Pumpkin Carving

Here are pictures from our two days of Pumpkin festivities! We spent Friday night hanging out at Aunt Jackie and Uncle Greg's for their carving party and then Saturday we took our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch followed by pumpkin carving with friends at our place. Oddly enough Casey and I didn't carve any pumpkins this year - we were too busy socializing I guess!

Where have I been??

I don't know if I could even tell you - it's been such a hectic and busy year so far!

Here's a quick run down of what has been going on with the Pages in the last month:

First week of October: I had a mysterious mole removed on my arm. My doctor thought it might be Melanoma, but it came back clear - YAY! It did give me a good scare though, so I made a dermatologist appointment and when I went he said all of my moles/freckles looked good, but that I have pre-cancerous cells on my lips. I had to have the skin on my bottom lip frozen which gave me an awesome blister that looked like a fever blister. I also have to use this cream (over the holiday break) that will burn off several layers of skin on my lips to get rid of the scary pre-cancerous cells.

October 8th: College Day at my elementary school! I love college day because I absolutely love where I went to college. It was a blast telling the kids all about "Essefay" (S.F.A.) and letting them try on my cap and gown. They also loved seeing the picture of "Mr. Casey" and me on my graduation day.

October 8-10: Home to Longview to visit my dad and relax. Casey and I helped him fix the roof and paint his kitchen. My dad also started a new job recently that he really loves. Thank you Lord for giving my dad a job that he loves!

October 11: I survived Parent/Teacher conferences - Year 2. Last year I threw up on my way into conferences. This year was much better. :) I have a great group of parents this year - another thing to be thankful for!

October 16: Dinner with our old friends the Tolars. Trey was my outside salesman when I worked at Elliott Electric Supply and we became great friends during that time. It was so great to hang out with them and get to see their kids - they are such a cute family!

October 23: Stephen F. Austin vs. Sam Houston game at Reliant Stadium! Casey and I got tickets through the ZTA alumni association earlier this year to go to the SFA vs. Sam game and we had so much fun tailgaiting with friends and watching the game. Oh and the Lumberjack Marching band did Beyonce "Single Ladies" and Lady Gaga!! That absolutely made my day. :)

October 22: Family pumpkin carving night at Casey's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Gregs! A year ago Casey proposed to me at this event so it was really tough opening up a pumpkin and not finding a diamond ring (kidding). Casey and I went traditional this year and made pretty basic pumpkins, but they turned out really well. Here we are with our pumpkins!

October 30: Halloween parties. Casey dressed up as the "Hide yo' kids, Hide yo' wife" guy (Antoine Dodson) and I dressed up as Santana from my favorite show GLEE!

October 31: My MIL's birthday! I love that her birthday is on Halloween! We went out to eat at Black Walnut Cafe and then back to the house for ice cream cake - yum!

That pretty much brings me up to date!

We're Engaged!!

Casey and I are engaged! Casey finally popped the question Saturday at his Aunt and Uncle's house. Here are the details and some pictures! I posted a video on Facebook as well. We are so excited!

The Proposal Story:

So every year Casey’s Aunt Jackie and Uncle Greg have a Pumpkin Carving party at their house. Halloween is my favorite time of year and Casey’s Godparents were in town from New York to visit so we all went over to his Aunt and Uncle’s house that night. I had told Casey a few weeks before that I didn’t want to carve the design on the pumpkin but that I would help out by opening the pumpkin and getting all the guts out (my favorite part), so I decided I would go ahead and get that over with so I could hang out with his cousins and other family the rest of the night. I started opening the pumpkin and when I finally got the top off it was all white and fluffy inside and I was really upset because I thought that it was moldy and we had bought a bad pumpkin. I thought it was really weird because it was so thick and it really looked like cotton and as I was showing it to Casey and his family, Casey reached down into the pumpkin and pulled some of the “mold” out. I jumped back and was frankly, very grossed out that he touched the “mold”, until I realized that it was fake spider webs and that he had somehow emptied the pumpkin and filled it with spider webs. Once I realized this I was kind of annoyed because Casey always plays jokes like this on me and I was thinking that this joke was really kind of mean because I really do LOVE getting the guts out of the pumpkin. So I started taking the cottony spider webs out and threw some of them at him and then when I reached back inside the pumpkin I felt something big at the bottom. I pulled it out and it was a ring box. I was kind of confused still because I could totally see Casey putting candy in a ring box as a joke- I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised in my entire life. I opened the box and was literally stunned when I saw the ring- it was huge! I immediately started crying and finally someone in Casey’s family said, “Well? What do you say??” and I said “He hasn’t asked me anything!”. That got a bunch of laughs and then Casey finally said the 4 words I thought I’d never hear come out of his mouth – “Will you marry me?” I of course said YES! We are hoping for an October 2010 wedding and are going to look at venues in Austin on November 7^th. Here is the video that Casey was taking while I was opening the pumpkin, his dad has another longer video that I will post when he sends it to me. Thank you to everyone for the congrats- we are so excited to be getting married!

