Halloween 2013

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the whimsicalness of it all. Dressing up, acting like a kid. Making cool food/treats.

My work goes all out, and for the last 3 years Brittney and her kids have come to my office to trick or treat. I love it!! I love having them come. And this is all her kids know trick or treating to be – at my office. They’ve never gone in the real world.

Trevor came this year, which was so fun! It was so nice for him to see where I work, my cubicle and meet some of the people I work with.

So, here is the start of our Halloween - Trevor starting the creation of his Wolverine claws! (technically preparation started much prior, with him growing out his hair and beard. And working on his "Wolverine scowl".)

 

 

Here is my cubicle. This is what it looks like every day of the year.

 

 

Except Halloween. Today the cubicles look like this:

 

 

Crazy, huh? The teams worked all day long for 2 days to get this all pulled off. It's awesome. This picture was taken before everything was done, so it was way cooler.

 

Here is the group! Trick or Treating around the ROB. I wish I had pictures from the last 3 years. I love this tradition with such a good friend and her gorgeous babies!

 

 

Trev shaved his beard on Friday morning (the 25th - since my work celebrates Halloween this day - so he had a full week of chops).

 

He sent me this Snapchat at work - working, again, on his Wolverine face.

 

 

Here is his hair after I was done doing it for our ward party on Saturday the 26th:

 

 

And my complete Storm look:

 

 

And us as a couple! Storm and Wolverine!

 

 

Probably the best part of this whole costume was my mom's comment. I put this picture up on FaceBook, and my mom commented that Trevor made an awesome Edward Scissor hands.

 

HAHAHAA!!!

 

Yeah, not even close. But hilarious!

 

On Halloween, we went to Alison and Steven's and had an awesome Halloween meal. I made the salad:

 

And dessert (it is supposed to be a spider web):

 

 

Alison made an awesome soup in a pumpkin bread bowl, and we watched Rosemary's Baby.

 

I had wanted to watch it for a while, as it has been portrayed as a classic. Quoted often in other movies. It was quite interesting. Very creepy - perfect for Halloween.

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

Love,

Brittney

 

 

Thoughts on a Halloween Friday

It’s not really Friday. It feels like Friday. It felt like Friday yesterday. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow, the real Friday.

It doesn’t feel like Halloween. Last Friday was my works annual Halloween trick or treating day. It’s a huge deal here. We have over 1,000 family members show up. Brittney Henderson and her darling kids came again, for the 3^rd time. It’s tradition now. They have never actually taken their kids trick or treating outside my work. This is all they know. This year Trevor was able to come. At our trick or treating day last year, I texted him the whole time. We were almost official at that point. This year he was with me.

We got all dressed up and it was awesome (wolverine and Storm. Pictures to come in my Halloween post).

Then last Saturday was our wards’ Halloween party, so we got all dressed up again and made/ate chili. Our chili won first place. We may have been the only judges, but I trust our verdict. Trevor won a prize for his costume. “MOST ORIGINAL COSTUME.” He looked awesome, his chops were perfect and we worked hard on those tinfoil claws! He deserved a prize. But “most original costume” for Wolverine?? I’d say maybe he should have won a different category. But he’s proud of his certificate (yes- they gave him an actual certificate) so I guess we’ll take it.

Since we’ve already trick or treated, dressed up twice, today does not feel like Halloween (I am wearing a skull shirt, green shoes and orange pumpkin socks though, in honor of the holiday spirit).

We’re going to celebrate Halloween with some amazing friends tonight – Alison and Steven – and I’m so excited. I’m making dessert – I made a pumpkin cheesecake from scratch. Scratch as in – I bought, cut, cleaned and cooked an actual pumpkin. I can’t wait to try it. It better knock the socks off of the canned stuff. It was a lot of work.

Speaking of dessert – I’ve gained 30lbs on birth control, in 4 months. I’ve dieted like CRAZY and didn’t cheat for an entire month and GAINED 2lbs (Trevor lost 14, in case you were wondering). I HATE MY LIFE.

