Adventure #22: Halloween, Jordan's Birthday, and Thanksgiving

Before I get into the regular stuff, I had to insert this flashback before I forgot...

In my first blog post, I posted the first picture Jordan and I ever took together (or so I thought). I was wrong! One night Jordan and I were looking through some Facebook photos and found our official first photo together! We found it a while ago, but it must have been after I wrote my first blog post. Anyway, here's the picture!

Look closely. I am standing/crouching in the front row towards the middle-left. Did you find me? My hair is in pig-tails and I'm wearing Vans. Okay, now look at the girl next to me on the right (she's the blonde wearing red. She was also my roommate at the time). Now, look at the guy standing directly behind her. Yep, that's Jordan! So this picture was taken before we had ever met! We just thought it was crazy how close we were standing! Who knew almost exactly one year later, we would be married!!! Crazy!

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

October 25 - November 27, 2014 

**I'm sorry this post is so long! I'm just trying to catch up with my blog!!!**

Fall was a fun and exciting time for Jordan and I. I was in the middle of Student Teaching and Jordan was in the middle of Podiatry School applications. It was a bit stressful, but we made sure to compensate by doing a lot of fun things.

First we went to Nightmare on 13th. It's a haunted house type thing in Salt Lake City. We got a good deal on some tickets and went with a group of people from Jordan's work (including Marcus and Lana). It was SOOOO much fun! I think that was the best haunted house I have ever been to! It was the perfect amount of scary balanced with the perfect amount of fun. And man, it was even more fun because we were with Marcus and Lana. Jordan is adventurous and a thrill-seeker, Marcus and Lana are not big fans of anything scary, and I'm somewhere in between. One of the craziest parts of the whole night was watching Jordan get scared over and over again! I couldn't believe it! Usually I'm the one who is screaming and closing my eyes the whole time (which I still did that a few times), but I really think that Jordan got scared/caught-off-guard more than I did! 

The most memorable and funniest part of the entire thing was when we reached a maze. There were white sheets with blood stains blocking the walkway at every turn. So not only did you not know which way to go, you were trying to anticipate someone jumping out at you from behind the curtain. We were trying to get through the maze as quickly as we could, but we couldn't figure out which way we needed to go. Freddy Kruger also slowed us down a few times. Jordan, Marcus, Lana, and I were all holding on to each other as we frantically tried to get out of this maze. After getting lost and being scared on multiple occasions, no one wanted to lead the way. This was my moment (I thought)! I started to lead our group through the maze confidently - bravely pulling open the hanging sheets and nearly running through the maze (I really wanted to get out of there). I think the running made it worse because I quickly turned a corner and ran into Freddy Kruger again. It scared me sooooo bad. THEN, he started chasing us! He chased us into a corner and we were all huddled and shaking. haha It was scary, but so much fun. We eventually made it out in one piece and we spent a long time laughing about the whole experience. 

Marcus and Lana were pretty exhausted and fell asleep on the way home. So cute.... :)

A week later it was Halloween! And because I was teaching at an elementary school, it was basically mandatory to dress up. I had a hard time deciding what I should be. I wanted to dress up as someone who wouldn't cost me very much money. After a lot of thought, I decided Mary Poppins was the best choice. All I did was buy some red fabric for the bowtie, buy a cute umbrella (I needed one anyway), and I drew a flower to tap on my hat. It was pretty simple and cost-friendly, but it turned out okay. About half of my second graders knew who I was, and the other half had no idea. So we showed them a short little video to give them an idea. It was a lot of fun seeing all the kids dressed up and walking through a parade with them.

On Halloween night, we went to Cornbelly's. We went with our friends Ashley and Austin. As you can see, Jordan had a lot of fun....

Okay, okay, I had a lot of fun, too. They had a firework show soon after we arrived, so that was a fun way to start off our evening.

