OCTOBER

I'm sorry I'm behind on my blogging but 1, I kind of suck at it, and 2, October is a busy month. It started out with my parents, grandma and aunt/uncle coming up to hang out in Wyoming for conference weekend. I didn't get any pictures up there, but it was really fun to hang out with everyone. Kev-dawg and special Kay even arranged their flights so they could spend a little extra time with Ry and I doing millions of nice things for us. I've often said i have the best parents in the world, and they make an honest girl out of me.

Here's dad fixing our leaky tub ---leaking so very badly that it was a constant stream of water. He also fixed our sink which was almost as bad. Not only that, but he bought and installed a new radiator and hoses for the mazda which he says was only running by the grace of God. -he's said that to me a couple of times now.

Meanwhile, mom was buying me all of this at Costco!!! I love costco and I love food and I love my mom. Thank you guys so so so so much for everything that you did for us that weekend.

We also visited Oktoberfest to eat schnitzel and polka and visit one Walt at his pretzel stand. It was the best pretzel I've ever eaten, bye-the-way. Yet another year has past that I didn't have time to make some liederhosen for Ryan to wear, but one of these years... one of these years.

On the 16th we celebrated our year anniversary. We decided to visit a new Temple each year on our anniversary and since I couldn't take any time off from school it had to be a short trip. It was my year to plan it and I chose the Manti Temple. We stayed at this bed and breakfast in Spring City and ate dinner in Manti. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at planning and didn't bother to call and make sure that the Temple would be open. It wasn't. I suck. It was still fun though. Ryan liked the porch swing the most.

witches and pumpkins

My good friend Jenny came down to hang out with me for a night of witches. -it's sort of a tradition now.

We had dinner and set out for the witches at gardner village. I took a lot of pictures in hopes of getting my mom excited about heading up to see us again in October of 2010. You know you want to mom.

After the witches we went back to my place and she helped me decorate some sugar cookies that I had made. Hers had a little more character than mine. For example,...the one pictured below is "winking". I happen to think he looks like he had a stroke.

Thanks for coming down and having night of halloween with me Jfro.

HALLOWEEN

To get ready for halloween and get into the spirit of it all a little bit more, we went to a haunted ...something. It was up at this is the place where they have all these historical buildings and stuff. Most of the haunted walk was outdoors through trenches and tunnels and stuff and it was kind of creepy and then occasionally you would walk through one of the buildings and that was REALLY creepy because it was filled with old antiques and stuff. But it was fun --picture of us waiting in line below.


And then on the acutal big day we dressed in costume and went up to the AOs for traditional chilly and to hang out with the rest of the family. Ryan's costume was a labor of love. It probably took three times longer than mine took. It was totally worth it though. He got to wear it to our ward's trunk or treat night too, so he was pretty excited to have more than one place to show it off. hehehe.

Thank you Bulldogs

WARNING If you're not a "foot person" skip this post. -it's just that the following picture might possibly make you want to puke. I, on the other hand, don't mind feet at all. This is good since part of the curriculum at school involves pedicuring the nastiest of them. When I can get my hands on a nice pair of toe nails to paint I'm pretty stoked though. Mostly I have to content myself with my own, but I've recently discovered an even better set. I was painting my toes into a cute little pattern and caught Ryan eyeing me in the act a couple of times. After I finished, Ryan -in the most masculine way possible for such a request, nonchalantly suggested that if I were to paint his toes with the Georgia Bulldog's emblem that perhaps it would bring them luck for their upcoming game. He didn't have to ask me twice. Below are the results -and yes... the Bulldogs won. I'm not sure if he likes the attention that he gets from having his toenails painted in a cool way, (his students take pictures of them) if he secretly likes the pampering aspect of it all, or if he just sees how much I enjoy it and tries to be a nice husband by letting me do his too (his really are better than mine because they're bigger, you know, more surface area) But I don't really care what the reason is, I'm pretty excited that he's secure enough to let me at them.


Mine are cute too aren't they. -except for the mess up on the big toe. =( Sad.

So after publishing that last post, I realized that I still had a lot of pictures. So here is Ryan's Ostler Party part two for your viewing enjoyment.
Above we have Ryan's dramatic entrance. Doesn't he look like he opened the ceremonies well? Well he did.

Here is mighty Ceasar with his brother-in-law Walt. Walt got jealous and insisted on wearing a gold head piece too. Ryan (as you can tell from the look on his face) didn't know how he felt about that, and Walt started referring to himself as Brutus. -things got a little weird.

And the Ostler Party creator herself looking so official with her clipboard to make sure the scores were documented so that things remained fair. -interesting though,.. team red (her team) ended up being the winning team. hmmmmm....

More toga goodness. Becca, DAO, me, Lauren and Kimberly

Ryan isn't particularly fond of too many treats (could we possibly be any more opposite in this reguard?) So instead of a cake he opted for one of his few loved deserts, the banana, pudding, vanilla wafer, whipped cream concoction. I LOVE using my trifle bowl and figured this would be the perfect occasion so I layered it all up. Aren't trifles so pretty? I should've taken more time to make sure all the layers were showing though (you can't even see the other layers of wafers. sad) In this picture, Ryan is making sure that Becca's smile is sufficiently big for the goodness that IS the banana, pudding, vanilla wafer, whipped cream concoction. I think he was satisfied because shortly after, he blew out the candles. Oh...and there were presents too, but I was making the trifle during all that business so no pictures. It was an AMAZING party and thanks so much to Mom O for all the time and effort put into it. !!!!