We wanted to go to Saudi for Christmas, but with Trevor’s vacation days being utterly ambiguous and getting our visas – it is looking like it will not happen. I’m so, so sad. I haven’t been home in 2 years as of this Christmas. I miss it terribly. I miss the familiarity of being “home”. And I want Trevor to see what my home looks like. Where I grew up. he can’t begin to understand me, my background, the way I think, until he has seen where I come from.

I don’t know what our future holds for the next years, and my dad is retiring in about 3 years, so this was honestly the best opportunity we had to go visit Saudi. I’m so sad to my core that I can’t go this year.

Work is weird.

I need a change. I’m struggling with staying put for so long. I need an adventure. I need to move, try new places, new things. I’m feeling so boxed in, so antsy for something new. Restless.

I’ve had cramps 75% of this last month. Not so bad I need meds and am out to lunch, but enough that it is uncomfortable. Again, thank you birth control.

I miss some of my best friends who live too far away. Samar is in Texas, Brittany is in Calgary and Sachi is all the way in Provo. I want to have them next door.

I don’t know any of my neighbors. The ones I do know, I wish I didn’t (aka – the nosy, rude neighbor downstairs, and the alcoholic, to name just a few....) I want friendly neighbors I know. Who I can borrow 5 FREAKING EGGS FROM IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY (not that that happened last night while making my pumpkin cheesecake and I couldn’t finish it because I have no eggs and no one I could ask for eggs in my vicinity).

Trev got me wireless earphones for work (he got him some too) and I love not being connected to my phone or computer. I can move around, go to the printer, turn in circles in my chair – whatever I want to do – without painfully yanking the ear buds out.

I love fall.

I should get my wedding pictures back this week. It’s been 4 months.

Did I mention I really, really want to go home?

I’ve been sick this week and am beyond exhausted. I just want to sleep for a year.

That’s it.

Love,

Brittney

Wolverine

Trevor has been getting pretty scraggly lately.

 

I told him he needs to shave. He looks homeless.

 

Then I had an idea - his hair/beard is long and scraggly - it's almost Halloween...

 

WOLVERINE.

 

He'd make the perfect Wolverine!

 

So, he's continuing to look scraggly for another month until Halloween, when he'll cut his beard like Wolverine's and style his hair the same.

 

Last night I caught him staring at himself in the mirror practicing his hair...

 

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but he's made the sides curl up like Wolverine's do - it looked much better in real life. iPhone camera, what can I say.

His hair needs to be a bit longer - but he's got another month. He's going to make a pretty amazing Wolverine, if I do say so myself!!

 

Strangling Brothers Haunted Circus

Texting Convo:

 

Trevor: I think you should get your Groupon (attaches a link to the Strangling Brothers Haunted Circus)

 

((He’s been trying to convince me to go with him to this since last Halloween. NO WAY))

 

Britt: I think you meant to send this to your other wife.

 

Trevor: It’s a Groupon for the circus!!!

 

Britt: For the haunted circus. I’m no dummy. You send me a Groupon for the Ringling Brothers circus and I’m in.

 

Trevor: Oh, woops, this one is the Strangling Brothers… my bad.

 

Yeah, sure it was an accident… the answer is still NO!

 

Love,

Brittney

Happy Halloween 2012!!

• Took Lacey to a corn maze right after work, so it was light outside and not haunted, which was so fun. We had the whole maze to ourselves. When she found out there was a haunted one at night, she wanted to go. but I was too big of a wuss so I told her probably not...
• Went to Frightmares with Trevor (also our first date). Was even braver than last year and went to all the haunted houses but the scariest one (it was where satan and his devils lived and I had no interest in going to a haunted house that was suppost to be all about satan).   Took Lacey to Red Butte Garden's halloween night. It was really fun - I went a couple of years ago with the Sudanese kids. Lacey had a blast.
• Brittney Henderson and Katie Marie, Belinda and Alvin came trick-or-treating with me at the ROB again this year (3rd year! We have a tradition going!). Those kids make me so happy! I love that family very much. I dressed up as an 80's girl - easy costume and cost me nothing, which was kind of the point.
• Trevor and I took Lacey and his neice, Roslyn, to the zoo for their halloween day. They had trick-or-treating stations along the way and everyone was dressed up.

