Best Stake Halloween Party

Saturday night was the Stake Halloween Party and it was the biggest and wildest Manhattan Stake Halloween Party I've been to yet. I don't know why, but lots of people showed up and the cultural hall was absolutely packed. But why bother you with words when what you want are pictures? You do want pictures, right?

Michelle and I were Tinkerbell and the Crocodile (not a dragonfly and a dragon, as others had wondered, or, for that matter, a cavewoman with wings and a dinosaur, either).


There were these Barbie girls at the dance. Their posse was a big deal.


Collin showed up in Jeff's bunny accessories.


Come here, little bunny, you need a nose.


There! Perfect! Now hop along and have your fun!


Randy and Mike, Hansel and Derek.


Ryan freaked everyone out with his intricate Demon Goblin costume.


Jeff as Officer.


After not too much dancing my clock fell off its chain and shattered all over the floor. Oh well. The good news: (insert "off the chain" joke here) After this incident it became a lot harder for people to realize I was a crocodile.


Becky is back from wherever she had been for so long, and now she's a jellyfish. And Suvi is Asian!


Croc attack, oh no! A bit of nature's drama right out of Planet Earth. (And if you were wondering, yes, that happens to be a Paul Smith crocodile head that I'm wearing)


Dave on Mariners' pants: Pros: surprisingly comfortable, surprisingly cool (or was it warm?). Cons: one pocket.


Katie: A very authentic Coco Chanel.


Rich's Ghostbuster group (featuring Steve and Mystery Girl, among others) later won the evening's costume contest.


Megan (I'm 90% sure that's her name): a very convincing Cruella DeVille.


Ashley the Knight and Kimmy the Little Bo Peep (I know! It's so hard to recognize Kim with the wig and makeup!)


Ace. Present and Accounted for.


Patricia and Friend as a portion of the Fruit of the Loom. Gabby as Ugly Betty. Ugh. I can't even watch that show. That Betty is so gross I barf even if I just flip past the show while changing channels. When it comes to repulsion, watching Ugly Betty is probably worse than watching all the Saw movies in slow motion. Why couldn't they have made a Pretty Betty show instead? Think of how much more people would like that instead.


Emily: Guilty of Costume Repetition!! (see Halloween Party: 2005 post below) Lisa, Guilty of Accompanying a Costume Repeater!!


Britney, Sara, Courtnie, Heidi.


Errr...


...and speaking of dance floor indecency


Brooke as Jem.


Jeff as Snake Charmer. Very good.


Jeff's Swedish friends Mattias and Peter.


There's that darn bunny again! With Ashley as Red Riding Hood.


Hillary and Jordan, the Two Things.


You know what is a hard name for me to spell sometimes? Jaime. Jaimie. Jamie. Jaymee. You know? They all seem legitimate. Well, maybe not "Jaymee." But I'm sure someone out there spells their name that way.


Ok, honestly. Why am I posting this at 3:08 AM? I'm having a weird week, ok?

Garrett promoting hireasaint.org. Go to hireasaint and offer your services! Come on!


This is what the party looked like from the stage during the costume contest.


Some Newsies.


Sarah as Mrs. Mia Wallace.


And here's Reghan as young James Taylor, perhaps the best costume of the night?


I never knew she resembled him so much. It's really quite eerie, don't you think?


And that was Saturday night.

FURTHER READING:

Halloween Party, 2004: Lots of faces you don't see around here as much any more
Halloween Party, 2005: Buster Bluth + Image Shack problems.
Halloween Party, 2006: My addiction to zip-up animal suits begins.

Best Weekend Wrap-Up

It's Sunday night, the weekend is drawing to a close. But a few things happened this weekend and some photos were taken so, hey, I'm going to share them with you.

First and foremost, Big News: My buddy Bryant and his wife Candice (also a buddy) came and visited New York this weekend. We had dinner at Galanga and reminisced about those three years of Law School we shared. It was really great, seeing Bryant, talking about stuff, I wish the Smiths had never left me.


At dinner I gave Bryant a present. The present was I returned his Elder Maxwell book that I borrowed two years ago.


The Smiths came over for a minute to check out my roof, and then they were gone.


By the way, here's their blog.

Friday night Collin and I went to Jeff's house in Brooklyn and watched Disney nature movies from the 50's or 60's all night. Might not have been in high definition, but these little masterpieces could go head to head with Planet Earth any day. There, I said it!

Saturday I quadruple booked my obligations to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. First off, that night was to be the Union Square 3rd Ward's Fall Social. They needed people to make chili for dinner so I decided it would help me to grow and mature if I cooked one of the pots of chili, so I signed up to provide and then emailed my mom for a chili recipe. Mom sent me am extremely self-assured narrative recipe for a chili that she promised me would do the job...so I spent the morning shopping for my ingredients (I went to a proper butcher to get myself some freshly ground pounds of pork and beef and the experience was so satisfying [I just love working with people that know what they're doing] that I think I'm going to start buying a lot more meat and all of it from a real butcher, nothing wrapped in plastic anymore) and cooking it up. I've never cooked anything for 4 hours before. This is what the chili looked like during the first hour.



But in the afternoon I had to take a break from the chili warming because I had signed up to be a fake-investigator for the Stake's Youth Mini-MTC Day in Harlem. It was a fun experience, seeing all those youngsters dressed up with their missionary tags and such, prodding each other to do all the talking, assembling as best they could their doctrinal knowledge, and, when at a loss for knowledge, making up some pretty good stuff (for example, did you know that now that we have the Golden Plates, we're trying to find the Bronze and Silver plates as well?)

While wandering about the Harlem building I discovered where the stake has been keeping the Joseph Smith statue that used to be downtown by the river. It's just in a corner of the parking garage, minding its own business.


While the young missionaries did a pretty good job, this other Church on Lenox Ave seemed to have a pretty solid foundation itself.


Back at the house and a few more hours of simmering later, the chili was ready for its first tasting. Collin accepted this task with a great sense of duty and responsibility. Observe...



And then it was off to the ward party. Shortly after I got there this pot of chili set off the fire alarm. But we never figured out exactly why. We could see through the pot's glass lid that it was full of smoke, but when Sarah and Mike and I took it to the patio to investigate, everything looked fine in the pot. Sure, it smelled a bit like a campfire, but nothing was burnt or anything. Mysterious.


The party started at 7 and if you got there later than 7:30 you probably did not have any chili because it all got gobbled right up.


I almost forgot to try my own chili. I must admit, Mom's recipe was a good one. I'm not necessarily a cook, but I'm good at doing exactly what a recipe tells me to do.


Dave's Guitar Hero was at the party and we made it look so fun that Bishop Cropper and his wife (Julie) tried it out. This was thrilling to us ward members, you know, to have our authority figure playing trying out our favorite game, but it's not like our bishop is some cranky old man.


Also noteworthy: Jules played her first Guitar Hero songs that night, too. And she took right to it.


But the major activity for the Fall party was the pumpkin carving.


Ace went to work and started carving up pumpkins like it was his job. He completed two rather creative pumpkins. The first was fanciful...


The second, a little gruesome. Just a little. (but points for imagination, no doubt about that)


Others:




Kim's work. She's got her own little pumpkin tool kit, she doesn't kid around with this stuff.



And that was the weekend. Or at least some of it.