Christine

Wow, sweet bloggers - thank you so much for your great guesses!! We had a nice time this afternoon reading them! This summer Shayla decided to be "Christine" from Phantom of the Opera for Halloween. Shayne has been asked to go with her as the Phantom so he will. I will be carrying the music in a plastic pumpkin she selected while decorating our home for Halloween. (She thought people would just think she's an angel or a princess while Trick or Treating without the "Phantom of the Opera" music playing to help them. I agree.) For dress up day at school on Friday, she'll be going as a "cowgirl" because she didn't think many of the kids would know what she was as Christine from Phantom of the Opera.

She really made me smile when she asked if I thought Christi would mind if she borrowed one of her wigs to complete the costume. Therefore, she will be wearing Christi's "Locks of Love" wig. Quite frankly, I think it looks exactly like Shayla's real hair - just with layers - but she thinks it's different so she'll wear it.......or maybe I'll end up carrying it if it bothers her. Hee hee! THANK YOU for guessing!! I put Christi's wigs into the "dress up" box after she died. (What do you do with two kid sized wigs? Now I know! Just joking!)

We picked up Aunt Marty and went to the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus early yesterday morning. Much to our surprise, Shayla was able to meet this year's Queen, Jessica. She is only the second Queen from Ohio in the Congress's 45th year history. She's a third year pharmacy student at the University of Pittsburgh and we wish her well! (Shayla was thoroughly impressed with her "winnings" - so were we.....a bed, many pairs of boots and fancy show clothes, an incredible saddle, a horse trailer, etc., etc., etc., etc. I wish we could have seen her ride as we learned that is part of the criteria for the selection. It was interesting reading through her scrapbook.

The three week long Congress ended today. In this competition are girls from all over the country. The competition started with 130 entrants. The winner was from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Shayla was happy to head back home with Aunt Marty while Shayne and I went to the OSU / Penn State game last night. Shayne kept teasing me he was going to sell our tickets and when we learned that the people who usually sit beside us sold their tickets on Ebay for $225.00 each and the price went up from there, Shayne said, "See? You paid $30.00. We could have a lot of money now and just go back to Marty and Jeff's and watch the game on TV." He is so funny! He knew I'd have nothing to do with that nonsense! It was a fantastic game! I'm so glad we were there, despite the fact Ohio State lost. We spent the majority of the game on our feet; it was just too exciting to sit down (and quite frankly, if we would have everyone in front of us was standing anyway - LOL). During the game, I - an old washed up baton twirler - was very impressed with Penn State's baton twirler ("Sapphire Girl" if I got that right from Sylvia who I texted with many times throughout the game, a game she was happy about the ending of, wink). Prior to the game running with all of the pregame "hoopla", I ran into one of my "old" neighbors (John S.) and his wife. It was fabulous to see him and to get updated on his family. I have wonderful memories of spending time with his great family growing up.

It was about midnight after walking back to our van and getting out of traffic last night; therefore, we stayed overnight with Marty and Jeff as planned instead of making the two hour drive home.

Today we all went for a hike together. God's beautiful world was so colorful. Fall has been "hard" since Christi's death, but today I really enjoyed it!