• Carved pumpkins on a triple date, then went to Memory Grove, which is supposedly haunted. We walked around, read the inscriptions and told ghost stories.

• Went to Thanksgiving Point to take Lacey to a haunted corn maze with Trevor and Luisa. The girl bugged me and pleaded with me until I gave in - but no way would I take her alone. So Trevor and Luisa came. It was actually incredibly fun. I couldn't believe how brave Lacey was. They had much more than the haunted corn maze. Haunted house, haunted hay maze, haunted corn maze, and another haunted maze. On the way home I hit and killed a black cat. My first time running over anything, let alone killing anything. I was pretty upset, as was Lacey. Trevor thought it was funny.

• On Halloween night, I made a Halloween dinner and Trevor and I went on a haunted tour of SLC. 

• That was really fun. They take you to these places in downtown that are supposedly haunted. They tell you all the stories and history behind everything. It was very interesting. After, we walked around Memory Grove.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!



Halloween

Halloween checklist:

Decorating for Halloween - Check

Haunted houses - Check

Lagoon's Frightmares - Check

Haunted Halloween space misison - Check

Halloween parties - Check

Dressing up - Check

Halloween food (including caramel apples) - Check

Trick or Treating - Check

Helping Bob get ready to be Ferb (Riley was Phineus) - Check

Answering  the door for trick or treaters - Check

Yup, awesome Halloween indeed!!!!

More details, for my own remembering:

Frightmares was a blast. I even toughed out the  haunted houses. Kip told me he'd buy me a caramel apple if I went into scary ones. They rate the haunted houses 1-6. We started small. We couldn't get into the 1 rating, since we were over 50 inches. So we went to 2. I decided I could handle scarier. We went into the 3. It was scary, but I did awesome! So we went into 4... it was WAY scarier than 3. I tried to be brave but I wasn't really. All that mattered though, is that I went in so I got my caramel apple. It was a really fun night, and great way to start off Halloween.

The Friday before I left for home, October 28th, at work we had trick or treating. Everyone invites their families and everyone brings candy, and the kids go around trick or treating. This is my favorite work day! The kids are so cute in their cosutmes. It's so fun to see how they all dress up, and to see my co-workers' families.

Last year, I invited Brittney Henderson and her little girls to come trick or treating. Apparently they had a blast, because they asked her if they could come again this year, and I was happy to have them. This year was a new addition though, cute baby Alivn. So we walked around with the 3 kids and got candy, and went through the spook alleys.

That night, was Kip and my halloween party. We had people over, and we ate dinner and payed games. After, we went to iWorlds' haunted space mission, which is a blast!!! Taylor and Liz drove from Rexburg to join us, which was so fun. After, we went into space at iWorlds, in Thanksgiving Point. For Halloween, they've done haunted missions. They are pretty scary and awesome.

After, some of us hung out at my house until 3:30am. Great last night in the states!

On Halloween day in Saudi, Bobbie and Riley were Phinneus and Ferb, and 2 of their friends were also dressed like characters from the show. We even died Bob's hair green. They looked awesome.

That night the trick or treaters came, which was awesome. Everyone who came to our house was Saudi and spoke NO English.

They had memorized, "happy Halloween" and "have a nice day". No matter what you said, they would just say that. If you deviated from either of those phrases, they were completely thrown off and would just stare at you. One little boy was so cute. I was handing out New York Peppermint patties, and had some Butterfinger wafers on the floor. This little boy, after I handed him the peppermint patty, kept pointing at the floor. I figured he wanted the other candies, but was only willing to give him one piece (we didn't have a whole lot of candy) so he pointed to the candy, then he rubbed his tummy while saying, "yuuummmyy!!"

