halloween weekend!

We had a pretty action packed halloween weekend with our good friend Matt Scott's CD release party on Friday and then a halloween costume party on Saturday! Here is a brief rundown of the events... :)

Matt had his release party in downtown Boston at Kennedy's in Midtown. We really don't go down to Boston enough so it was a fun adventure for a Friday night. :)

Matt had a great turnout...it was packed! We were standing most of the evening until we were eventually able to snag a seat. We had a great time and congratulations Matt on this exciting accomplishment! :)

Navigating our way back home on the T (Boston's subway system).

On Saturday (Halloween) our friends Nick and Beck hosted a halloween dress up party! Of course this added the challenge of figuring out what to dress up as... After much debate and discussion we finally settled on Jim and Pam from The Office. They recently got married and Pam is pregnant, so that made the costume extra exciting (for me at least).

I loved my pregnant belly...it was so fun to have, for the night anyway. :) We put a lot of time and effort into researching all the perfect details to look as much like Jim and Pam as possible...from clothing to hairstyles. We were pretty satisfied with the result.

Apparently we picked the right theme...here are our lovely hosts; Nick as Dwight (from the Office) and Beck as Sprinkles the cat (Angela's deceased cat from the Office) (*Picture from Nick and Beck's blog apparently I didn't take a picture of the 2 of them together. See more costume pictures there as well!)

Here are Reed and Emily, our neighbors, dressed as purple and green grapes. :)

These cuties took up the whole couch. :)

Of course there was some x-box playing. (Benjamin Franklin (Dawie) is in front, you can see part of a snuggie model (Amanda) in pink, and a soccer player (Ashleigh) and biggest loser champion (Josh) are in the back.)

Me and Beck posing with the belly. :)

and the boys playing more x box. Don't worry we eventually made them stop and played some games that included EVERYONE. :)

Beck and her good friend Amanda (the snuggie model). Nick and Beck's friends from New Jersey were visiting them this weekend. They were really nice and we had a fun time spending the evening with them. :)

Dwight's costume started to morph as the evening went on... :)

And then the fake mustaches came out and things got a little dicey. I can't stand to see my beautiful friends looking like that! :)

Daniel looking a bit like Tom Selleck.

And then Daniel began shooting my maternity photo shoot...

So I posed for my maternity photo shoot... :)

Because it will probably be quite a while before I have a belly like that again. :)

We had such a fun evening! And though we were a little wary of the whole costume idea at first, we really had a lot of fun with it. :) Hope everyone else had a fun and safe halloween as well. Can you believe it is already November?? A little over 1 month until we fly home for Christmas...crazy!

jenny's birthday!

Well, the celebrating actually began about 2 posts ago...when Jordan made me a cake the night we spent at their house. :) But I will now finish recapping what I like to call, my birthday week. :) The morning after Ryan & Emily's wedding we attended a morning after the wedding brunch at one of the Flynn's family friends houses. We had a great time getting to know our friends families a little bit better. Since we were in the area; we thought we would take a little jaunt over to the house Daniel grew up in, since it was just a few minutes away in Issaquah.

We made our way to Daniel's family's old house but unfortunately never got a very good look at it. It is on a large property surrounded by a lot of trees, so we would have had to do some pretty hard core trespassing to get a good look. I did venture onto the grass once though to try and get a better shot but no dice. :)

The biggest thing that surprised us was how overgrown and unkept everything was! Though I do suppose it is hard to maintain such a large property without 5 strapping boys on hand... :)

Daniel in front of the driveway on the street

Showing some love to his former neighbors...the LDS Issaquah ward #2! :)

A quick photo before heading back to the Tobin's...

Heading down the plateau...we miss you beautiful washington mountains!

This is totally unrelated to my birthday, but here is my kitty cat Pumpkin! The Punk likes my dad better than me [and HATES Daniel] but it's okay I love her still. She is so stoic in the photo.

Punk Snot is not feeling this photo op, but it is a halloween tradition...Pumpkin with a pumpkin! :)

That evening we went out to a lovely dinner with my parents at the Melting Pot. Mmmm how I love that restaurant. What's not to love? Fondu is fab and plus it is just a neat and interactive experience! Aaron and Megan ended up coming over to my parent's house that night (after their second wedding of the weekend - at the same location as Ryan and Emily's!) and we had fun playing games and just talking with them until the wee hours of the morning.

We left the next morning and it was sad to go...but we will be back in about a month and a half for Christmas!

Shout-out and big thanks to Nick and Beck for picking us up from the airport AND feeding us when we got back. You guys are great and we are so thankful for you! Massachusetts had a little welcome home gift of it's own for us as it was SNOWING the day we arrived back. Nothing huge, it was mostly gone by the next morning but COME ON, it is October, can't the winter weather at least hold off until November? Fortunately, we haven't had any snow since but it sure is chilly and getting colder and colder every day I think!

This is ON my birthday (October 19th, the greatest day of the year) throwing up the big 2-4.

Showcasing my many gifts from my sweet husband. Daniel got my some new books to read and some new bakeware I was wanting. Two of my favorite hobbies, what a sweetie. :)

Daniel hosted a little birthday party for me that weekend...

This is me laughing at my flaming cupcake. Say "hi" to Tara holding sweet baby Anna! Anna is but 3 months old and is such a sweetie with great hair. :) It is nice to have a little baby around to hold and love when we are missing the nieces and nephews.

A closer picture of the flaming cupcake...

Don't worry I didn't actually eat THIS cupcake...as you can see there was a bit of wax dripping problem. :)

And a picture of the yummy red velvet cupcakes I made for my party! Yes, I made my own cake(cupcakes) but I like to bake, so I would have been sad if I wasn't allowed to! Thanks Beck for being my lovely hand model in this picture.

Yay for birthdays! Happy Wednesday everyone!

ryan & emily's wedding festivities

Here is a little recap of all the wedding fun we had while home in October. Ryan and Emily, we are so glad we were both able to fly over and be there for your big day! We had a ball, and hope you did too. We miss you guys, and all our other dear friends back home too, looking forward to some more fun times in December... :)

The BACHELORETTE PARTY:

We were able to partake in bachelor/bachelorette parties by coming the week before the wedding. The boys had fun playing the box while us girls had a night on the town. We went to can-can for dinner and a little show. We then returned to a hotel in Seattle and spent the night relaxing, chatting, eating, and drinking. :)

The bride (picture taken from MEGAN GIBBS)

Mandy, Megan, Emily, and me (picture taken from MEGAN GIBBS)

The REHEARSAL/REHEARSAL DINNER:

The groom, Daniel, and the groom's brother Danny

The photographer with camera in hand. :)

the groomsmen

Daniel getting a little emotional while rehearsing. :)

holding hands...

here comes the bride...

the beautiful bride and groom at the delicious rehearsal dinner!

what cuties. :)

The WEDDING:

Megan (my date for the ceremony at least) and I arrived early at the wedding so we could help with a little set-up and get some good seats. :)

waiting for the ceremony to begin...

waiting for his bride

[unintentional] close up of the bride

the groomsmen

the bridesmaids

a blurry kiss. :)

the new Mr. and Mrs. Flynn!

Mandy and Josh and Daniel and I at the cocktail hour (picture taken from MEGAN GIBBS)

Mandy, me and Megan (picture taken from MEGAN GIBBS)

arriving at the reception

Daniel doing the prayer before dinner. So proud of my little seminarian. :)

and the newlyweds having their first dance...

We had a ball at the wedding; it was so fun to get to spend time hanging out with some of our closest and oldest friends from back in Seattle. We love you all and miss you!! Congratulations again to Ryan and Emily...welcome home from your honeymoon and hope you are adjusting well to "real life". :)

spending time with some McDowell's

Daniel and I were able to fly home for a little over a week last week. It was such a nice trip, and for such a great reason, Ryan and Emily's wedding! While we had many wedding festivities to partake in, we did have a little free time, so we filled it up with spending some time with our family back in Seattle. :)

We spent Monday with Matt and Dani, Tuesday we had dinner with Martin (daniel's dad) and Debe, and Wednesday was with Josh and Jordan! (Christin! We wish we could have seen you and Rick when we were home too! Looking forward to seeing you and spending some time with you in less than 2 months for Christmas!) Here are some picture highlights (mostly of the kiddos, because, quite frankly, they are cuter) of our family fun. :)

At Matt and Dani's...

Addie being a great big sister to Greta. :)

Such a sweetie. :)

Sweet little Greta. :)

Addie playing my little pony with Daniel. :)

Poor little Caleb. :(

Matt and Dani's 3 kiddos; Caleb, Greta, and Adaline. :)

Mr. Caleb in his mommy's lap. :)

The only picture we got of Matt. :) Thanks Matt for being such a trooper and staying up so late on a work night! I am sure it wasn't fun the next day but we had a great time talking with you. :)

I miss you my friend/sister! :)

The following evening we went over to Martin and Debe's house for dinner. No pictures unfortunately :( but we had a wonderful time regardless! We were even able to see Martin all decked out in his new biking gear. :) We had a wonderful dinner, as always, Debe is an amazing cook. And then we spent the rest of the evening talking and catching up. Martin, who usually can't keep his eyes open past 9:00 p.m. stayed up talking with Daniel until after midnight! I was beyond impressed. Debe went to bed at some point and I fell asleep in their living room, so they had some nice father/son bonding time. :)

At Josh and Jordan's...

We actually went swimming (indoors of course) soon after we arrived. Austin had a swim lesson that afternoon and the pool had open swim before that, so we all headed down for some fun in the water. We had some dry, indoor fun for the rest of the evening. :)

Seri on the move! :)

What a smile. :) She is such a cutie.

Micah couldn't miss out on the photo opportunity! He's got quite the smile too. :)

Uncle Daniel is a jungle gym. :)

Jordan was so sweet, she had noticed that it was my birthday that next week so she baked a cake just for me! I even got sung happy birthday. :) It was so fun to be able to celebrate with them.

Micah with his cake!

The next morning...Seri looking cool in her shades. :)

The brothers duking it out in scrabble as usual. :)

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!! We miss you and thanks again for being so hospitable and hosting us. :) We had a wonderful time with each one of you.