Celebrating Birthdays and Celebrating Life
October involved a lot of travel, specifically for me with work trips and unplanned personal trips. Needless to say, it was a pretty exhausting month, and one where Trent was once again incredible with the kids (well, he always is) and patient with me in my travels. We ventured downtown with our friends for the Wing Bowl, an event where vendors participate in a wing-baking competition and where they ran out of wings a couple of hours into the event. We took that opportunity to have some drinks al fresco on the way back home and got to know our neighbors even better. Kyle and Cooper joined us for a morning at the park and then to lunch as well. I took a quick work trip to SC for the day to celebrate one of our factory’s 50th-year anniversary and we had the same neighbors over for dinner the next night.
Brayden turned six on October 17, which is so hard to believe. She celebrated it with nine of her classmates (plus Hanleigh). It was a girls-only affair, held at a local cupcake boutique and it went off perfectly! They got to decorate three mini cupcakes each by piping icing, adorning with sprinkles, and then playing games. We painted the rock for her birthday and went out to Dean & Deluca to meet the family for dinner (next time we’ll do that on a weekend evening…it’s too hard to gather everyone from all over the city on a weeknight!). I spent six days in San Antonio for my annual company conference and it went so incredibly smooth. Every year it gets better and better! We also attended just one NCSU football game and it’s looking like we may be bowl-eligible. Trent and Brayden had a Y-Guides activity one weekend at a corn maze and pumpkin patch. We got “Boo’d” a couple weeks before Halloween, which is where someone places Halloween goodies on your front porch with a note to “Boo” someone else. Such a creative concept. We had a great time with that. It’s like the Secret Santa of Halloween, but you pay it forward! Trent and the girls went trick-or-treating as well. Brayden was a rock-n-roll star and Hanleigh was Nemo. They had a wonderful time tagging along with some friends in the neighborhood.
A very sad thing happened this month. My uncle (mom’s brother) passed away from complications with cancer. He had been going through radiation treatments and chemo off and on over the past year and was recently having frequent blood transfusions. Unfortunately, he was taken from us WAY too soon (at the age of 58)! Kyle and I traveled to Louisville to be with the family and it was evident by the number of people at the wake and funeral just how much of an impact Johnny had made in the lives of everyone he knew. We raised many a glasses and toasted to the incredible person he was. He was the silly, funny, caring, compassionate uncle that taught me how to pack a cooler of beer when I was eight-years old. He was witty, called things like they were, and was willing to help anyone out whenever they needed it. A reliable, honest person who had a heart of gold. Uncle Johnny, you will be missed. If the parties in heaven are anything like the ones you threw down here on earth, I know you are having one hell of a good time!
Brayden-isms:
- We received quite a bit of invitations to parties coming up in the next few months, so she said, “What’s up with all this stuff?”
- I said, “Bears and snakes hibernate in the winter.” to which she said, “Yellow stuff hibernates, too.” I said, “What yellow stuff?” She said, “Pee. I’ve seen it in the snow before.”
- One day I was talking to her about two special kids at her school who are in motorized scooters because they can’t walk and how they are just as special as she is and the inside is what counts. I told her that the outside isn’t as important…to which she said, “Well, the outside is important because it keeps you from seeing the blood and bones.” Gotta love how literal kids are!
- We were at a three-way stop sign one day and the guy across from me went when it wasn’t his turn, so I let out an annoyed sigh. Brayden said, “He’s old…he doesn’t know what he’s doing…he has mostly gray hair.”
Hanleigh-isms:
- When Trent was carving pumpkins prior to Halloween, Hanleigh was totally scared of Trent carving them and kept shouting “No!” every time he would approach the pumpkin with the carving knife. Check out the video.