Happy Thanksgiving

Awesome. I actually do hope that everyone enjoys the holiday.

New Moon

Pictures used without express or implied permission. I hope you enjoy my mad photo editing skills.

Late Thursday night (technically Friday morning), my sisters-in-law, Jesse and Kenzi, and I saw New Moon, the second Twilight movie. It was so much fun! The movie was good (miles better than the first one). Bella and Edward's relationship still makes no sense, but having Jacob as a central character was awesome.

One of the highlights was listening to the screams, giggles, and gasps as various characters appeared on-screen or took off their shirts. I especially loved Kenzi's reactions. She is an Edward fan while I still harbor hope that the screenwriters will veer away from the books so that Jacob and Bella will end up together. It could happen, right?

I had to cover my eyes a couple of times because I couldn't watch the gore of vampires being killed, but Jesse told me when the gross scenes were over.

The best part, by far, was hanging out with Jesse and Kenzi. Especially when we talked about boobs. Wait, what? And none of us, not even the pregnant one, fell asleep. It was a top notch night.

Parties and Puppies

Curt and I went to a white trash party on Saturday night. Even though it was cold (who has a party outside in November?), we had fun dressing up (or down) for it. We had lots of temporary tattoos, and my hair was as teased as it could get. It took quite awhile to un-tease it later. This is us with our friends, Brian and James:Yes, Brian has a doll in his pants. He was baby-sitting. Whatever.

Are you already overwhelmed with how awesome we are? Just wait! A few days earlier, we joined our friends at Progressive Power Tumbling, a gym in Provo with trampolines, a foam pit, and mats:Lest you think that Curt was the only one getting crazy, check me out:Just kidding, I did actually jump and play on everything, but my feats weren't amazing enough to be photographed.

Some of the guys posed before they took their turns doing cool jumps on a couple of trampolines. From left to right, this is Curt, Justin, Todd, and Randy:Moving on, Peyton and Autzen kept smelling bad, so they got a group bath on Sunday:The next day, Autzen got his first haircut. Here's the before:And the after (ol' crazy eyes):We had to do it. Apparently, dogs that are rescued from shelters often are stressed and shed more than normal. We kept finding chunks of Autzen hair around the house, and we've vacuumed three times this week, which is excessive for us. We hope that Autzen is getting the idea that he's here to stay, but, either way, we won't be finding chunks of hair, anymore. He was good for the haircut, too. The groomer told me that Autzen, although hyper, made friends with everyone there, and they all loved him. It made my heart happy to hear that.

Also on Monday, Peyton and I started a training course at PetSmart. I didn't want to take a camera inside, so I took this picture while we were stopped at a light on the drive (speaking of crazy eyes):Pretty, huh? Anyway, Peyton must have had a traumatic childhood because he's got some anger issues to work through. Actually, the trainer was impressed with him, seeing as how he's ahead of the class (he relieves himself outside, obeys me, and was calm for the hour-long lesson), but she said it'd be good for him to socialize with the other dogs and humans in the class. As many people know, training is more for the people than the dogs, so I look forward to learning a lot.

Have you met Autzen?

Curt and I adopted our sweet terrier mix puppy, Autzen (pronounced "ought-sin"), from the South Utah Valley Animal Shelter on Monday, November 2. After we saw his picture on the website, we visited the shelter last Thursday to meet him. There were so many dogs clamoring for our attention, not to mention the cats, birds, hamsters, bunnies, etc. in the other rooms. Please adopt your animal companions from the shelter -- there are so many who need love, and there is no reason to give business to pet stores/puppy mills. Autzen was picked up in Benjamin, Utah on October 22 and had been at the shelter since. Taking him home cost only $147, which paid for his neutering, rabies vaccination, microchip, and license.

Autzen was quiet for the first part of the car ride to the vet:And here he is after about 10 minutes, enjoying his first taste of freedom:The doctor estimated that Autzen is about eight months old, which means his birthday is close to Peyton's March 11 birthday. Autzen is also a bag of bones: He is longer and taller than 20-pound Peyton but weighs only 19 pounds.

When we got home, we threw away Autzen's shelter collar:Curt gave Autzen his first bath:After a few minutes with the blow dryer, Autzen finished airing off outside:He explored the backyard:He hung out with Peyton and Archie (who has now returned home):He went for his first walk with me (we're supposed to give both dogs individual attention every day):We're crate training Autzen, which does not particularly tickle his fancy:Peyton was hesitant about having yet another puppy in his house, but, after some curious sniffing, he and Autzen love their playtime together. Autzen had no hesitation about loving Peyton. If all of us are out of sight, Autzen will cry until Peyton comes back in the room. In fact, Peyton, who is not confined to his crate, has taken to spending most of his time with Autzen. On Thursday, they both woke up when Curt snapped a picture of them napping:

Hallooooween

We had fun with our spooky Halloween decorations. In addition to what you see in the pictures, we also had a fog machine and flashing strobe light when it got dark. A few people told us they thought that our house was on fire (a guy on crutches even came running/hopping over to make sure we were okay).

Curt insisted that we be one of the cool houses that gives trick-or-treaters full-size candy bars, and I insisted that they be vegan. So we gave out tropical Skittles, watermelon Sour Patch sweets, and Swedish Fish. Several of the trick-or-treaters told us we were the coolest people ever. Yes!

Curt was Lieutenant Dangle from Reno 911!:

I laughed every time I looked at him in his short shorts.

I dressed in my bee costume for work on Friday and wore a skeleton shirt on Saturday as you will see in a picture below. Peyton was Curt's prisoner, and Archie was a pumpkin:

"Who is Archie?" some of you may ask. Archie is Curt's parents' dog, who is staying with us while they are in Hawaii. We have several costumes for Peyton, so Archie borrowed the pumpkin one. It didn't stretch all the way around his stomach, so he's wearing it like a jacket. They looked pretty cute.

Some of our favorite trick-or-treaters dropped by. From left to right, this is Lieutenant Dangle Curt holding prisoner Peyton, skeleton Shana, snow princess Lindsay, vampire Spencer, clown Emily holding pumpkin Archie, Blaine holding clown Bethany, and their friend whose name I can't remember (feel free to tell me if you know):

After handing out treats, Curt and I went to my brother, Adam's, rock band party at his house:

People dressed up as rock stars and played The Beatles Rock Band, which is a video game that has players playing the guitar, bass, drums, and singing. Curt was a super star on the microphone:

Mary (my brother, Cavan's, girlfriend) rocked out on the guitar:

It was a great Halloween. The best part is we have plenty of leftover candy. Delicious.

Having Archie over has been great for Peyton, who is an "only dog." The first day or so was a bit jarring for both of them. Archie is used to a more relaxed pace at home, and Peyton is used to being the center of attention. Peyton would pick up a toy and walk into Archie, trying to get him to play, and Archie would just stand and look at Peyton or walk away. However, after getting used to each other, this is what we see and hear about 15 times a day:

The two of them follow Curt and me pretty much everywhere, including to the bathroom:

All the energy they expend means plenty of naps: