Weekend Trip

We decided to go on a quick little trip for Thanksgiving weekend.  We celebrated Thanksgiving the prior weekend with all the trimmings - and it was delicious.  This way we weren't giving up any of the yumminess.

We decided to go to Cleveland and visit the house where A Christmas Story was filmed as well as visiting Kirtland and seeing the temple and Newel K. Whitney store.  It had been since before my mission since I was last there, and Eric and Emma had never been to Kirtland.

The Community of Christ who owns and operates the tours for the Kirtland Temple were very nice. Of course, they make you watch a video before going into the temple, and much of the video contains inaccurate information.  It's so sad to think of all the misinformation their members have been taught.  The temple was very nice, and both Eric and Emma enjoyed seeing it.  It is so wonderful to be in the same space where so many wonderful things happened.  The same goes for the Newel K. Whitney store.  The church (our church - LDS church) has really built up the area right around the store and added several other building to see since I was last there.  And it's fun for me to think of Erastus Snow (my third great-grandfather) having been there in Kirtland to at the time of so many amazing things.

It was fast, but a very fun getaway.  Most of the pictures are from the Christmas Story house, so if you don't know the movie, they won't mean much to you.  :)

You could touch anything in the house you wanted.  Just inside they had some hats you could try on.

The details in this place were wonderful.   Even down to the huge bundle of plugs in the wall.

The bb gun box hidden behind the desk in the corner. 

If you know the movie...

Eric trying to steal a taste of the turkey.

"Daddy's gonna kill Ralphie!"

If only she had been wearing a pink bunny suit

Upstairs you could pick up this phone and listen as they played the scene when the mom
calls Ralphie's friend's mom and tells her that her son taught Ralphie the F-word. 

The decoder pin in the bathroom.

Emma had fun acting out some of the better parts of the movie.  No, she didn't really taste the soap.

The bb gun has just hit her glasses and now she's conjuring up some tears.

While Eric "fixes" the tire, Emma is in the middle of saying "Oh Fuuuuuuudge."

There is a museum right across the street where they have more movie memorabilia,
much of it behind glass, as well as some fun information about the movie.

We stopped by again in the evening to get a better picture of the leg lamp in the window.
It was on earlier in the day, but it definitely looks best at night. 

"It's a major award!"

It was a rainy day in Kirtland, but was still lovely to be there.

They had huge umbrellas for us to use as we walked from the visitor center to the temple. 

Gap

Prior to Emma getting braces, she needed to have some space created in her mouth for her teeth.  She had an expander put in which we had to "expand" by turning a key thing twice a day.  We did this for 3 weeks.  It will now just remain in the same position for 3 months until the expander is removed and she gets some braces.  You could tell it was working because over the course of the 3 weeks a gap developed in between her front two teeth.  This picture was taken at the end of the 3 weeks of cranking.  They tell us that within a week or so, now that we're done expanding it, these teeth will basically move back into place.  In the mean time, she looks funny with such a big gap in there.

School Spotlight

Each of the kids in Emma's class gets to be spotlighted at some point during the year.  They bring home and fill out a poster which is then displayed for the week at school.  Here is Emma's, including some close ups of each section.

This drawing was supposed to tell something about Emma.  She's a Packer fan who loves fried chicken.

As a wonderful ego boost, when I went to pick up the pictures I had printed to add to
her poster (the big one of Emma, her black belt picture, and the small one of her with Eric), they 
told me I needed a copyright release form to get them.  They thought they were professional
 pictures, and not ones that I had taken myself.  Yay me! :)

Wicked

I took Emma to see Wicked!  It was such a fun little girls night out with her.  I knew she'd love it.  And I loved seeing it again.  Afterwards we got some of Emma's favorite soup from Panera for dinner.  A fantastic evening!

Halloween Fun

For Halloween this year Emma went as an 80s rock star.  Not a specific star, just a general 80s rock star.  So we had fun trying to piece together her costume, including inflatable guitar and lots of jewelry, especially bracelets.  I crimped and teased her hair and she was set.  She dressed up for both our ward halloween party and on Halloween for the actual trick-or-treating.   You'll see in the pictures below, but there were 3 houses we saw while we were out that were decorated to the extreme.  Really fun to see, especially the Jurassic Park house.

At the ward halloween party

Emma invited her friend to come. 

Our pumpkins this year.  Went with a Peanuts theme. 

Just before trick-or-treating.  We changed some of her jewelry to be glow in the dark stuff.

Jurassic Park themed house 

They had a gate thing across the sidewalk that connected to their "electrified" fence. 

We waited, but no T-Rex ever came for this guy.

Re-enacting part of the movie. 

And then her friends also wanted to re-enact it.

Blurry picture, but they even had evidence of the T-Rex attack.
Again, if you know the movie, you'll appreciate this.

They had decorated their car to look like one of the vehicles in the movie, and
they were playing the movie on a screen in front of the garage. 

This stayed dark inside...

...and then lit up to try to startle you.

They dressed the part too!

Another house.  Every pumpkin is carved and lit.  I couldn't count them all.

Even had a pet cemetery with animal themed carved pumpkins.

The last super-decorated house.  Just basic halloween stuff, but lots of it.