A night of mock gambling...and FOOD!

Needless to say, we were at another event that Dave had to be at for promotional reasons, and I was blown away! He may not make millions, but all these events we get into for free certainly are perks!

Here is a small business fund raiser event called "Chamberfest that was back near the beginning of November. Tons of free food and drinks, and as much of it as we could eat!

Dave, Kyle and Jessica were in charge of the "Rock Paper Scissors" table. The guests were gambling paper money and would have to beat one of them in order to double their money!

Very fun night in Lima!

Stacey's Baby Shower

The baby shower!! To preface, two of my sisters, my Mom and I all flew down to Phoenix to surprise another one of our sisters who was getting close to her due date. She was having a baby shower that weekend and we were all dying to be there for it! Plus, we couldn't resist getting a picture like this....

We arrived in Phoenix....

And got all squished in the car...

....And surprised her! Sorry, don't have the video up of the surprise, but it was fantastic! Once the secret was finally out after 6 weeks, we were finally able to have some fun in Arizona. Emily had to bring her twin 1 year olds, so we had some fun with them also. And I finally got to see Stacey's house and her beautiful dog, Beanie.

Allison Lefler put on a BEAUTIFUL baby shower for Stacey. It was a blast.

Thanks for the fun time, ladies!! Hopefully we'll be together again soon.

Happy Halloween from the De Ruranges!

For those of you who are confused, we were at a "Space Theme" Halloween party, so we just wore those foil hats they make in the movie 'Signs', to keep the aliens from reading their minds. Reason being: $0.

We made it two years!

We decided to make it a tradition for our Anniversary, to try to make it into a nearby city for our celebrations. Our first year was in Columbus. Dave and I are both attracted to city life, and it's sometimes a breath of fresh air to get out where we recognize corporate companies and where it feels populated and glitzy and glamarous! (backwards, I know.)

What a relaxing weekend!! Here is a peak into our 2nd Anniversary, spent in Cincinnati, OH.

After getting some hot chocolate, we headed down to the docks at the Ohio River to go on a Riverboat lunch cruise.

Would have taken more pics, but we were too busy having fun!!

Here's some random activities for ya!

Here's another group of random pictures of things we've been filling our time with out here in the boonies.

Poor Dave is always so exhausted after waking up at 3am every morning. He hardly ever is able to get to bed on time. So one afternoon, I came home and found this:

I guess he was really cold.

Also, Dave has been a referee for some soccer games around Elida, the little town we live in. He wanted to help earn a little more extra money and thought it would be something that he really enjoyed. It turns out that it was all that he was hoping for! He had a lot of fun doing it and did a great job.

And here's a picture of Dave at his real job.

Gosh dangit. He always gets the best things, being an anchorman! These people from the Apple Fest had him come judge an apple pie contest! I could only watch and take pictures and drool...

And here's another random activity...Sock hop dance! Do we look 50s, or what?? Haha, duh. It turned out that not a lot of people showed up for it, but we still got to do some swing dancing and got a LOT of free food.

And finally, we went out with our friends, the Laings, to celebrate their mother's 93rd birthday! (She is on the far right)

So this covers partly into October...coming soon: The Anniversary trip to Cincinnati Extravaganza!

More Weddings!

Well all of these pictures are from back in September. I'll get caught up here in the next month, but until then, this is what has been going on since that last post:

Dave and I had another wedding to go to for our friends, BJ and heather. It was such a fun wedding! Congratulations to them :)

Not long after BJ and Heather's wedding, Dave's Mom got married in Utah and we were able to go. Dave was also able to walk her down the aisle. It was very sweet to see!

Thanks to this union, Dave now has four more step siblings, and I have four step-siblings-in-law! We only got to meet them for a few minutes, and one wasn't able to come see us this day, but here is a picture of most of us together.

Dave and I were also able to visit his Dad's grave in Bountiful. We are both happy that the cemetary has such a pretty view of the mountains.

Dave's mom, Roxanne, teaches the 2nd grade, and while we were in town she had Dave come and teach the kids a little bit about broadcasting and doing news shows. They just loved him!

Holiday Decorating

I love, love, LOVE the holidays!

I can't get enough of them when they're here. I love the fall fashions, the colors of the foilage, the parties, the smells, the tastes, the spirit, the decorations....everything! I remember some of the most memorable times of childhood were those times I was watching Mom defrost the turkey for Thanksgiving or coming home early from trick-or-treating to sit with Mom and Dad and watch a Halloween movie while we waited for the doorbell to ring. Every year just after Thanksgiving we would all put on our mud boots and jackets and drive out to the Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree. Some years we would get hot chocolate, some years we would ride the train around the farm. We argued about the tree to settle on, and usually someone was always unhappy with the final choice. When the tree finally made it into the living room, that was usually the day we got to unload all of the Christmas decorations from storage and start putting things up. It was such an exciting day for me! I loved to unpack the stockings and the garlands and the ornaments.

One day I hope to be one of those Moms that decorates beautifully for every holiday. I've been really discouraged this year, because I have virtually no holiday decorations for Christmas, let alone things for the fall. And it's not like we've got tons of money to blow on that kind of stuff, especially with a baby on the way. Last year I had to settle with a pathetic 2 foot plastic tree on a side table and two stockings push-pinned into the wall. It was pretty sad. After that, I wanted to shop the sales after Christmas and see what I could get for half price or something, but it turns out the rest of the world had the same idea. I hardly had a chance to get into the store, and even then, the 'on sale' items were still outrageously expensive! So I figure I'll have to wait another year before really being able to splurge on some cute stuff. After all, it's just the two of us this year again, and once we have a new little baby next year to enjoy it with us, it will make more sense to do something more extravagant. Until then, I'll just have to admire others' decorations!