Great weekend

I don't usually post without a group of photos, but this weekend deserves to be documented somehow. It was one of those weird/amazing/magical weekends that really made me remember why I love Phil so much.

Friday, October 31st (Halloween)
We are normally very boring on Halloween, but this year I had curling from 8-10 then we went to my friend's house afterwards. We get tired early, so it was weird for us to arrive at a party at 10. We ended up staying out until 2:30 am which is completely out of character for us. We had a great time with some pretty great people though! When we arrived home, our adorable pain in the ass dog had chewed, scratched, and pulled the molding around our front door. When my dad was in town, he and I had worked on replacing this very piece of wood...due to Mischa doing this once before. We think the doorbell is what sets her off, so next year we will have to plan Halloween a little bit better. We do think the addition of chili oil to the door frame helped as she didn't seem to chew on it as most as last time.

Saturday, November 1st
Olga
I am not sure what possessed me to schedule an oil change for 9:30 on a Saturday morning, but I did it. Nothing out of the ordinary happened...dropped car off, ate some McDonald's for breakfast, and watch HGTV with a very nice lady in the waiting room. Since we said out so late, Phil met me later as we had planned to look at a few cars we saw online. We had gone to see 1 car last week, and then went to the Subaru dealership first to look at a used Mazda CX-7 (or something). Phil didn't hate it, but liked the 1st car better. We got some coffee and politely left the dealership. We then headed to the Volkswagon dealership to look at a used 2013 Jetta Sportwagon (one that I had found online I would like to note). We took that puppy for a test drive, and didn't even really need to say anything to each other, this was the car for us. It has a massive trunk, heated seats, high safety rating, and most importantly for Phil, a working gas gauge :-) What seemed like 15 hours later, Phil was on his way with a new car! There was a lot of sitting, awkward negotiating, paperwork, more sitting, eating a granola bar in between, but it was worth it. This was so far out of character for us because Phil is very picky and I am very practical/nervous when making huge decisions. Just like with our house though, it just felt right, and now we have a great new car, named Olga!
Butler Basketball
After all was said and done, we got home with about 45 minutes to spare before we had to leave for the first Butler Men's Basketball (exhibition) game of  the season. I was already loving the car purchase, because Phil drove us...which never ever happens! We got to the game and our friends from last year were genuinely excited to see us! We weren't able to get our exact same seats, but the people that "stole" ours are very nice and have an adorable daughter with a great laugh. So we were kitty corner to our friends Judy and Daniel, and then one row behind Nathan (a sweet, smart, and very loving kid with autism) and his family.
Air Supply
We had planned to attend the game for the first half because I had won tickets from NUVO to see Air Supply at Clowes, and we could just walk over from Hinkle to Clowes. We actually had amazing seats, but since it wasn't sold out we opted to sit further up, but on an end seat in case we got tired and wanted to leave. I can't even begin to express how amazing the concert was. Not only did their voices sound amazing, but you could just feel this incredible energy in the room. Phil and I are now fans, and said that if they were to come to Clowes again, we would pay for tickets! They highlighted all of their band members, and also were just genuinely funny in between songs. There were parts when just the audience would sing and because Clowes has such great acoustics there was this ethereal/eerie quality to the singing. It was really just magical. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. It also reminded me of Phil and mine's first date at the Vogue where we saw the Benevento Russo duo perform. It was just so romantic and we both were silently and simultaneously feeling this deep sense of gratitude for our very fortunate life together. I definitely got more verklempt when Phil verbalized all these same feelings that I was having. We left the concert before 11 and were please to have heated seats to keep our butts warm on the drive home!

Sunday, November 2nd
Our Sunday spent together was a nice combination of productive and lazy. We got an extra hour of sleep due to daylight saving time, so I woke up feeling very refreshed. I watched TV for a little until Phil awoke, and then I headed to yoga. When I returned home, Phil was out gassing up Olga, and only struggled slightly to figure out how to get the gas cap to open...you just push it :-) After picking up some lunch and hanging out for a bit, we went over to Target so I can do my annual day (or two) after Halloween candy purchasing. I buy it for my stash at work, so I tend to go a little overboard! I do set a limit for myself, and did stay within that. Once we arrived home, unloading the new car was so enjoyable and easy. We dropped off the cold items in the fridge, then headed back out to pick up Phil's old car that we had left at a bowling alley nearby where I had my oil change done the day before. The plan was for me to drive the new car home and Phil to drive his old one. The plan is to donate the old car to NPR as it wouldn't be worth the trouble of trading in. I really loved the way the car drove, and felt instantly comfortable in it!
Wood
Once we arrived home, I took a short break but then got to work on finally finishing up our giant pile of wood that needed to be moved. It has taken probably close to 6 hours so far over the course of 3 weekends. Phil threw his back out, so I wanted him to take it easy, so he helped where he could. We had started around 3, and I decided that I would try and work until 5. Just as I was rolling my last log up to the fence, Phil comes around the corner with a look of terror on his face. Apparently when Phil had come out to chop some of the larger pieces into fire sized pieces he had closed the garage and then come out the back door of the garage which leads out to our back yard. However, when he closed that door he didn't realize it was locked. He thought the top lock didn't work, so he didn't think to check it when he closed the door. If you know Phil you know he loves to lock up our house pretty consistently, so we were pretty much trapped outside of our own house. Luckily I had my phone, so we called Phil's mom who has a spare key to our house. Her husband (who was still at work) had the key, but said they would call us back. In the meantime, we walked the entire perimeter of our house checking to see if ANY of the windows were miraculously unlocked.  We had pretty much lost hope, but then Phil checked one of the guest bedroom's window...and shouted "THANK YOU SARAH". My sister had stayed with us a month ago, and she is notorious for leaving things unlocked, but in this case we were both very thankful to her! Phil especially because I was starting to get pretty sour with him! So I used a chair from our front stoop and hoisted myself through the window (which was actually very fun for me as I have always wanted to crawl through a window...and what better place to do that but your own house). Right before I was about to start climbing through the window, a disguised cop car drove by, so we narrowly missed being spotted breaking into our own home! Once inside our evening was pretty dang normal...minus the extraordinarily small hamburgers that Phil made. He was very annoyed that they shrunk up so much, but I just laughed and made mine into a 1/4 lb. slider!
I just wanted to document all of the details of our amazing/weird/fun weekend, more for my own memory than for anything else!