)

Pumpkins-October 2008

This year for the fall festival at our church, Jonathan and I are going to have a football themed car for trunk or treating. Here are the pumpkins that I carved. We are hoping to out there in our Redskins gear....even Einstein! :) Should be a good time for all!

UVA/UNC Football Game-October 18

Jonathan and I had 4 tickets to the UVA/UNC football game this past weekend in Charlottesville. Jonathan and I go to several UVA games each year, and we have become big Cavalier fans! We decided to invite my parents along for this game as they are both UNC Tarheel fans. The bet was....loser pays for dinner!

We left around 10:00 that morning and got into Charlottesville around 1:00. We stopped at the University Grille (apparently the people in charlottesville don't like to eat at restaurants...this was the only place we could find after driving around for a good 20 minutes!) We had a crazy waitress who got half of the order wrong, but the food that we did get was pretty good!

We got to the stadium a good hour before the game started. We got to see it fill up! The game was pretty boring all up until the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter. UNC was winning through the whole game and the cavaliers were just frustrating all of their fans! Well, something happened during the last 5 minutes of the game, and UVA scored a touchdown to tie the game 10-10. This means OT!! Jonathan was really excited because he has never seen an Overtime game in person. The stadium was going crazy!!!

UVA ended up scoring a touchdown in OT to win the game. Everybody rushed the field it was quite exciting! UVA's next home game is agains Miami on November 1 in Charlottesville. Jonathan and I will be there wearing our blue and orange with pride! :)

Fireproof

This is just a quick blog to recommend a movie.  Last night I went to see Fireproof with my mom, mother in law, and sister in law.  The movie was incredible!  I honestly went into it with low expectations since it is a low budget christian film....however at the end of it, I was most impressed!  So, if you have not seen this movie, Go see it!! :)

Team Hoyt VB-St. Mary's 5K run

This past Saturday morning, I ran in the St. mary's 5K run on Fort Story. I found out about this race after running the Rock and Roll Half Marathon, when I spoke with one of the other Team Hoyt runners. He told me that I should come out and push a disabled child during their next race (all of the pushers are local and push children from CHKD and St. Mary's Home for Disabled Children, so they can compete in the race). I had wanted to do this ever since I saw the Team Hoyt VB team at the CHKD run back in June (I think..??).
Anyway, after I got home that day, I contacted St. Mary's and that week I filled out all of the background check information that would allow me to push one of there precious children in this race.
As it got closer to race day, i had a lot of people ask me if I had ever ran with a jogging stroller before. I hadn't...I didn't think it was a big deal. However, everyone was telling me how much harder it is to run while pushing a child. I decided to practice with Addison, the little 20lb girl that I watch during the week. Well, pushing that extra 20 lbs was HARD!! I knew that the child I would be pushing in the race would be at least double her weight. I started getting a little nervous.
Race day came and when I got onto Fort Story, I was introduced to my child. Her name was Day Z (pronounced Daisy). She was very sweet and I talked to her for a bit before the race, but she didn't respond much. Well once we started the race and I began running, Day Z laughed the whole time!!! I felt so guilty for all of the times that I have looked at a mentally challenged or disabled child and thought that they had no clue what was going around them. This little girl laughing, inspired me the whole race! We finished about 30 minutes and it was awesome! It was such a wonderful experience and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to take part in this wonderful cause.
Unfortunately, this was Team Hoyt's last race until the spring. I can't wait to get more involved with this wonderful group in the spring and get to know more of the children at St. Mary's.
I have tried posting pictures, but for some reason, it has not let me upload photos. I will try again soon...so check back!!