happy halloween.

Happy Halloween Mom! I'm sitting at the house waiting around to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. There hasn't been much this year. Dad says that most of the little kids came right away at 4pm before I got here. Most of mine have been high schoolers in lame/no costumes. Lucy has on her skeleton again this year.

As we have been doing for as long as I can remember, we carved pumpkins together. We missed you as always. Dad carved a pirate (can you tell?) and kept "Arrrgg-ing", it was pretty humorous. Here are the pictures I promised, I don't have any physical photos of us doing the carving as I was trying to get my teeth cut:

Dad and Kallie with the pumpkins we were trying to get a group photo with the timer on the camera but I have a bunch of blurry photos of me running back over.

All three of our pumpkins. Dad is on the bottom with his pirate face, then Kallie's looks very pleased, and mine is on top with it's goofy grin.

After we put dad's out side we went back to the kitchen and minutes later we see Marvin trotting away with the pumpkin in his mouth. Starvin' Marvin strikes again. By morning, Kallie had already sent me a photo of what was left of the pumpkin. We knew it was going to happen but it was still hilarious.

Halloween feels different this year. Is it because I am too old? Out of the house too long? You not being here? There being no decorations up this year at all? I'm leaning toward an all of the above mix. It's strange to be here and without your or the promise of a halloween party. Once I get a house I will pick up where you left off and host awesomely-awesome halloween parties.

Happy Halloween Mom, love you!

norah

Guess what mom, Chris and I may have found a dog for us! I stumbled across her online and she's close to Chris in Des Moines. She's super cute, I know that you would agree. Chris will hopefully get to meet her this weekend and test her out. We really want a dog.

I took Lucy out there with me last time with every hope that it would feel right and it didn't. Lucy is like my last little piece I have you right now and I want to keep her but, she didn't like the apartment and clearly missed everything at home. There was one night where she looked so sad, just like she did after you died, and it broke my heart. She still misses you, Kallie says that she will sometimes wander the house looking for you. We all miss you. So, Kallie officially gets her now because I want whats best for Lucy, even though it's hard to let the last of you go. I know Kallie will take care of her, but it's still hard.

The dog that we are looking at is named Norah and she's almost a year old, a corgi mix, very lovable and likes to swim! Here's a photo of her:

I'll be sure to let you know how it goes and if we get her. Chris told his mom about her and she's excited that she might get her first grandkid (that's what she called her)... his dad overheard this and almost fainted, haha.

I let Kallie down tonight and feel really bad about it. She wanted to carve pumpkins tonight and I agreed. Unfortunately, as you know, I suck at managing my time and overbooked myself. I felt like the worst person in the world telling her I wasn't going to come. I pictured that she had everything ready to go and how disappointed she looked when I called to cancel. I rearranged my schedule tomorrow so I can go over there and do what we've always done every year since forever--carve pumpkins together. Only you aren't here to take the pictures. I'll be sure to take a few for you though, I try to remember stuff you did so that things can carry on somewhat like they did. Only not really because you not being here really makes a huge difference (go figure). Well, it's really late and I have stuff to deal with tomorrow. Someday I will be sure to tell you all about my moron and how it's ruining my life. But that's for another time and place.

Goodnight mom, love you.

do they have internet where you are?

Hi Mom,

I had the strangest impulse to call you today and ask if I could take you out for tea. As I was reaching for my phone I realized how silly a thought this was. I still have your number saved in my cell phone and cannot bring myself to delete it. I'm not even sure its your number anymore. Things have been hard without you, Dad has really thrown himself into this wedding planning nonsense and I wish you were here to stick up for me. I blame my crazy hippie-dippy ideals on you. But I bought a foofoo fancy dress that was probably made in a sweat shop for more money than I care to admit. Aunt Kelly and Grammy cried when I put it on, the entire time I was wondering what you would have thought about it. I'm getting through life though, it's just not what I would have forseen for myself.

Love you Mom.