Kasey's Page of Mindless Rants

Well, the Election, Thanksgiving, and pretty much November have come and gone. Obama is now President-Elect, and things are settling down politically. Therefore, I'm going to take a break from politics for a while, and move on to topics that are far more important. Like Christmas.

I've got a couple of ideas for some future posts, but I don't have time to do either of those today. However, I may try and get one of them up tomorrow if there is time. For today, I'm going to get away from rants and raves altogether, and just talk for a moment about what Amy, Anne and I have been up to for the past few weeks.

Not long after my last post, we had our "Annual" Hansen Halloween Party. I put annual in quotes because we missed it last year, but other than that we've managed to have a party every year since 2003. We held the party outside since we finally have a lawn in our backyard now. We had about 30 people there, mostly family and coworkers, though this year Paul Werrett and his family finally made it. Believe it or not, it was the first time he had been to one of our parties.

There were some pretty good costumes. Paul dressed up in his paintball camo as the "Swamp Thing" and scared all of the little kids. Neal Fraser was a bowling pin and his very pregnant wife was a bowling ball. My sister Holli dressed up as an overworked Mom and her husband Ryan dressed up as a gun-totin' hillbilly. When they arrived I asked them why they didn't dress up. Amy and I were Fiona and Shrek, but we ended up being the "human" versions because Amy didn't get a mask and mine didn't fit very well (If you recall, Shrek actually became human for a while in Shrek 2. I guess we were trying to represent the antithesis of the whole movie because we dressed up as the superficial human versions rather than the "true-to-their-hearts" ogre versions).

Anne dressed up as Winnie the Pooh, and the other kids dressed up as princesses, super heroes, ninjas, and Riley dressed up as football player with a mullet. We had games, pumpkin sack races, a pinata, pizza, hayrides, and all the other usual stuff. I gave Dad's Chief Wapashah story, and we had Scott dress up as a chainsaw-wielding masked psycho. Again. And he couldn't get the chainsaw started. Again. But it was a lot of fun.

October finished up with the Trunk or Treat at the Church, and November has been a whirlwind. I spent the first week of the month at a conference in Provo, the second week at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, and the third week working with some clients in Rexburg, Idaho. Then it was Thanksgiving and now it's today. We had Thanksgiving over at Jordan and Kara's new house in Hooper, and yesterday we went out and attempted some shopping right in the thick of "Black Friday".

To cap it all off, we got our Christmas tree last night. I've gotten a live Christmas tree every year since 1997, clear back in the Riviera days. We used to always go to Lowe's or Home Depot to get the trees, but the last two years Amy and I found a nursery about a mile from our house that sell the exact same kind of trees as the big guys for the exact same prices. We figured we might as well keep the cash local, plus it's closer. So now I'm sitting next to a very undecorated tree that will be trimmed as soon as I finish this post.

So that's the quick rundown. Oh, and my parents will be coming home from their mission the day after tomorrow. That year and half sure went faster than my first year and a half in Mexico. Also, I'm very excited for Christmas. I'll post again soon.