The Brightest Crayon in the Box

For Halloween this year, Matthew and I were feeling uninspired. Earlier in the month Elisa and I had come up with some awesome costume ideas, but as many say, "There aren't enough hours in the day." So about a week before our first party I called up my mom and asked her if she would send us a box of some of the costumes she has made. Well, she sure loves us because she sent us a box filled with 3 or 4 different sets: Life Savers, M&Ms, a Ketchup bottle and Crayons.

These costumes brought up great memories of halloweens past. My parents created the tradition of the whole family dressing up together. We have been bunny rabbits, bumble bees, The Flintstones, and all assortments of candies from Life Saver's to Hershey Kisses. In many cases (with the exception of the Hershey Kisses) each of us kids were dressed up like a piece of the candy while mom and dad dressed up in the candy packages.

After trying on each of the costumes Matthew and I chose to be the crayons! There was one challenge to these costumes, the red crayon (which Matthew wore) was missing its crayon top, so Matthew took on the task of getting some red felt and making his hat. It was all last minute, but it came together well.

On Thursday my school had our Halloween party and as usual it was a big hit, with many of the students dressed to impress. We had everything from the Ninja Turtles and Smurfette to The Goonies, Sean Connery and Senior-itis (a classmate dressed up as a senior citizen with a shirt on that said -itis). Most everyone brought food to share and it was spooktacular!

Thursday night Matthew and I along with a small group of our friends, including Matt Rager, Lauren, Anthony Woolf, Laura, Danny Johnson and Matt Meldrum (a lot of Matts I know!) went to the Haunted Village at This is the Place Heritage Park. It was a really good haunted house. The actors are very good at staying in character and many times jump out at you when you least expect it. I still have to say that my favorite part was when I stood behind Matt Rager and scared the group behind us as we were letting them pass us. Our group wanted to take our time and really get scared whereas others just rushed through it. When we got back to the beginning Matthew and I pick out a couple cool magnets. We have been to This is the Place before, but have never gotten a magnet yet, so we figured it was as good of a time as any.

Friday I spent the day in Layton at the UPTA conference. I went to the Neuro section and thought it was great. The experience helped me to be more appreciative of the education that I am getting at the U of U. I was excited that I understood much of the information that was discussed, especially since some of the PTs that are working didn't know some of the information. It helps to remind me that even though I am sometimes scared to get out there and work, I do know the information that will help me to succeed. It was also great to run into a few old faces. First I ran into Tasha Cunningham, an old suite-mate and friend from Dixie State. She is working for MountainLand, which is a PT company around the area and is working on her applications for PT school. I remember when we first met and how excited we were to share a similar dream and I am glad she is still going for it. I think she will be a great PT one day. I also ran into a couple of old co-workers from when I worked at Performance Rehab as an aide; Brett Bartlett and Jarod. It was great to catch up with them and I was grateful to get a few tips from them about work and what not. In a way it felt like old times, especially when I'd say something silly and they'd tease me.

Friday Night Matthew and I were invited to a party at the Anderson's house. It was good to see them and catch up on how school and work is going for the both of them. Danielle told us about an upcoming trip to Vietnam she is planning to go on with her school. It sounds pretty exciting. I liked that she was a piggy bank and Cory was a hundred dollar bill. We were asked to bring a spooky treat so Matthew and I brought poop brownies. All we did was make brownies and them squish them to look like poop. Even in poop form they were delicious. We also ran into some of Matthew's friends from high school; Trista and her husband Clay.

Saturday I went to the UPTA conference again, but this time I went to the Pediatric section. It was a little different than the Neuro section because they had multiple speakers, but what was really cool was that it was a newly formed section and they had the elections, so I was able to vote and one of my professors was voted in!

Saturday night Matthew and I went to a party at the house of some of my classmates; Caitlin, Jill and Sarah. It was fun for me to see Matthew meet some of my schoolmates that he hasn't meet yet, including Afshin who is a second year that I have been creating the ultimate handshake with. Cyndi, who was Smurfette at our school party busted out another superb costume as Barbie in the Barbie box. along with hers there were many other great costumes including Miss Piggy (Caitlin), The U of U Crazy Lady (Jill) and the Sasquatch from Jack Link's Beef Jerky commercials (Tiffany's husband Jared).

Today Matthew and I went over to Spencer Siady's place for the Disney Edition of Iron Chef SLC. We figured that since today is officially halloween that everyone would be decked out in their costumes, boy were we wrong! We felt a little "dull" when we walked in in our crayon costumes, but everyone complimented us and told us we were awesome, so we felt a little "brighter." It was stupendous food too, there was everything from "Poisoned Carmel Apples" to "Ratatouille Stew." All in all we had a great Halloween with great friends, good food and globs of fun.