Dracula. Pumpkin Patch. Hike.

I forgot to mention that Will was out of town last week for a few days. He was in Salt Lake City at a Wildlife Conference. He has been doing research for a professor at MSU and presented a poster he made that represents the paper he has been writing. He is hoping to get the paper published, which is pretty big deal for a Masters student. I think that the conference was refreshing for him because he got to meet people who enjoy and are employed doing what he wants to do (and they would want to hire him). I had some quality alone time while he was away. You know, cooked, deep cleaned the studio, exercised the doggie, all the wife stuff I should be doing while he is home. So this weekend we tried to make up for a week spent apart.

On Friday night, I decided to take us to Dracula, a play at a small theater. I was hopeful that it would indeed be as scary as they advertised, but regretfully must say it was quite awful. I applaud actors in the theater setting because it is difficult to pull off quality acting, but this was rough to watch. We had a good laugh though. I also baked salmon for us before hand (I keep telling Will I should get some award this week for being such an A+ wife, no award yet...)

Saturday, I had a volleyball game against the other defeated middle school team. We lost. Lame, I know, but my girls played the best they have all season. It really is neat to watch girls improve at a sport because of my instruction. That sounds arrogant, but I think it shows we should be giving back in some aspect the skills we have been given. We also went to the local Pumpkin Patch here. I do believe we were the ONLY ones with out children, but we rode that hay ride and had just as much fun as any toddler. We "picked pumpkins," (I say pick, but really they had dumped all the pumpkins in some random field far enough away to justify a hay ride to get there) made a caramel apple, bought two ears of corn, and squealed at the animals ride along with the children.

Today we took the baby Aspen hiking. It was a wonderful hike. Aspen got completely muddy and only batted around one Jack Russel Terrier. We also saw some evidence of a wild animal. Can you guess which one based on the pictures??? (Don't worry Dad, we survived.)

I finally received the jacket I was supposed to receive from the running group I signed up for. Will also made breakfast this morning. Those are homemade biscuits. We are planning on grilling pork chops and the corn tonight. My plan is to feel extra large this week and use that to keep running next weekend.

A week from today we will be on a plane back to Bozeman after (hopefully) completing our marathon. I am nervous, but Will says we are more than prepared.

Tomorrow is, "Aspen get pretty day." If you are wondering what the heck that even means, you will just have to wait.