So this post pretty much covers from before Richard went to Seattle up to yesterday. There wasn't much from before, just a few visits with family, and I was also really bad at taking pictures while Richard was gone. We had a fun time here with my mom who came to keep me company. We went to Settlers Park, Costa Vida, and Kohl's the first night, then the Zoo and Lucky Peak Lake the second day. We also took it easy having naps when the kids did, and doing crafts and watching movies at night after they had gone to bed. Sunday she flew back to Utah and my Boise in-laws took care of me with a yummy dinner. I hardly had time to miss Richard (although of course I did!). I picked him up the next day from the airport (the kids were getting to know that place pretty well, and I lost count of how many times we rode the escalators) and it was back to the grind for him as he played catch-up with his school work. We had a fun Halloween, although I decided to simplify quite a bit, we were lucky to even do pumpkins. Ethan had a halloween book from the library, and so he was really looking forward to carving a jack-o-lantern, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. By the way, don't ask what Richard's pumpkin is supposed to be. He was just carving random shapes and I think the plan was to cover the whole thing like that, but we ran out of time and motivation. As far as costumes go, I was really lost, so I just went the easy route and put Gabe in the old froggy suit, and Ethan got to wear the monkey suit he picked out at the DI. I gave up on trying to make him look more like a monkey when my wonderful plans didn't work out. It didn't matter since we missed Boo at the Zoo, and ended up just going to a Trunk-or-Treat at our Church building after dark and no one could see what he was anyway. We were only 20 minutes late and most people were out of candy too --which was just fine since we still had way more sugar than we needed. Ah, Halloween.
So I've been trying out some new hobbies, and one is candle-making. I got some pure beeswax for a really good price at a bee-farm near Rexburg and I've been trying different things with it. This was our first experiment, but it won't be our last. We just used some PVC pipe to make some pillar candles to begin with, and purposefully used wick that's meant for bigger candles so that we can get a nice drippy effect. We'll post more pictures later. We stayed up way too late trying to make a colorful candle with layers of different colors, but we got impatient and so it didn't turn out as well as we hoped. The cans were too hot to hold and pour, so we tried using straws to add a little bit at a time to each layer. Yeah, I bet you can imagine what happened --Yes I got a mouthful of wax, but luckily it didn't burn me and it came out pretty easily. It was still a very unpleasant experience. I don't think we'll try that again. I think the plain natural beeswax candle turned out nicely though. We'll be posting soon with some more of our different experiments. It's amazing what kind of ideas you can find online!
Other than that, life is going well. The kids are playing together a lot more (if not a little rougher) and I feel a little freer to get stuff done and since they like babysitters now Richard and I can actually go on dates! Yay! That is essential since I hardly see him any more. It's that time of the semester, and we'll both be glad when it's over. That is... if Richard survives it! Wish us luck!
