Halloween!!

It took me a long time this year to figure out what we should be for Halloween, but with a little brainstorming with our friends Emily and TC on the way back from camping, we figured it out. What would be better than to be Simba and Nala from The Lion King, when everyone knows that The Lion King is John's favorite Disney movie--and Nala is his favorite too. So at first I wanted to make masks like they have in The Lion King on Broadway, but I first thought of doing them with paper plates and I knew that idea wouldn't work. So then I was trying to think of something else, but I figured it would be pretty much impossible so I decided to give up on the mask idea. To make our costumes we went to Ross (because there is no DI in Texas, which stinks when you need cheap clothes for Halloween costumes) and John had the genius idea of using bath mats and a blanket--because Lions are furry. We also got a sheet from Target and I pieced together some costumes. The next weekend John was studying like crazy because he had tests coming up and I wasn't working so I figured I would rethink my mask idea. I looked up how to make paper mache on the internet, bought some balloons and a little less than a week later (paper mache takes a long time to dry) John and I had made ourselves some pretty cool masks. I thought it would be impossible, but it worked! : ) So then we went to a Halloween party that Mitch and Kelsie threw and it was great! Everyone had such cool and creative costumes. 

John and I in our costumes--and you can see Robin Hood (the fox) in the background

Me limbo-ing, with  a knocked-up pregnant lady and Miss Piggy (minus her nose and wig) holding the Limbo pole and  Kermit and Pinky (from Pinky and the Brain) in the background

 We even got to wear our costumes again when we actually went to a Baylor activity!! It was a talent show and it was pretty fun. There were a few bands and singers that were really talented! And there was a little girl there who kept staring and me and John—her parents told us that The Lion King is her favorite movie and Nala is her absolute favorite! I thought that was really cute—and she was so excited! : )

Then we carved pumpkins with Brian and Amanda, Hannah and Leah from our ward. 

 Hannah and Leah especially had tons of fun with John. 

We had a great Halloween!

The alligator park

We finally got together with a bunch of people and went camping a few weeks ago! It was so fun to go camping and hang out so many of our friends. And another thing that was super fun about it was that we camped at what a lot of people call the “alligator park.” The campsite wasn’t by the alligators, but we went to see them the next day. Also, we saw some other cool animals.

We went up Friday afternoon and when we were setting up tents an armadillo just wandered into our camp. I know I learned that there were animals called armadillos, but who really knew they actually existed? Haha. This one started heading back into the trees when we went up to it, but then John got behind it and scared it back toward us. It wasn’t very smart or fast, but I guess that is why it is like a living tank with all its armor. Anyway, it kept wandering in and out of our camp throughout the afternoon. And then later that night after we had eaten and put all the food away we were just sitting around and talking. I heard a weird noise and I looked up to see a raccoon getting into some cooking supplies. I guess we hadn’t been thorough enough about putting away our food, because the raccoon found the P, B & J’s that were in Ziploc bags in someone’s lunch for the next day. We jumped up and the raccoon took off with the Ziploc bag in its mouth up a tree, then sat there and ate through the bag to the sandwich. It then kept coming back through the night to see if we had left any food out. I thought that was pretty cool. Then the next morning there were deer in the campsite across from us. They didn’t seem too bothered by all the noise coming from the campsites all around them, and I was actually to walk pretty close to them, so they must have been used to all the people. Despite all these sweet animal sightings, we hadn’t even see any alligators yet.

 We drove over to where all the alligators were and the first alligator we saw when we started walking was pretty big, but it was kind far away and just laying there.

 The next one we saw was smaller, but for some reason it kept opening and closing its mouth. It would have its mouth closed for a few minutes, then open it up for a few minutes, then close it again. I don’t know what it was doing, but I was super excited that it was moving at all.

 Then we saw alligator shaped mudholes. You could tell that was where the alligators would normally lay in the mud.

  There was a little pathway/platform out into a swamp where you could walk out and see the alligators right under you. It was pretty cool to see them up close. They didn’t really move though, so one of our friends checked to make sure there weren’t any park rangers around before pouring some water from their water bottle over one of the alligators head. She had to pour quite a bit before it noticed, but it finally moved…a little.

  Anyway, the path to see the alligators was in a big loop and it was really hot, so we were trying to decide if we should go back the way we came—it was a little bit shorter—or just finish up the loop. Finally we decided to finish the loop, and we were super excited we did. We were walking along and we came to a little family stopped on the side of the path. And there just a little way off the trail was an alligator with a turtle in its mouth!! The whole day we were hoping to see an alligator eating something and we had thought we had lost our chance, but there we were. The craziest thing about it was that the alligator would chomp on the turtle for like 2 minutes, then stop and stay perfectly still for 2 minutes, then repeat. We came to the conclusion the alligators are really lazy, or they just get worn out really easily.

  Anyway, one of the times it was trying to chomp on the turtle the turtle slipped out of its mouth and into the mud. And the alligator dove its head into the mud and came out with the turtle—and a mouthful of mud! But it didn’t really seem to care, it just sat there for 2 minutes before it started chomping again. 

Anyway, we didn’t stay to see it finish eating the turtle because it could have taken all day, but it was pretty cool. We didn’t see any alligators jump completely out of the water so that it could catch a bird flying by in its mouth, like we were hoping, but overall it was a pretty awesome camping trip.