Photo of the Week 140

Picture taken at East Beach in Santa Barbara while I was there last weekend. I miss the beach.

HALLOWEEN - Turtle Power

It has been a very busy and fun Halloween. So much going on I barely have time to fit it all in. When I got back from my little Cali trip with my roommates, I went to dinner at my sister Kristy's house for her annual Halloween dinner for the kids. I asked her if I could come again this year. I love it... probably because I'm a big kid with the peter pan syndrome... but whatever. It was more low key this year than last year, but still super cute. I brought the dessert. I made eyeballs aka oreo truffles. They were a hit with the kids.

Speaking of kids, I will of course continue my tradition of showing off my nieces and nephews in costume... because I love them.

Bourgeous kids. Pirate & Princesses.

Wrenn Family (love their family theme's) Peter Pan, John, Michael, Wendy & Captain Hook.

Hixon kids. Indiana Jones and Rapunzel.

Mills kid - baby Irelyn was Toad! Just like me! Chad dressed up like Mario and Clara dressed up as Princess, but sadly I don't have a picture of the whole family.

Then there is MY costume! My friends and I came up with this idea over the summer and I have been excited about it ever since. Last year was my first time doing a couple costume (even though I wasn't dating someone) and this year was my first time doing a group themed costume. Weird right? Seems like I would have done that before... Well, I guess there was that one year my friends all dressed up as pirates, but that is not what I mean. I mean where everyone has their own character in a themed group costume. Like what I did for Mario Kart, but that wasn't for Halloween. Wait, I guess I did Star Wars one year... ANYWAY!! This was fulfilling a childhood dream. In order to fulfill this dream, it was going to take some awesome people, some time and some craftiness.

What am I referring it? Hero's in a Half Shell, Turtle Power! I have always wanted to be a Ninja Turtle. Seriously. I always loved Donatello, so that is who I was. How did we pull it off? Well, we borrowed 2 shells from my friend Ali, who we got the shells from for Mario Kart (she was Koopa). We then found out the other two were being used, so we had to make them! Rich got in touch with his crafty side and went to work on the two shells with some foam and paper mache and paint. We got our friend Malinda to sew our awesome masks for us. Then my mom and I sewed the material front part of the shell that would connect us to our shells. Then we bought some green spandex suites and got extra material for the belt and knee pads and stuff and we borrowed the weapons from some friends and we were set! Roommate photo!

We were a hit at the party. A lot of people wanted to take our picture. Maybe because we are awesome. We even brought a pizza. I was eating a slice as I entered the party. Did I mention we were extra awesome because we got my roommate, Sarah, to be April O'Neil? Yep. Best group costume ever! I should do that more. Makes dressing up so much more fun.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello & Raphael = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Hero's in a Half Shell, Turtle Power!

Super Pumpkin

We carved our pumpkins late in our house.... but better late than never right? And it was before the month was up, so who cares.

Last year I carved Sweeney Todd. The year before that I carved Michael Jackson in Thriller. So this year I wanted to carve something equally as awesome.... and keeping with the Mario theme, I thought I would carve Super Mario into my pumpkin!

Dave helped me with this project. I take that back...  I made Dave cut out the top and then he scooped out the seeds so that he could cook them, because he loves them. Other than that... I did everything else. I would have gotten a picture with him, but he was too busy perfecting his pumpkin seeds. He is funny.  His roommates thought I was in over my head for what I was going to be carving, but they have not seen what I have carved in my pumpkins in years past. I finished quick and everyone was SUPER impressed with my SUPER pumpkin.

Here is how it turned out.

Wolfinstein

On our roommate roadtrip, we stayed one night with my friend who is living with her Aunt and Uncle. They had cats and a dog. A big dog... that Megan nick named Wolfinstein. This is a little comic I drew of that experience.

Halloween - Disney Style

To celebrate how much I love my new roommates, I decided to take them to Disneyland. We were all super excited about this. I wanted to bring Rich, but he couldn't go with all of the homework he had, so we brought Kylee, a friend of Megan's (and now our friend) who I LOVED having with us. She was so much fun. They were all so lucky to get free tickets from me. You know how expensive 1 day Disney Park Hoppers are these days? $125! Your welcome!