Hahahhaa...

Happy Halloween!!

Love,

Brittney

Halloween 2010

This has been, undoubtedly, the best Halloween ever.

Took the Sudanese kids to the Red Butte Gardens Halloween Carnival thing. It was so much fun! They got paint in my beautiful Tim - I still need to scrub him clean. I also carved the first pumpkin of the season - a skeleton, and went to a corn maze under a perfect moon. :)

10/28 : Spent the whole day prepping for Halloween at work. We did a “haunted hallway” in the hallway infront of mine and Julie’s desks. The rules were you can’t hang anything from the walls or ceiling. So we went to Home Depot and bought PVC pipes, and created a 10 foot frame that fit perfectly into the hallway, so we could hang black plastic from the top of the hallway to the bottom, blocking out all light. We filled the hallway/doorframes with all types of fun stuff, and filled the hallway with balloons. It turned out really well.

That night, we carved pumpkins. Highlights - I carved the sandman. Ramzi carved ET. Tara carved a bumkin. Aaron carved a really creepy teethy thing.

10/29 : Had a Halloween extravaganza at work. Everyone dressed up, and families were invited to come trick-or-treat. In a building with something around 700 employees, that means it was a zoo. It was ridiculously fun.

Brittney and her darling girls, Katie Marie and Belinda, came to see me and trick-or-treat. It was so fun to see them.

There were 3 “spook alleys” on my floor. The one my co-workers and I made, and 2 others. One was very well done, it was truly scary.

Brittany and I dressed up like twins. Since we have the same name, and there are hardly any girls at the office, all the guys make fun of us all the time. They call us The Brittney’s, or just Brittney, Brittney Squared, and tease us about our all exclusive Brittney club. So to be funny, we came to work dressed the exact same. It was actually pretty fun.

After, Ramzi and I went to a theatrical rendition of Dracula! It was awesome. It was put on by the Mortal Fools Theatre Project, in the Provo Castle.

I told Ramz we needed to leave an hour early, getting enough time to get there, since I am fully aware how directionally challenged I am.  I couldn’t get an actual address for the Provo Castle,  just generic directions. I put Castle into my GPS, and it came up with Castle Rock, and the address was very close to that of the directions I had. So I figured it must be it, right? Took half an hour to get there – turns out it was the right address, only in Orem, not Provo.  Woops. We turned around and got there pretty easy after that, actually following the directions I had.We got there 5 minutes late, but it hadn't started yet. Success!

Turns out, the Provo Castle is right next to the mental asylum. Creeeeepy! We got lost in the complex area, never having been to the castle, compounded by the darkness. That was fun.

The show was intense and good, I enjoyed it. Especially the whole, being in a castle part.

10/30 : I decided, last minute, I wanted to make a haunted dinner! It ended up being so much fun. Ramzi and Aaron came and helped me cook.

We made hand meatloaf

and finger cookies

Highlight of the whole evening:

Me (to Grams): Look! What do you think?

Grams: Cute!

Me: Cute??

Grams: Yeah, it’s cute.

Me: Bunnies are cute. Babies are cute. This is supposed to be gross!

(Grams giving a confused face)

*Ramzi, Aaron and I are laughing*

Me (to Gramps): What do you think?

Gramps: Cute!

(We all burst out laughing)

Me: No, it’s gross!

Gramps: Oh, it’s a finger? I thought it was Anne with a beard (Anne is my Grandma).

Hahahahahahaaaa.

Afterwards, I got to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters, which I have never done. When I was young, I was always out trick-or-treating. Since I’ve been in the States, I’ve always gone out to parties with friends. I decided this year to forgo the parties and watch Halloween movies and hand candy out to kids. It was fun!

More pictures: