Trunk or Treat!

Here are a few pictures from the last couple nights:

First of all, we had to carve a new pumpkin to redeem ourselves. Much better than the first, yes? No stencils Andrea, I promise.

Second, was our ward Trunk or Treat. Diego worked on decorating our car trunk for hours. He drew the whole night sky and lit it up with a black light. There was also a skeleton laying in front of the tombstones but you can't see it. Beautiful art, Diego! Good job.

Adoption

So many of you know, and many of you don't, but Diego and I are in fact trying to adopt. After six greuling months of failed fertility treatments and procedures, we decided to take another route in creating our family. We never expected to have to deal with this but it's okay. Our marriage has only become stronger as a result. I feel so blessed in so many other ways that it's hard for me to complain. Actually, I feel blessed to be a part of such a unique experience. I feel special to be part of something as wonderful as adoption.

At the moment, we are right in the middle of filling out what seems like an endless amount of paperwork in order to just be approved to adopt. It's a long process, and for most couples, the wait to be placed with a child is even longer. I have met some really great ladies that have been waiting years to be placed with a child. I just ask that if any of you know someone that is thinking of placing their child for adoption; a sibling, a friend, a distant relative...let me know. I have met some great people. I got connections! I would love to help out my friends as much as I can.

My Rotting Pumpkin

So Diego and I carved this awesome pumpkin over the weekend. And we forgot to take a picture of it! It's already starting to rot, I think because it's still so warm here. The weather's not cold enough to keep it nice and fresh. Anyway, it was a spider with great, long, slender legs. But as the days have passed, they don't look so slender anymore. They now look kind of fat and gushy. Ah, so sad. We were so proud of it. Diego's actually a little embarrassed of me posting the picture. But I assured him we will carve another one a little closer to Halloween and I'll take a picture of that one while it's still in it's true form.

The Pleasures of Working for a Small Company

So, for the most part, I really like my job. It's a small privately owned company that provides different financial services, mainly financial advisement for high-end investors and accounting for captive insurance companies. The company is owned by two extremely well to do ex-attorneys, who also happen to be members of the church. It makes for a very nice environment. But the environment is a little quirky too. You see, I don't know how many of you have ever worked for small companies, but this is a first for me. There are certain duties I have to preform, being that I'm an administrative assistant, that I wouldn't have to preform if I was working for a large business; such as taking out the trash, cleaning the coffee pot, etc... Those tasks I expected and was just fine with. But... my boss doesn't exactly know where his boundaries lie. Let me re-phrase that. He does not know where his boundaries lie at all. I thought some of you might like to hear about a few duties of mine (and my boss's personal assistant, which is not me) that were a bit over the line:

• Wrapping all of his wife's and his kid's Christmas presents.
• Writing a talk for church on Sunday (this he made his assistant do, and she's not even a member of the church!)
• Updating spreadsheets and making copies for various church meetings.
• Taking his car to get an oil change, or a dent fixed and then making me call back to negotiate the price down to a more reasonable one (I've had to do this 3 or 4 times).
• Making copies of his kid's homework.
• Driving down to the DMV and then waiting for two hours to get his wife's BMW re-registered.

That's just a few of the crazy things I have done for this man. I know there's so many more but I can't think of them all. He's such a nice guy too, so it's really hard to say no! Especially when he's smiling and has that shiny glint on his teeth (ding!).

Corn Maze

So, the pictures are a little fuzzy but they were the best we could get. My parents visited this weekend and we felt like doing something a little different so we went to a place in Mesa called Vertuccio Farms. It was really fun and extremely windy. They had a pumpkin patch, a little train ride for kids, and a corn maze. Have any of you been in a corn maze? This was my first time and I must say, they really do turn you around. After wandering through it for about 15 minutes, I became really confused. I didn't know which direction I was facing or how close I even was to the end. Luckily, Diego was with me and we decided follow his "fail-proof method" as he kept calling it. Basically you just stick to the right. You never go left. If you come to a fork in the road, stay on the right side. If you come to a "T", turn right. I was skeptical but it actually worked! It turns out we were the only ones to make it to the end without cheating. Both my parents and my sister's family cut through the corn to finish faster. So technically we were the winners.

Here's some pictures of my niece, Bethany, and my nephew, Adam, playing on the train and the bounce house.