Work? Hardly...it's Melaween!

Every year, my company becomes the coolest company ever. Why? Because Frank loves Halloween, and we have the biggest Halloween bash in Corporate America! No joke. If you could only see the kind of preparation that goes into this. Each department picks a theme and then goes all out to decorate their part of the building. Then the families of the employees can come through and trick or treat. The costumes and department decorations are just awesome.

Our Marketing department chose a jungle theme, and in one day we transformed it into the freakin' Amazon rainforest! We made vines, flowers, palm trees, animals, birds and even had pools of water. Take a look at the pics of the entrance to our room and our Mayan temple!

Because we were doing a jungle theme, this opened up a bunch of possibilities for costumes. See if you can guess what I am.

That's right...a Colombian drug lord, complete with long hair and a pony tail, dark shades, a tan coat, a little bit of chest hair, and a case of "the goods." My buddy was dressed like a FARC member or one of those guys that protects the underground drug labs.

This is a picture of the whole group. Everyone looks good...from Gilligan to the crazy witch doctor. Some of the other themes were High School Musical, Disco, Wild West, Peter Pan, Redneck Riviera, and Star Wars...yes, the I.T. guys are so predictable.

Halloween time is here again!

This is one of the funnest times of the year. In fact, it is Briant's favorite holiday! It's always fun to dress up and go to a lot of different parties and get togethers. This past weekend one of Briant's coworkers invited us over for a party. I was a hockey player (my jersey even says 'GILES' on the back!), and Briant was, of course, Lil Jon. We had so much fun!
The next night we got together with my family to carve pumpkins. This has been a Baldwin family tradition now for several years. Here is a view of all our finished work. Dad always does one that's, well.... just normal for dad. One of its eyes are always sideways (some years there are three eyes), & Mom always does a traditional jack-o-lantern. Mahon and Cindy's are the ones on the left. I told Mahon his handwriting is dramatically improved when he carves in pumpkins. Chris and Chantelle used the patterns from a book. Cheaters. Just kidding, they were really cool!

I always do a scary pumpkin. I think they're more dramatic.
-Pause for dramatic ooo's and aahhh's-

Here's Briant's. His actually has three sides. My camera was being finicky and I didn't get the Mercedes sign and the 'Y' Mountain.

Bet you didn't see this coming!

One thing that my dad taught me was to develop the ability to anticipate things, especially as they relate to a relationship with my wife. For example, anticipate that the dishes need to be done before they pile up and my wife has to do them. Anticipate that the floor needs to be vacuumed because guests are coming over so I should do it before my wife does. Anticipate that the garbage needs to be taken out before my wife has to to do it. So you see the point is to anticipate things that need to be done before your wife looks like she's upset and when you ask her why all she says is, "No, everything is fine," but then you really know she is concerned/upset/stressed out about something.

Well, I think I'm pretty good at anticipating things around the house, but one area that I am trying to improve on is anticipating when my wife needs a hug, or a kiss, or me to listen to her, or me to snuggle with her, or me to simply tell her that I love her.

So, while my wife is working at Great Harvest this morning, which I really appreciate as she continues to work to save money for me to go back to school one day and get my MBA, I thought I'd do something to surprise her; write on our blog and tell her how much I love her!

I must be the luckiest guy in the world to have such a wonderful wife. She means the absolute world to me, and I would do anything for her. I love her fun, positive, and upbeat attitude about life. It's contagious. I love her for her huge heart and how much she cares for me and others. She makes me laugh and smile, and I love being with her. She is beautiful in every way. Love you!

Tagged....... Again!

This is my sixth picture in my sixth folder.

Reliving happy memories!!!! Isn't my husband so cute? I love it when he is smiles like this!
Now I tag Mom, Cindy, and Katie!

The Quest...to Provo for the BYU Homecoming game!

Hey again, welcome back. So, what I am going to do with this post is write it as if Melissa were writing it and then as if I were writing it. Melissa's portion will be in italics.

So a few weeks ago Briant got some really good tickets at the last minute to the BYU football game, so we decided to go to Provo for it. Also I thought it would be fun because my family was going to be down there, and I would get to see them too, plus Briant is always telling me he is going to buy me a BYU sweatshirt when we go down to Provo(which we didn't get this time because we didn't have time to go to the bookstore).

