Halloween Party

Ok so my "official" Halloween has come and gone. Last Saturday the church held their annual Halloween party and these are the nights that Matt and I love to go all out for. This year (like all the other years) we went shopping the day of the event for our Halloween costumes. Matt had the clever idea to go as a modern Caveman, as in the Geico commercials and their new sitcom.
Because we usually try to go as a couple (as in matching costumes...obviously we go as a couple) I figured I could go as a modern cavewoman. I wasn't too sure about the idea, but hey I played along. So here are a couple of pictures of Matt getting ready. He took the most work...mine was fairly simple.


And here is the final product!


Now... as for me. All I needed to do was to tease my hair, and have Matt accentuate my eyebrows and add some sideburns, I figured cavewomen weren't terribly hairy, but they had to be somewhat. So, really there wasn't too much for me to have done. That is when I realized that my major accessory was Matt himself, because frankly without him standing next to me, I just looked like a hairy woman.

I must admit that this year was still fun, we had a lot of good reactions and we won the prize for best couple costume again. But I suppose it would have been fun for me to get a little more dressed up. Matt sure did look great though!

Of course we also decorated a room for the trick-or-treaters. We went with a Haunted Mansion theme. I couldn't get a decent picture of the room with the lights off, but just imagine that it is dark, with a black light, strobe light, and there is fog coming out of the skull's eye-sockets. In addition we had the soundtrack to the Disney's Haunted mansion playing. It was pretty awesome. There were a few kids that were too scared to come in the room, so I took the candy to them. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part...a simple trick, but HIGHLY effective and HILARIOUS...hang dark sewing thread from the door. The guests can't see it when they walk in and it freaks them out when they run into it. Matt and I got a kick out of watching their reactions...usually the adults were the ones who reacted the most. What a great night. Happy Halloween!


P.S. The only casualty of the Halloween costume this year was removing the spirit gum from our faces that night. I was blindly washing my eyebrows and I grabbed what I thought was a clump of glue and ripped it off. Well, turns out it was a clump of my eyebrows glued together...thus I have a bald spot now.

60-3

My younger brother Andrew loves math...I mean LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES math. In all his free time he thinks about it, talks about it, and will come up with math problems to solve. He in my mind is insane! But whatever, there are people in this world who love teeth...:) so we can't judge. Anywhooo.
For anyone who happened to notice in the previous post that Clint and Natalie's birthday cake the candles said 60-3 (you have to look close for the single candle lying down, but it is a minus sign) allow me to explain.
Clint turned 30 this year and Natalie turned 27. So if you subtract 3 from 60 you get 57, which is 30 + 27... Get it? Ok, so it is stupid, but we got my little brother involved in the cake and it was pretty funny. Here's to enjoying anything that you love!

A little catch-up

If I may, I feel the need to post SOMETHING! So, I figured I could just sit down and write about all the many things that are going on with Matt and I that keep so busy and away from my blog, and sometimes away from the other blogs I love to read on a daily basis!

When Matt started working at his job a few years ago there was a certain time of the year when they didn't have much to do, the time kind of dragged on, and Matt had a lot of "free" time. Well, gratefully the business is doing very well and it has shown in Matt's schedule lately. Because of the nature of his work Matt is sometimes gone ALL day, he has to travel to neighboring cities frequently (LA is a very common destination), and at times he has to leave for days. His most recent trip was to Chicago, and in a few days he will be leaving for Las Vegas. Not only is he busy on the road...but they also have to edit all this wonderful footage, so a lot of long and sometimes late days at the office. In addition to his regular job he also has his other production company that he is a partner in with his friends. They are currently in the process of speaking to some VERY big names in the movie industry. Each week they have several meetings, they get together often to improve their presentation, which includes hours of artwork, editing, storyline, etc. Here is a picture of a late night creative meeting. I know that making this movie is going to be a wonderful experience, it just takes a long time to get through all the red tape.

I am currently heading into the midterm season of school. Luckily the classes that I am taking are not uber difficult, but there is sooooo much information to remember. Take pharmacology for instance, first of all...I didn't sign up to be a pharmacist, so this isn't exactly my cup of tea. Second, do you know how "exhilarating" it is to sit and listen about ALL different types of drugs: their names, what they do, their adverse reactions, their drug interactions...just saying it all now makes me want to put a fork in my eye!! Ok, well not really, but you get my drift. Then I have a lot of pressure in my clinic. We are given a certain number of appointments and we have a certain number of requirements to fulfill, unfortunately the appointments and requirements aren't always matching up. I am running out of appointment times and have a lot of requirements left! I have project after project to complete, one of which, we found out yesterday, is a no go and we have to come up with another topic...and it is due at the end of the semester. I could go on, but I have a feeling I may lose some readers at this point.

