Saturday, November 5, 2011

Of Mucus Candy Bars, Alyssa Queen of the Dance, Anika Master of the Beam, and Alca-Ween Action

Hey thar fellah rapscallions. (You know you are one. Come on, fess up.) So we spent Halloween in California with Emily and fam, and good times were had in abundance. (You might say we...get ready for major yuks here... had a...giggle...CALI-WEEN. Ah-hah! Hah! Such a bundle of laughs am I!) Said good times included but were not limited to...

  • Visiting Chinatown and eating jellyfish and shark fin dumplings, among other things. Consensus: Eating jellyfish was kind of like eating a mucus candy bar with a chewy nougat center, and as for the shark...well, Emily thought maybe the reason it tasted so bad was because it had eaten a human prior to being caught. But I suppose eating gross food is the price we pay for getting to brag about it later, like I am now.
  • Attending Emily's ward's Halloween party dressed as a king and queen; also in our entourage were Sonny and Cher (Kelly and Emily), Cruella DeVille (Laura), a San Francisco 49er (Trey), a giraffe (Ramona), Michael Jackson (Ty), a Mexican guy (Rhett), our nerdy princess daughter (Anika), and pirates (Alyssa's parents). If I left anybody out there, SORRY. The high point of said party was watching Alyssa as a queen dance to "Beat It" (see the accompanying photo).
  • Attending Anika's gymnastics championship, at which she placed 1st in Beam and Bars, 4th in Vault and Floor, and 1st overall. Yeah Anika. Go you. And don't forget the advice I gave you: If you're ever on a boat and you're wearing your plethora of medals and the boat starts to sink, just let them go. Or they'll sink you to your watery doom, like that heavyweight boxer I read about once in that sketchy book. Heed these sage words from wise old Uncle Ben.
  • Visiting Alcatraz on Halloween. Highly recommended. Especially the part of the tour where they talk about the three guys who made cement replicas of their heads and put them in their beds to fool the guards then tunneled out with spoons, climbed pipes up to the roof, and made their escape across the bay on a makeshift raft made from a raincoat. (Or they might have died. No one knows. But MAN, cool.) Alyssa bought for her l'il self a stylin' prisoner cap, and I bought an official Alcatraz harmonica. Because a trip to Alcatraz is not a trip to Alcatraz without a stylin' prisoner cap and an official harmonica.
























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