We went yesterday and it was a great day to go because it wasn't crowded. I think the longest we waited in line was a half hour. Most of them were a lot less than that. Some we got to walk right on. So great. The only bummer is that my favorite ride (Indiana Jones) was closed. We started our Disney adventure with Big Thunder Mountain. It was Megan's first time and it had been YEARS since Kylee and Sarah had been to Disneyland. We switched who we rode the ride with every ride. Loved it. Got to bond with everyone.

Then one of my favorite things about being at Disneyland during Halloween/Christmas is the Haunted Mansion being decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas.

We of course watched Captain EO (because I made them) and after going on Space Mountain twice, we went into the Star Wars store (as we call it) to get Rich a Star Wars Disney gift since he couldn't come. While in there, Megan and I were SUPER tempted to buy these matching Ewok shirts and Wookie hats. As much as we loved them and wanted to get matching shirts while we were there... we just couldn't justify spending the money... so we opted for the picture instead.

We went to Toon Town and met Goofy.

Since the park wasn't very crowded, we got through Disneyland by the afternoon and spent the rest of our time in California adventure Park. It had been a while since I had been there. It has changed a lot. The added Cars Land! Which was awesome. Loved it. They did an amazing job with it. Seriously though... this is Disney we are talking about. Of course it is awesome.

Probably my favorite part of the day happened towards the beginning when we went on Splash Mountain. It's a fun ride. Megan was so excited she wanted to be up front... not knowing how soaked she would get. I got pretty soaked too being number 2 in line. The guy running the ride was a jerk (weird to be working at Disneyland) and gave us some quotes we used for the rest of the day.

The best thing that came from that ride though was the picture. I told everyone to strike a pose and this is what we got.... my favorite picture of the WHOLE TRIP!!! Awesome!

Flashback Friday 88

October 2006, my friends ( and roommates at the time) decided to dress goth. Not sure why... getting in the Halloween spirit? I'm pretty sure we were just weird like that. :)

Here was our attempt at goth.

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 141

Where did this month go? This week I realized that I needed to get my costume together before today... because I'm leaving today to go to California and won't be back until Sunday night and then our Halloween party is on Tuesday! WHAT? This month has been SO crazy. Does anyone else feel that way?

Have for sure been in the Halloween spirit. On Friday Megan, Rich and I watched Sweeney Todd. Sunday for Disney movie night we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. I still want to watch Monster House and Hocus Pocus.... we will see if I have time. I also still have not carved a pumpkin. Where did this month go!? On another note, my Halloween costume is going to be awesome if I can pull it off. Be excited.

Tuesday should have been "other Tuesday" but we haven't been to karaoke in so long. Dave text me and said it was like Tuesday's didn't even mean anything anymore. So we went to dinner instead. I do miss karaoke though. I mean... me and Mr. Karaoke have been preparing to sing together again. Hopefully in November we can start up again. I mean... I keep thinking of all these great songs to do at karaoke. :)

So my ward has a facebook group that we can all post parties to and such to be in the loop with each other. It is a good idea, except that it got a little out of control. Besides taking glam photo's of everyone in our ward, we are in charge of other communications, like the facebook page. Since people were cluttering the group page with "can I borrow someones tools" and "I like these shoes (shares link) but I don't think I will be able to wear them on my mission, what do you think?" we decided to make some guidelines so that people would stop getting annoyed (myself included) so that they would stay on the page. Who knew that people would get so offended by this (especially after last Sunday having a sacrament meeting full of talks about choosing not to be offended) and create so much drama. So many people got involved and the post was like 40 comments long. The girl misread the guidelines and freaked out that we had deleted her party... which we hadn't and when the conversation was tried to be taken private, she wouldn't have it and kept it going on the facebook group page. It went on for days and she made comments like "can I put my party invite back up? Or will it just be deleted again" even though it was still there and then canceled her party because of "the mess" that was caused. DRAMA!! Wish this girl knew that she only made herself look stupid and the whole ward was embarrassed for her as they read all of her posts. Wow...

Does anyone had numbers they don't know call them? And when you don't pick up they don't leave a message, and if you do pick up nobody answers and if you don't pick up it is just annoying to let it ring. I have had that happen to me 2 in the past week with different numbers and they just keep calling every couples ours or so. SO ANNOYING! How do I make it stop? I don't know why it keeps happening, but I really hope it stops.

I'm so glad that the presidential debates are over. I thought the last one went really well. I'm still hopeful and positive... but I'm going to be a nervous wreck on election day.