Ryan's Ostler party

So everyone in the family gets an Ostler party for their birthday, but using the simple word "party" doesn't quite do it justice. Deborah Ostler pulls out all the stops with these shindigs and every one of them is themed and decked out to the nines. Ryan's was on Sunday and I'm sure you can guess that it was freak'n awesome by the pictures below. Ryan, of course, enjoyed the spotlight looking stoic as Ceasar in our ancient olympic themed birthday party -or was she secretly going for frat party.... either way, there were togas EVERYWHERE!!!
I like to do my part to encourage these themed parties and in preparation for this one I made faux olive branch head pieces for Ryan and I. As Ceasar, he got a cooler gold one to wear, but my greenies were still pretty sweet

-I decided to throw in a picture where you can see it better (but still not awesome) because propper credit needs to be given to the coolness ....ok fine, they weren't that cool,.. but they took me like an hour to make so I need to document them.

Everyone got a toga to wear and the color of sash you picked out determined the team you were on for the games. Games you ask? Oh yes, games. it wouldn't be an Ostler party without some theme coordinated activity --I only wish I had started documenting these parties sooner because there have been some pretty amazing activities involved here.

Ryan started off the games by making a dramatic entrance to the back yard with olympic music in the background. He held his torch high enough to make any wife proud. ...and then he began lyrically dancing about the yard to the music -which strangely enough made me even more proud.

This was our first event -the Javelin -opening a straw at one end and seeing who could blow the paper off of it the farthest. DAO herself, creator of all Ostler Parties, won this event. In my head I accuse her of putting in hour after hour of practice pre-games to perfect her technique though. After that we had a disc through and the hurdles. -both awesome,.. but I forgot to keep taking pictures.

HE'S 32!!!

On the 13th Ryan turned 32 years old. Old man Ostler wanted to hit the Utah State fair to celebrate the night before (his birthday fell on a Sunday this year) so that's just what we did. We paid a buck each to see a giant gater (trailer pictured above) that Ryan loved, of course -but I think it was a fake.

We saw all of the livestock -probably the highlight of the fair for us, and even found where my side of the family comes from. Those crazy Arnolds.

I tried to join them -or at least get a better look at the piglets. (they were very cute) Oh, and Ryan also showed me the goodness of funnel cakes! They're SO good! but really? do I actually need another high fat food to add to my list of cravings? Great. (sarcasm)

On Sunday -the ACTUAL big day, we went and ate delicious burgers that his student made for us, we took a very nice long nap, his sister Rachel gave us TONS of food (they're moving and don't want to store it so we were MORE than happy to take it off their hands), he opened his presents, and then had his birthday dinner -he requested home made stuffed shells and an oreo peanut butter shake in place of a birthday cake. It was actually a pretty awesome day. Thanks everyone for all of the phone calls and gifts (especially the food Rachel because I'm definitely benefitting from that one as well). Thanks for making Ryan feel so special even though he's so very old now.

I think it was a good birthday all in all -pretty low key and relaxed but the way he wanted it.

A REAL SATURDAY!!!!!!

One of the hardest things about cosmetology school is that you go Tuesday through Saturday. (Sunday and Monday are your days off) With a lot of the holidays landing on a Monday ...we kinda get screwed. BUT NOT THIS TIME! We petitioned for a Saturday off for the labor day weekend and we won! I decided that I would take this Saturday and do everything that I love so much about the day that one can really only do on a Saturday that I've been missing so much. So here you are.
I started off the day by going to a garage sale!!!! There are few who really know of my love for garage sales and even less who understand it. I can't say that I quite know myself what draws me to want to look at other people's junk but i LOVE it. I think it's the thrill of the hope that I'll find something really awesome. (kinda like pirate treasure hunting). It doesn't happen often, but yesterday was one such day that will keep me seeking out garage sales the rest of the summer and into the next. I'm a ribbon junkie. I love pretty ribbon to decorate packages...jars of jam...ANYthing with. Good ribbon is not so cheap though -especially the kind I like with the wire in the edges. Well this crazy lady was selling a huge bag of unused ribbon spools for two dollars. There were NINE spools of the ribbon in this bag and it was all the wire edged ribbon too -most spools still with the 3.99 price tag on them, one spool with a 9.99 price tag. ... it was the best thing ever! Just two dollars for the whole bag! Amazing. So next I headed to the farmers market that they hold in Murray park just across the street from us. Fruit, vegetables and bread everywhere! Every time I turned around people were offering me samples of their peaches or loaves of bread (the bread was the best) and most people don't know this, but it's kind of a dream of mine to some day makes breads galore to sell at a farmer's market. I was in heaven. Plus the weather's been amazing and it was such a pretty day to be outside. low 70s and cloudy with a light breeze. After that I went to my FAVORITE store ever and used a gift card that I've been hording in my wallet for a couple of years now. I love guilt free shopping!

Did I feel bad that I was doing all of these fun things while Ryan was at the AOs (mom and dad in-law) mowing the lawn? ....hmmm a little bit, but then I came home and joined him on the couch for his much anticipated game...the Georgia Bulldogs first game of the season. Well actually, he watched the game while I worked on my halloween costume (sewing machine's dead so I'm reduced to hand stitching folks. Bad news) Yes, i don't fool around with halloween, it comes early at the Ostler house.

I was so happy to get a real Saturday after months of torture driving to school past farmer's market signs and garage sale after garage sale while Ryan was home chilling without me. But not this Saturday, it was an awesome day!