After the fireworks we went through a giant corn maze and three different haunted house/maze things. They were pretty fun. They weren't as scary as Nightmare on 13th, but it might be because Jordan and I were all "scared-out." What was the most fun, was making Ashley and Austin go through the haunted places first. They were a lot of fun to watch. Jordan and I only took one picture outside one of the haunted places, and he thought it would be funny to lean all of his body weight on me. So in the picture, I'm having to hold Jordan up and still look normal. I was struggling to keep Jordan still... so that's why Jordan's face is blurry.

Once we finished the haunted houses/mazes, we tried out a few carnival activities. We rode around on these bike things and we tried to ring the bell on these things... (see video) I'm not sure what they're called. The first is a video of Austin.

And here is Jordan:

We may or may not have spent about 15 minutes on these things trying to ring the bell. Jordan and Austin were especially determined after some random guy walked up and rang the bell on his first try. Granted, this dude's biceps were larger than my head, but Jordan and Austin were not going to leave until they rang the bell. (The real reason we were so excited they hit it was so that we could leave). It was a super fun night and we bought some pumpkin donuts on our way out (those donuts were to die for). Last year we only went to one haunted place, so it was awesome being able to go to multiple places this year.

November was a busy month for me and Jordan. I was at the point in my Student Teaching where I was teaching all day everyday and I was working on my final project of my major. That project ended up being about 80 pages of essays, charts, and lesson plans. Jordan was busy scheduling interview dates with Podiatry Schools!!!! Yep, he heard back from Temple University in Philadelphia first and scheduled his interview on December 5th. Then he heard back from Samuel Merritt in Oakland and scheduled that interview for January 9th. We even bought the plane tickets and everything! Unfortunately, I can't go to Philadelphia with Jordan because I can't afford to miss any days during student teaching. On the other hand, I will be able to go to Oakland with Jordan, so we bought two tickets to Oakland.  :)

Both Jordan and I were very relieved when it was the end of the month. I had finished and turned in my project and Jordan had everything set and scheduled for interviews. This made Jordan's birthday much more enjoyable. Jordan and Marcus both have birthdays during November, so we went to Tucanos with Marcus and Lana. This is a video of Jordan and Marcus participating in the Tucanos birthday song...

For Jordan's birthday weekend, we went up to his parent's place to relax, play games, and celebrate. It was really nice. I made Jordan some homemade pumpkin pie (he always has pumpkin pie instead of cake for his birthday). I was really happy about the gift I got him, too. Jordan loves the Beatles and he loves playing the guitar. One of his friends had a Beatles chordbook that had every Beatles song, and Jordan has always wanted his own. So, I found the same one and ordered it. His face was priceless when he opened it up. He was so surprised and so excited. It made me very happy.  :)

Such a cutie.   :)

After Jordan's birthday, we went home and went to school for a couple of days. Then we went right back up to Jordan's parent's. November was so stressful, so it was unbelievably relaxing to go to his parent's. I'm also glad that I have such great in-laws. I realized how lucky I am that Jordan's family is so great. It would be awful if I dreaded going to his in-laws! But luckily, I love the time we spend with his family. It always reenergizes me when we have to go back to school-life.

Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. Jordan's mom always does a great job making everything look cute and making all the food taste great.

Also during Thanksgiving break, Jordan and I started reading Jurassic Park together. It's a great book. It goes into a lot of detail about the science behind the dinosaurs and is so interesting. And it's also just fun to read a book with my hubby.

One of Jordan's favorite things we did over Thanksgiving break was drive around in his old Porsche. He drove it his senior year in high school, but when his family moved from Virginia to Utah, the Porsche kind of died. They kept it and Jordan's dad has been working on it for a while. So Jordan was especially excited that the Porsche was drivable again and that he could take me out for a spin.

It was fun watching Jordan interact with this car. I mean, it was like he was living his senior year (his glory days) all over again. He was so cute. And I have to admit, I was pretty excited to take a spin with Jordan in his Porsche. I felt like a high school girl hopping into the car with my boyfriend. It's super silly, but Jordan and I were both feeling pretty giddy while he drove me around the neighborhood. 

We had an amazing time driving around, blasting the radio, and watching the sunset.  :)