College Day, Pumpkins, and more!

Okay so I have been a bad blogger lately. Things have been so busy and now that I have an iPhone I hardly ever get on my actual computer at home. So here are a few updates:

2 weeks ago my school had College Day and we got to wear College Tshirts and bring stuff from college to show the students. I think this is a great thing because it introduces the idea of college to so many students, some of whom may not even know what college is because their
parents didn't go. So of course I wore an SFA Alumni shirt and I even brought my cap, gown, and a picture from graduation. The kids loved hearing about "Essefay" and learning how to do the "Axe 'Em Jacks" sign! Luckily my librarian, next door teacher, and all 3 principals went to SFA so I wasn't the only one trying to indoctrinate them. Here are a few pictures from that day:




Yeah so maybe I brainwashed them, but so what?













Okay so on to Pumpkins!

Jessica, Chris, Casey, and I had our 3rd annual Chagla-Page/Wood pumpkin carving get together last Saturday and it was a blast as usual. Since Chris had to work from 3:00-5:00 we went to the pumpkin patch around noon and picked out our pumpkins. This year it was slim pickins at the pumpkin patch and Case and I were very upset that they didn't have hay bails and corn stalks for decorating. Here are some pics from the pumpkin patch:


After getting our pumpkins we headed back home and Jess and I went to get pedicures and did a little shopping. I found a really cute pair of winter boots at Kohls and even though I was trying to stay away from stilleto heels, these were too pretty to pass up.


After shopping and pedis, Jess and I picked up stuff for tacos and some southwestern eggrolls from Chilis- one of my biggest weaknesses. I am obsessed with those things! After getting home and devouring chips & salsa/queso and the eggrolls I cooked up some taco meat and we had dinner. I love taco night - it never gets old to me. After eating we started carving the pumpkins and put on some "scary" movies. Jessica doesn't like horror films so we watched Young Frankenstein & Shaun of the Dead- if you haven't checked these out you really need to they are both hilarious! Casey and I chose a Nightmare Before Christmas theme and I carved Jack Skellington and he carved the Oogie-Boogie. They turned out really cute!



Chris did a Scarecrow and Jess did a really awesome and complicated Haunted House scene- yet again she won for most difficult pumpkin pattern! I got done with my Jack-O-Lantern first so I took all of our pumpkin guts and separated the seeds from the goop and made some roasted pumpkin seeds with a twist. Jess and I had read an article in Redbook about making gourmet pumpkin seeds so I decided to experiment. I made three different kinds: Mexican inspired, Italian inspired, and Indian inspired. They were all pretty good except the curry ones were a little bitter.

To make a long story even longer - pumpkin night was a success! More later!

Fall is here!

Fall is FINALLY here and I am loving the weather! Casey and I have been keeping the door and windows open in the mornings and evenings because it's just so darn nice outside. We are both very excited about the holidays and have decided to have a Halloween party! Casey's mom's birthday is on Halloween as well so we decided that it will be a Birthday/Halloween party complete with costumes, cake and other goodies! So glad that October 31st falls on a Saturday this year.

I have no idea what I want to be this year - any ideas?? I love dressing up! I was Wonder Woman last year and it was a blast. Here's a pic from last year:



Next weekend Kelli, Jessica, and I are headed to New Orleans! More on that later!