Of Returning Potlickers, Venezuelan Chamos, Sweet Minstrel Action, and Workplace Dorkishness

Happy Day of the Dead to you all! I haven't posted for a while, I know, but I have a good excuse--up until about a week ago, not a dang blogworthy thing happened in all of October. Last week, however, renowned potlicker Holden Green returned home from his mission in Tennessee, and Alyssa and I headed to St. George to hear him speak in sacrament meeting, and a loverly time was had by all involved. He had a lot of really great mission stories. And it was good to have everyone together again for the first time in eons (except for Beth, who didn't come with Sheridan from Texas because of work). Plus, Alyssa Wiied it up and pretty much wasted everyone's trash in the tank game and the cow racing, but I think that pretty much goes without saying. Once Alyssa sets her mind to kicking butt in any one particular Wii game, all hope pretty much goes down the toilet for all else involved.

Inspired by Holden's mission stories, I did a Google search this past week for several people I taught in Venezuela to see how they were holding up, spiritually speaking, and guess what? I not only found five of them on Facebook, but they're ALL STILL ACTIVE. Not only that, but one girl I found through tracting who got baptized is now MARRIED to another guy I taught who eventually got baptized, and they're doing great. The awesomeness still flows in Barrio La Florida, my friends.

I am not bragging when I say I had the butt-kickingest costume ever for Halloween. Okay, maybe I am, but it's in behalf of Alyssa, the one who actually created the costume all by her l'il old self. In case it's difficult to tell from the photo, I was a flute-playing minstrel, and Alyssa was a chef. We had a Halloween party yesterday at work with a costume contest, and for the record, no, I did not win in any of the three categories. But hey! How did I ever think I could win out against a giant bottle of Cholulah Hot Sauce, a The Joker, and a cowgirl? Well, next year I'll know. If you really want to win a costume contest at Pearson, all you have to do is speak with a ridiculous Southern accent and you're a shoe-in, no matter how lame your costume is. Hard work on a costume? So overrated. (For the record, the hot sauce and Joker costumes were actually quite good, it was just the cowgirl that irritated me.) Okay, I'm done being bitter now. Mmm... maybe not quite yet. Give me a few more days and I just might get over it.

Of Trick-or-Treaters (lame) and Old Spaghetti Factory (lamer, but turned out okay)

Alyssa and I dressed as cave people again for Halloween night, but our wildly clever costumes kind of went to waste because we only had four groups of trick or treaters come to our door the entire evening. Lousy dangerous neighborhood, why I oughta... But it was all good; we watched Young Frankenstein and a good time was had by all two of us. We also carved jack-o-lanterns for our Family Home Evening two days previously, which you can see in the above photo. Mine is the big spooky one. Alyssa's was a pirate ship and looked really good, but it's kind of hard to see in the photo. She needed a bigger pumpkin, I think.

Last night we went with the Wadsworths to the Old Spaghetti Factory downtown and were there for two hours because it took them one and a half hours to get our food out. I guess 34 people had made a reservation for that evening but somebody misplaced it, so the staff had to serve all 34 people at once, which of course set them back significantly. But we got free spumoni ice cream AND the manager gave us two $20 guest coupons for next time. It kind of reminded me of last spring, when we went to a Basque restaurant with Daniel and Trista Gibson and Alyssa found a sticker in her soup so the server let all of us have free dessert. Sometimes I wish the restaurant staff would screw up EVERY time we went out to eat!