Ch-Ch-Changin'

When I went to Spokane to visit Justin and Ashley, I decided to make a few changes. I know what you're thinking, "Jalayne, opting for change? The world must be going mad!" Before you fall completely off of your chair, just take a look at the two differences in my life...

This is what my hair color used to be and always has been (with the exception of a 28-day wash out dye that I did over a year ago)...

...until now. I decided to go darker. I am now a brunette!

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That was kind of a big deal because I had never dyed my hair and I had never planned to. But I wanted to do something different and I am not quite ready to cut it off so I decided to dye it instead. Quite a few people have noticed and the majority of the responses have been quite positive. I really like it and I don't think I would mind being a brunette forever.

Now for the biggest change of all. Brace yourself. I have this blanket that was given to me by the Young Women in Danville right before I moved to Idaho Falls. This blanket was a huge comfort for me. That move was the hardest one of all and that blanket was my one and only tie with what I loved and missed so much. As I grew older, the attachment to the blanket grew but the reasons changed. I found comfort in the blanket and I got to the point where I couldn't sleep without it. I have taken the blanket to Spain, New York, camping, New Zealand, on road trips, every weekend I went home, etc. I washed the blanket once and I feared washing it again for fear that it would fall apart. The blanket is now not quite white anymore and my family would tease and tease and tease.

Here's the blanket:

While in Spokane, I decided to make myself a new blanket. Yes people, I have finally grown up, just a little bit.

My new blanket:

I spent last Sunday night in Idaho Falls where I slept with my pink blanket for the last time. I left the blanket at home and it is now retired. I am excited for the new adventures that I will get to experience with my new blanket.

Childish? Probably. Do I care? Not really. The fact that I decided to make these changes all by myself is some sign of maturity, yeah? I mean all this blanket talk makes me sound like I'm 3 or something but trust me, I really am 22.

Halloween Activities

This year for Halloween we participated in a variety of activities. We kicked it all off by watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and a week later continued our activities with a trip to Dead's End. There's a family that loves to create scary beings for Halloween. They completely transform their entire front yard, side yard, and backyard into creepy scenes. If you want to see more than what I have to offer, you can check them out at their website.

Remember, they make all of these things themselves. It's quite the hobby.





Each year they do something different with the backyard. This year they did a clown theme. The clown in the right gave Cassie and Baker a fright.



After the yard haunt, we went to pick pumpkins.



After we all found our perfect pumpkin, we headed home to carve them with some friends.

Meet Ammon, the photographer. And Baker, the knife getter.

Carvin' up a storm: Phillip, Baker, Doomer, CoCo, and Tony

My finished creation. I don't like to get creative with my pumpkins because I get easily discouraged. I like the simple, traditional jack-o-lantern face.



Doomer (with Frankenstein) and Baker (with a winking face) and their finished projects. CoCo's spider and my simple jack-o-lantern.



Mondays are long days for me so by the time we got home to carve, I still hadn't eaten dinner. I cooked up some mac and cheese and opened a can of apricots. In order to save myself from doing more dished than necessary, I ate straight from the pan and can.

I can't finish a box of macaroni by myself so David said he would finished it for me. He prefers his mac and cheese with ketchup. Doomer thought this was disgusting so David forced her to try some.



Our glowing pumpkins. Left top-down: Doomer's, mine, and Tony's. Right top-down: Baker's, CoCo's, and Phillip's



The following weekend we headed to one of the local corn mazes. Throughout the haunted maze we got split up and CoCo and Ray went at it alone.



The four of us finished first and so we took a couple of pictures while we waited.

We finished up our list of activities by decorating Halloween-shaped sugar cookies and watching "Hocus Pocus". I made and rolled out the dough while CoCo manned the cookie cutters.

Baker eating some leftover cookie dough



Ready to be frosted



We then invited our friends over to help decorate them. David helped create the interesting Halloween colors...Cassie went a little overboard in the sprinkles.

Decorating to our heart's content



Showing off our awesome skills: David, myself, Doomer, CoCo, and Kris




Eating our creations



In order to save room in the fridge we combined all of the many colored frostings and what a beautiful mix it was

I went to Spokane to visit Justin and Company for Halloween. We had a wonderful time. The boys were the cutest little cowboys ever, Ashley was a gorgeous witch, and Justin was a totally freaky Michael Meyers. I got the pleasure of taking Braxton around during trunk-or-treat. He would hold his bucket in one hand and my hand in the other. When we got to a trunk, he would reach up for some candy, place it in his bucket, reach up to grab my hand, and on we would mosey to the next trunk. I think the kid loved it. It was such a fun weekend.

Enjoying their delicious suckers.

Tucking in Justin's, excuse me, Michael Meyer's neck flesh.

Ashley-the-good-witch with Jalayne the lame-o

Me and my cute little cowboys, Taylor and Braxton.