Got to spend time with my boys! Not sure what is up with Nate's beard... but it was so fun to hang out with them. Just like old times. We have so much fun together. We went out to eat Chilean food (which I had never tried before). So good. Love those boys so much. I will be seeing Steve soon and Nate I have a feeling I will be seeing pretty often. Which I am totally okay with.  Love these boys.

Photo of the Week 139

One more picture of the leaves because they are almost all gone. This is from when Dave and I went four wheeling. It is not the best picture in the world... but I like the contrast and colors of it.

Caramel Apples

Another great thing about the fall is having caramel apples. We had a Relief Society "Fall Kick Off" party/ dinner. One thing they had going on at this activity was making your own caramel apples.

Ali and I were excited as we got in line. We love caramel apples. Being towards the end of the line... well, there wasn't a lot of stuff left.

This is what a normal caramel apples should look like.

This was the group's apples.

This was me and Ali's caramel apples. I took my apple over to Dave's after and he not only laughed at it but told me it was the worst caramel apple he had ever seen (and then ended up eating it later because he said he had no other options of food)

..... Epic fail. 

Mystery Corn Maze

I enjoy being festive. Seasons and Holiday's only come once  a year... so why not indulge in it? So one of the ways I am Festive during Fall/ Halloween is I go to a corn maze. I don't know why I like it so much, but I do. Last year, our ward did a fun spin on the corn maze by making us find Waldo.  This year I went with my FHE group (because I convinced the leaders we should) and I had a knew corn maze experience.

Wondering how I had a new experience when I go to the corn mazes every year? WELL... every year I have either gone to Corn Belly's at Thanksgiving point or Hee Haws in Pleasant Grove. This year they added a corn maze right here in Provo. So we went to check it out. It was less crowded which was awesome. Not only was it a different corn maze, but they do it a little different. When you enter the corn maze, you are given a map of the maze and a little booklet of characters to try and figure out the crime scene. As you go through the maze, you come across little plaques throughout the maze that either had a number on it (which meant you got to hole punch that number that represented different coupons you got) or it had part of the crime scene that you were trying to figure out (which was different animals and weapons) which you also got to hole punch as you figured it out. Awesome? Yes! We all had a blast. When we were going through the corn maze... it was really windy, which I actually loved. Made it seem like the scary movies. Dark... wind blowing through the corn... maybe you had to be there.

For solving the investigation, everyone got a badge! ha ha

Along with the corn maze, they also had other games you could play. And of course some fun picture spots, because everyone loves that.

Funny story. Sarah and I were in line for this picture spot. We handed off our cameras to our friend Kayci. I volunteered to be the man in the picture and some guys commented that I was confident enough to do that. I laughed politely and said ya. The guys stayed there until we were ready for our picture. They had us looking over at them first to take a picture. Sarah and I both thought that he had one of our camera's until he took the picture and then left. Turns out, Kayci had both of our cameras. That dude just wanted to take our picture? Does anyone else find that weird? We did. We didn't know him at all. Why does he want a picture of me and Sarah posing behind cardboard? Awkward!

It was a fun activity. Glad that I went again this year and glad that I tried out a new place. I heart corn mazes and fall and Halloween.

Pumpkin Dinner Date

Apparently, I am a girl with many traditions. My future children are either going to love me or hate me for it. One of my many traditions is around Halloween time, I make Sassy Salsa Pumpkin Soup and everyone gets to eat it out of a little pumpkin bowl. Why? Because I think it's fun. How often do you get to use a pumpkin for a bowl? I have been doing it for a few years now and everyone seems to think it's fun.

This year I did the dinner with my roommates and we all decided to invite a date. I love that with my new roommates, we always have guys over at our place and people love coming over all of the time and people stop by all the time. This is how I love having my home. So refreshing. The roommates and I bonded while cooking in the kitchen together in cute aprons. I made the soup, Sarah made the salad (we put her in charge of salads forever because she makes the best salads) and bread and Megan made a yummy maple cake.

Sarah invited one of her many suitors (Chris? I don't know... I can't keep track of all the guys in her life), Megan invited her boyfriend Ben... and I of course invited Dave. For those of you that have been reading my blog for a long time... he is the one that I used to refer to as "FHE Boy". We all had a nice chat over a nice dinner. I feel like I need to have dinner parties more often. I like cooking for people. I like having people over. I also like being festive. So... this was a win win situation. Hopefully there will be more dinners like this in the future.