On November 2, 2009, Erica and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary.  We extended our time off by an extra day, and took the kids to daycare.  Then we set out on our traditional trip to Herrmann, Missouri for the day.  We got a little bit of a late start (big surprise) and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel in town before leaving.  Then we hit the road.  We went to Swiss, Missouri first (just south of Herrmann) to visit Swiss Meats and load up on some incredibly good brats and smoked meats.  After packing the cooler with that, we returned to Herrmann.  We had lunch at Stone Hill Winery's Vintage Restaurant, which serves awesome German food.  We also visited the Herrmannhof Winery and Adam Puchta Winery (our favorite) before finally reaching the point in the day where we needed to leave to pick up the kids and return home.  Of course, we brought about a case and a half of wine home with us!  We had a nice dinner at home, and enjoyed a quiet evening (which of course can't happen until the kids are asleep - there is no such thing as quiet with them awake!)

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Erica for thirteen wonderful years of marriage (or as she says, "twelve wonderful years and one other one.")  She's been with me through a lot, she's brought two beautiful kids into the world with me, and she's stood steadfastly beside me through everything.  I love her more than she knows, even if I didn't give her a traditional gift this year (which is lace, by the way).  I look forward to spending many more happy years of marriage with her!

Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, so we were able to make a day of it this year instead of just an evening.  This was important because it was the first Halloween John was old enough to participate in.  Also, the kids' daycare was on vacation for the final two weeks of October.  Erica and I took some time off during this period to stay home with them.  This meant that we were able to really enjoy the few days before Halloween with them.  Unfortunately it was rainy most of those two weeks, so it was impossible to play outdoors with them (unless you wanted two little mudballs running through the house).  Even when it was sunny, it was too sloppy to do much outdoors.

Laura got into the spirit of things by helping Erica decorate the house.  She was VERY proud of the spooky tree centerpiece that she and mommy assembled and put on the dining room table.  They stuck window clings on the windows, and put out the candle holders (including the skulls, which she was afraid of last year so they didn't come out then).  They hung up wall decorations, and got out the treat bags for trick-or-treating.  She helped me hang the big spider and its web on the front porch.  On the Wednesday before Halloween, the weather was nice enough to go to the pumkpin patch, so we loaded up and went to Peachtree Farms to choose our pumpkins and see the animals there.  Laura was pretty excited about the whole thing, and John was too for a while.  John started to get tired, so Laura and I saw the rest of the animals by ourselves.  We chose two big Jack-O-Lanterns, and Laura and John each got a small pumpkin of their own.  We also bought a few pie pumpkins.  Laura helped mommy cook those down the next day.  She wanted to make pie right away!  We carved the pumpkins on Friday.  She wanted to make one a scary face and one a happy face, so that's what we did.  We had some help from Uncle B, too.