DianaEric.com

Eric and I had part two of his awesome surprise date this Monday.  We carved our pumpkin!

Eric looked very intense as he cut the top off, it was rather intimidating

Yay!  The first of the yummy pulp and seeds that can make us delicious treats.

This pumpkin was pretty easy to clean out, the skin was a lot thicker than previous ones we’ve carved.

I found a leaf pattern to print off the internet, and drew a pattern for “Johnson”.  Then came the tedious hole poking.  After a while, I decided to make fewer leaves.  It’s a lot of work!

It turned out really great.  The carving goes half way around so you can’t see it all in one photo.

But here’s the John…

…and the son.

Of course we used the guts too, we hate wasting food.  For the recipes to make these delicious treats, check here.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Bread (ridiculously delicious!)

So this post really spans 2 years.  In the first week of October 2006, Eric took me to my very first corn maze.  Here’s the fun we had.

That was absolutely one of my favorite dates ever!  It was my first time carving a pumpkin since I was a kid (and couldn’t actually carve it myself).  We had a really great time and I will always remember it.

Eric has learned over the past couple years that I love surprises (happy ones!) and love it when he plans something for our us day or us time.  So last weekend he told me had a surprise planned for our Monday us day.  I was so excited as he turned into the lot for the corn maze and pumpkin patch!  He even had his cowboy hat in the car to really recreate the date for me!  We had a great time, when we came out of the maze our shoes were so covered in mud it took him an hour to clean them.  We got a beautiful pumpkin, but the funny thing was we were so tired that we decided to carve it another day.

P.S. the key to having a great time at the corn maze (if you’re married or engaged!) is to go on a weekday when no one else is there.  Every time you hit a dead end, reward yourselves with a kiss!

Chase the new owners of my money have knocked a whole percent off of my online savings account which i am not really excited about to say the least.  Wamu’s savings rates were almost as good as CD’s at a 4%apy but now that i’m 3%apy i’m just getting a good rate instead of an amazing rate.  This whole financial fiasco has been quite lame with missonary friends having to come home to raise more support because of exchange rates and now personally i am getting dinged by this financial crisis.

Eric and I love Netflix, we end up getting to see a lot of things we wouldn’t otherwise, like documentaries, foreign films and tv shows.  Our latest pick is the documentary “Young At Heart”.  If you haven’t seen this, you have to!  I laughed the entire movie, except when I was trying not to cry.

It’s about a singing group of elderly people (the average age is 80).  Although their favorite kind of music is classical, opera and broadway, they sing rock and roll!  There is something so much more to the words of songs like “I Wanna Be Sedated”, “Stayin’ Alive”, and “Should I Stay or Should I Go” when they are sung by these beautiful, lively, energetic people who every day face a myriad of health problems and the loss of dear friends.

We really enjoyed it and were so moved by their stories.  I hope I can be that cool when I’m that old!  Be prepared to fall in love with these people, you will feel like they’re your grandparents by the end of it.

WARNING: (There are a few objectionable words, very few, but be forewarned)

I’d like to go to a Mariner’s Game once a year.  Even if they’re not doing well, I’ve seen them win a couple games, and I always have fun.  Hawaii doesn’t have a baseball team so the Mariners are basically Hawaii’s team too.  Eric doesn’t really like it, he’s not a big sports fan.  But I grew up watching baseball movies and dreaming of going to a major league game, so once a year or so he takes me because he loves me.

He also loves teens, and a couple Thursdays ago we got to take a group of them to a game.  It was a lot of fun, even though we lost.  Eric also brought his DS and we got to do a lot of cool games and watch the play by play and stuff on it.  We even ordered dinner on it to be delivered to our seats!  That was way cool.  We were out ridiculously late (after midnight) especially since he had to be up for work at 3am.  But we love those students so it was worth it!