Our Big Little Adventures: Halloween :: State Fair

Halloween 2011. Mad Men Style!

Richard and I just finished Season 1 of Mad Men (I know, we are so behind)! Not only is Mad Men such a fun show to watch, it is an Ad Agency just like Richard's job at TPN. Now, don't get us wrong, times have certainly changed...but there are several things that are the same! So, we had a great time dressing up as Don Draper and Peggy Olson! Our Halloween festivities included a fall festival, Halloween spooky dinner, two costume parties and tons of Halloween movies! Let the holiday season begin!

Mad Men: Don Draper and Peggy Olson

Olivia's Halloween Party

Whitney and Nathaniel's Halloween Party

Amy's spooky Halloween Dinner

Capital One - Fall Festival

State Fair of Texas

We had our fair share of fried food this year! We both had team building "fun days" at the fair with our companies (TPN and Capital One). Then, we went back to the fair together to try out our favorite foods! My favorite: fried salsa :: Richard's favorite: fried sauerkraut

Fried salsa at the State Fair of Texas!

Work (Capital One, Community Affairs)

I've had the opportunity to really get out in the community the past few weeks at work. I spent 2 days conducting site visits to Dallas ISD elementary schools during a competitive grant process through Capital One. The winner received a brand new library - completely made over! The elementary students got to draw their dream library and in two months, we will bring a group of volunteers into the school to complete the dream library makeover! I also got to see first-hand the condition of some of our Dallas ISD schools... they are in really bad condition with teachers not having essential supplies and even books!

Another exciting project I got to participate in is a program called Finance Park. In partnership with Capital One, Junior Achievement provides a 6 hour "mock city" for middle and high school students to participate in! Students are given an identify, salary and family...they have to go through real life situations and learn how to manage a monthly budget. The students learned a ton about how hard it is to pay your bills and get through daily struggles. It was SO funny listening to their thoughts on life, budgets and expectations... one student told me he was going to be a MLB player AND NFL player at the same time, so he really didn't need to worry about budgeting because he will have a 2.3 billion dollar contract. Ha! :)