A few days before the BYU-New Mexico football game, my buddy offered me his tickets to the game for $16 a piece and they were up high in the southwest corner of the stadium. I thought long and hard about this one because I knew this would be my only chance to go to a game this season. Well, I decided not to take the tickets because I wanted Melissa to come with me but she had to take pictures at a wedding, the weather was going to be bad, and it was just New Mexico they were playing, which I knew BYU would win. So I turned my buddy's offer down. Then Friday, at about 3 pm, I was walking by Frank's office at work, and his secretary called me over and said, "Are you interested in going to the BYU game this weekend?" I looked at the tickets, which were Cougar Club tickets on the 14th row at about the 25 yard line, and I said "Oh yeah, that would be awesome!" So I called Melissa to tell her, and we changed some plans and headed down to Provo on Saturday for the Homecoming game!
Here we are at the game. Woohoo! The good news is that the weather cleared up and wasn't nearly as bad as we thought is was going to be. Before we went to our seats, we got some hot dogs. You can't go to the game and not get a dog! We had some really good seats, as you can see. We were close to all of the action, like watching the cheerleaders and the Cougarettes! Wow, they did some really cool stunts!

We had some nice seats. We were on the east side behind the New Mexico bench. The student section is still cooler because everyone stands up, and there's just more life, but hey, who can complain? We had a great view of the game. The only time at BYU when I had better seats than these was in 2001 when BYU played Utah, and Luke Staley ran it down the sideline for the game winning touchdown! I was like 10 rows up, at the 40 yard line, in the student section!
Briant wanted me to take this picture to show you how close we were to the field. I don't really know what is going on. At least we didn't have to stand up like all the students over there on the other side. And I think the other guys have cool looking uniforms too.

We were so close to the action! BYU scored on this drive.
The weather wasn't too bad at the game, but I made sure to stay bundled up because I get cold really easily. Look at Briant, isn't he so cute?!? He said I could get a cool hat like that sometime too!

I knew the weather was going to be a little chilly, but Melissa looked like a tick about to explode with all the layers she had on. She must be cold blooded. I told her she might be the only one at the game with that kind of winter hat on, but nope, she fit in with all the Peruvians at the game!
Here we are at the end of the game. BYU won! Woohoo! And I'm glad they did, because Briant was so fun and cute to watch singing the BYU fight song every time they scored!

BYU won 21-3. The game lacked the high powered scoring that we've seen the Cougs manage this season (minus last weeks game against TCU...that was lame). But they still played great defense and pulled off the W. The last series of the game with BYU's four sacks in a row was awesome! Hopefully we can go to some games next season too!


After the game we visited Briant's grandpa, who gave me a silver dollar to welcome me into the family, and a latch hook thingy of a horse. He so nice. Then we went to dinner with Andy and Katie at Cafe Rio. It was good to catch up with them, and I love eating there. After that we went to Devin's house because Gene, Sydney, Cole, and Mom and Dad were there having a little birthday party for Cole. Happy 1st Birthday! I couldn't believe that Devin was helping my Mom set up a blog! It' always good to get together with my family. We stayed at Briant's aunt's house and went to church with them on Sunday before heading back home. There was this big accident that held up traffic for 45 minutes. I hope everyone was ok. It didn't look pretty.

On our way back to Idaho, traffic came to a stand still for 45 minutes because of this nasty accident. There were a lot of ambulances and police cars whizzing by us to get to the scene. And it was weird because it was only snowing in that area. The rest of the drive was good, especially because Melissa drove once we got to Idaho. I don't enjoy that part of the drive, especially from Pocatello to Idaho Falls. Boring!

Mr. and Mrs. Las Vegas

Hey, it's me again!

A few months ago, my boss told me he was sending me to Brand Camp. What? I had never heard of this. It's a two day conference where marketing experts come to share their expertise in the wonderful world of marketing and brand management (and of course, promote their latest book). So I was interested, but as soon as he told me it was in Las Vegas this year, I said, "Where do I sign up?" How could I pass up this opportunity? Get out of Idaho Falls in October, "work" for two days, spend time with Tiffany and Rob, and hit the strip in fabulous Las Vegas!