Some good things that have happened: I was able to catch up with a friend of mine from high school at a Halloween party. Matt and I went to the beach to see our buddy Chip ride during his final day of riding his bicycle across the United States. We finished our ward road show (if anyone knows what that is like...then you know why I am so happy for it to be over!)
I was able to spend some time with my family to celebrate a couple of birthdays (Happy Birthday Clint and Natalie!).
I was able to get a 2 hour full body massage from my extremely talented sister, Erika. (If anyone is interested...let me know and I can get you her information). And I also get to spend the entire day today with Matt. Today is our annual church Halloween party and Matt and I usually go all out. Here a few pictures of the previous years. We shall see what we come up with!

Visit with Royce

This post is about 2 weeks delayed. I received a phone call one Sunday afternoon from my cousin from Utah who joined the Marines several months ago. He happened to be in Orange County for the weekend and wanted to stop by to visit! Well, I haven't seen my cousin in about 2 years and so of course I was so excited to see him. He and his girlfriend, Sabrina, came over and we spent the evening playing video games on our Wii. It was so much fun, I have really missed spending time with my cousin. We were able to catch up on our lives both past and present, and talk a bit about his future. He will be leaving for Iraq in March. Luckily for us, he is in communication so he tells me that he will be in an air conditioned building while he is there for 6-9 months. But still...eek!

The next day he visited with two of my sisters, Erika and Natalie, and my nephew, Tanner, down in Venice Beach. It was so exciting to see Royce and we all took pictures to capture this moment with him. Instead of posting all my pictures, I made a quick slide show/movie to display our visit with Royce.

Chip's last leg.

Hi everyone! Sorry my blog-brain has been on hold for a while, I have been really busy with school. But I just wanted to let everyone know that my buddy Chip (see his blog listed on the side) will be arriving in Huntington Beach this coming Saturday. If any of you have been following along you know that it has been a really long journey for him, some days were good, some were bad, he has suffered from a sore knee since Kansas and an inflamed Achilles tendon, has been practically knocked over by wind, and pulled over by the police a few times...
His adventure will come to an end this Saturday, around 3:00pm when he rides in to HB and dips his front tire in the Pacific Ocean, this time with his wonderful wife and children by his side! He has invited EVERYONE to come to be a part of this. Matt and I will are certainly going to be there, and I encourage anyone who might possibly be around this area who has followed along Chips adventure to be there also!
See ya soon Chip, keep pedaling!!!
P.S. To Tracy and kids, you have an amazing husband/dad, and he has an amazing and supportive family! You are ALL an inspiration to us. Thank you for all that you do!

I ham hungry!

Do you ever get to the point where the only thing left to eat in the kitchen lies within the depths of your pantry? The other day I knew I was going to be alone for the entire day and so as I contemplated what I would eat I started rummaging around in the pantry. I actually have a pretty good idea of what we have in there. Most of it I don't think I will ever use, but I think it is quite a waste to just throw it away. Well, I thought I would try something different. I have had this soup mix-in-a-bag probably going on 5 years or so. I always thought it might be good to try, but never had the courage to do so. Well, since I only had to feed myself, I figured that it would be a good time for the adventure!

I briefly read the directions and figured it would take about 4 hours to prepare (2 hours to soak the beans, and 2 hours to simmer) No problem, I was going to be home all day. So I began the process.

After I finished soaking the beans I went back to my instructions, and that is when I figured out why I hadn't used this soup mix in all these years. It wasn't just a soup mix...oh no... it was a "Honeybaked ham store" soup mix. Which meant, I needed a Honeybaked brand ham bone. What? A HAM bone? (Never mind the fact that it says "Ham bone" on the front label) Oh man, ok so off I went to the store. The butcher at Vons didn't carry plain ol' ham bones. Ok, so off I went to try my luck at Trader Joes. Nope, no ham bones. Now, in all my life I have never been to a Honeybaked ham store and I always thought the concept was rather ridiculous. Why is there a store completely dedicated to ham? Well, it just so happens that down the street from Trader Joes is a Honeybaked ham store. Lucky me.

Long story short, they were having a sale on soup mixes!!! Could you believe it! At first I said "no" that was the last thing I wanted! But then she explained I could get 2 mixes for $10 and get a free ham bone (which on it's own costs over $11) Ok, so I can pay LESS and get 3 things and get suckered into coming back for more ham bones or I could pay more for one thing and have this soup mix issue over with forever. Well, like any American who wants to save a buck, I did the "logical" thing!

Here lies the 2 new soup mixes that will lay in my cupboard for another 5 years!

Ok, so I got my stinkin' ham bone and I made my chili. Now after all of that I could not wait to try my little creation!
Verdict: It was way to salty...and I couldn't finish it. Ugh, so let us all learn a valuable lesson here. Sometimes those certain food items in the back of the cupboard need to stay there. I am pretty sure a kind visiting teacher gave me said food item. I think I have decided to never impose such a burden on a person. From now on, homemade cookies and holiday hand-towels are the gifts I will bestow upon my loved ones.