My company was paying for the whole trip, and of course I didn't want to go without my beautiful wife, so we bought her a plane ticket and we took off the first weekend in October (before any of you comment about us going to Sin City during General Conference...remember what we learned in Conference from Matthew 7:1)

We flew in on Saturday morning and spent the day with Tiffany and Rob.
They picked us up in their sweet Beamer. Rob spent about 20 minutes showing me all the features of it, and I still don't think I saw all of them.


Wow, Tiffany is going to have a baby in three months! I wonder how MeMa and Pappy feel about that? She and the baby, which will be a soccer star because of how much she kicks, are doing fantastic.

They took us out to Buffalo Bill's to ride The Desperado, which was a pretty sweet roller coaster. It has a 225 foot drop, hits speeds up to 80 mph, and makes Melissa scream!


It wasn't my most favorite one I've been on, but it was a lot of fun. After that we headed back downtown for dinner. There are so many places to eat in Vegas, and that's part of what makes it so awesome. But, it wouldn't be Vegas unless we went to a buffet, so we went to The Rio and ate at the Carnival Around the World Buffet (oh yeah, and just for you California people, we ate lunch at In n' Out). The food was delicious. I think I tried everything in the place, and so did Melissa, but she may have been a little disappointed that there wasn't any meat loaf or dutch oven cooking ;) but at least she went home with me instead of a Chippendale's dancer; they make her blush.

They dropped us off at Treasure Island where we were staying, and check out this glorious view from our room..the Trump Tower! Off in the distance you can see The Stratosphere, which we will have to visit next time.

On Sunday we spent time again at Tiffany and Rob's house to watch Conference. How exciting that there will be a temple in Philadelphia! That night we went back down to The Strip...

or were we in Paris?

We visited the gardens at the Bellagio...

and took in the fountain show too. By that time I had to get to bed because I had to go to "work" the next day ( I know, we didn't party like we should have down there).

Brand Camp was at the Wynn, which was one of the most immaculate buildings I have ever been in. I found it funny, but not surprising, that most of the people that I talked with had no idea where Idaho Falls is. "Is that by Boise?" Anyway, I learned a lot, enjoyed the speakers, and dined like a king with their hot buffet breakfasts and lunches! Melissa had a fun time too...she went shopping with Tiffany and discovered "New York & Co" and emptied our savings account (what was left after the market crashed)!

That night, Melissa and I ate at Planet Hollywood...

got eaten by a dragon at FAO Schwartz...

watched the gondolas go by and ate gelatto in Venice...

and watched the family friendly show in front of TI where the girl pirates in bathing suits fight the boy pirates with big muscles!

On Tuesday, after my last session of Brand Camp (ok, time to make the "One time at Brand Camp..." joke), we flew back home. It's always nice to go home, but always tough to go back to being Mr. and Mrs. Giles, and not Mr. and Mrs. Las Vegas.

MERCY!!! Kick save and a beauty!

Hey, what's up everybody? It's me...Briant!

Some of the guys at work that I have become good friends with, even if they do work in the International Forecasting department, decided that we should all get together to play floor hockey. Not all of us were hockey players, but we thought it would be a good time if we each brought a line mate a.k.a. a spouse, girlfriend, date, significant other, reserved one of the local church's gyms, cooked some Papa Murphy's pizza, and played some games of floor hockey! We had a great time and look forward to doing it again. Melissa knows her way around the net, scoring a few goals!

Here we are after playing for like two hours...hockey is the most nasty, sweaty sport, but we still posed for a picture! Notice the guy on the right wore a BYU football jersey...whateva!

Here I am with my buddy Wade, whom we call Wade the Kid or Wade Zetterberg.

This is the jersey that Melissa and I got for a wedding gift. I'm a big Avalanche fan so this was such a cool wedding present!

Yeah, Giles!

Ok, so I got this Flyers jersey from a friend at work. No, the Flyers aren't my favorite team, but this picture would look pretty sweet on my own hockey card, or maybe I'll get to be on Coatsey's Corner!