Halloween Party

On Saturday night, we hosted a small Halloween party. Every year, I get frustrated around Halloween because there isn't anything going on for young, married couples. I love Halloween and hate not celebrating it. Growing up, Halloween was always a big deal. My family loves to dress up. Now that we have a bigger place, I decided that instead of waiting for other people to throw a party, we'd do it ourselves! 

The menu consisted of a candy corn veggie tray with dip, edible pretzel eyeballs, frankenstein pudding cups, spooky drinks and jack-o-lantern pizzas from Papa Murphy's. 

The future-Larsens came by dressed as Aphrodite and the Joker from Batman. They had to leave early because they had another Halloween party. We were bandits and Rue was security. I saw that security costume on sale at Petsmart and planned the rest of it from things we had at home or that I could easily make. They didn't have her costume in her size so I ripped it open and added some elastic bands to it. Our doggie is no longer a medium! She's getting so big. It was a lot of fun to put together. Homemade costumes are the best.  

The Monsons came as a podiatrist and his patient. Trent was accepted to podiatry school in Miami so they will be moving in April! We are so excited for them. Matt and Nina were a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I loved their costume. They are so funny! 

After we ate, we took pictures at the small "photo booth" that I created out of an old bed sheet. I saw the jack-o-lantern props on Pinterest and Etsy. They were so much fun to make and even more fun to pose with! Hopefully, they will be put to use in future Halloween parties, too :)

We missed some of our friends due to their work schedules, but we had a lot of fun. It was so much fun to have our friends over in costume to celebrate Halloween with us! 

Pumpkin Date

On Friday, Matt & Nina came over to carve pumpkins. Blaine and I already carved one earlier on, so we decided to do something different and used a drill on our pumpkin. Matt & Nina did a cool design with their future daughter's name - Luna, which means "moon" in Spanish. 

The boys cleaning out our pumpkins.

While the boys were doing the dirty work, Nina and I worked on a zombie shirt for her. She works for a pretty fun company and they did a flashmob dance of Thriller at the Riverwoods on Saturday. The shirt came out pretty gross and creepy! 

After we finished carving our pumpkins, we headed down to The Riverwoods for their 1st annual Pumpkin Parade. They had a bunch of pumpkins on display, bouncy houses, free pumpkin cream cheese cupcakes, and free hayrides (even though there wasn't any hay). We went on the hayride and just walked around. It was a little cold, but not too bad. It was the perfect fall weather. 

Here are some pictures of our favorite pumpkins: 

It was a fun night. I've really been enjoying The Riverwoods lately. They have had a bunch of cool activities and events this year. We love it!

The Pie & Thriller

On Friday night, Blaine and I headed to Salt Lake City for dinner and a show. We met up with Michele and ate dinner at The Pie. It's a little underground restaurant right by the U (I know, I kinda felt like a traitor). But man, it was so good! I don't know why we hadn't heard of this place before! We had their plain cheese pizza and it was heavenly. It's a really cool place and their service was amazing. We were in and out in no time. We definitely want to go back again - soon!

After the show, we walked over to Kingsbury Hall to watch the Halloween dance show, Thriller. I had seen it twice before, but I really wanted to see it one more time just in case if we're not around next October. Blaine was sweet it enough to get us tickets :) It is such a unique Halloween activity. They finally added 3 new dances to the show. They had a stepping routine by "werewolves" that I really enjoyed. They added a rope dancing act and one of The Grudge that was seriously creepy. My favorites were still the Dem Bones tap dance (the dancers were dressed as skeletons and played tricks on your mind using black light) and Salem's Mass (a contemporary dance recounting the story of Salem's Witch Trials). Even though I had fun, I felt like the show dragged on a little bit longer than usual. They had a lot of filler videos and acts that were a little boring. I thought it was unnecessary since their dances are so good. But anyway, I'm glad we went. It is such a good show and it definitely got me a little bit more excited for Halloween! 

DIY Bib Display

When we started running, Damaris said that if we ever really started running 5ks and other races that she wanted a bib display. It's such a cute way to display, organize, and preserve your bibs. She saw some on Etsy, but those can get ridiculously pricey. And come on, most things on Etsy can be made at home (keyword - most). So we decided that I'd make some for us.

It started off a little rough. I decided to paint the letters instead of using vinyl. At first, I created a stencil and tried spraypainting it. Fail. I was so frustrated. I had to recoat the plaque with gray. Not fun. I became slightly discouraged and was thinking about just getting one from Etsy. 

But after I recoated it, I decided to hand paint it instead. It came out MUCH better this time around. I also had to paint the bottom hooks to hold the (future) medals because they were a gold-ish color and didn't look right. 

After I finished the first display, the second one was a breeze. I kept it pretty simple and clean-cut, but I definitely like the look of it. I was thinking of doing a girly one, but I have hope that Blaine will someday run with me. So just in case if he does, I'll want to display his bibs on here too. Bruce has already started running with Damaris. Go Bruce! 

So this was a little project that I did while Blaine was working on a Saturday. He started his jam job again, but this time, he's just doing demos. This will be a lot less demanding than what he was doing before. The only downside is that I miss him a lot on Saturdays! Having projects like this help the hours go by till he gets home. 

Last Weekend

Last weekend was a good one...so I better write about it. First things first:  Blaine's sister, Demery, called us Saturday night to let us know that she is engaged! We are SO happy for her and Kevin! This is the last of the Dawson kids to get married. Kevin and Dem are so perfect for each other. We like Kevin a lot and are excited to have him as an official part of the family! They are looking into a fall October wedding. Can't wait! 

He did an amazing job picking out the ring!

We had Matt and Nina over for a yummy roast dinner on Sunday after church. We love having them so close. We hang out with them so much and barely have pictures of us together...so I'm trying to capture some. Half the time we're all looking tired and look like we're wearing pjs. But that's what good friends are all about - being there for each other and not caring about how we look!

Michele was also in town last weekend. She stayed at our place but was in and out visiting other friends in Provo as well. Saturday night, we stayed up till like 2:30 AM (the latest that Blaine and I have stayed awake in forever) watching YouTube videos and just talking. It was a lot of fun to have Michele around. Sunday, she did my nails, eyebrows and she even did my make up for church. Having Michele as a friend is like having a free, personal beauty salon. She started ironing my hair back in high school and has never stopped since then. Other than the couple of months when she was at BYU and I wasn't, having her in SLC is the farthest we've ever lived from each other. I'm glad she spent some time with us! 

While we were talking and hanging out Saturday night, I made these little guys. They're basically free decorations. All you need is a Sharpie, milk jugs, and Christmas lights. They're so much fun to make. Some little neighborhood kids knocked on our door asking for permission to touch them and asked how I made them. They were so cute, and now we have new neighborhood friends. One of the little kids' names was Dawson. How random is that! 

After Michele left and dinner with the Stevensons was done, Matt and Amber (who are getting married in December), invited us over to carve pumpkins and watch a movie. We decided on a simple Jack Skeleton face. I love Jack Skeleton and have always wanted to do this. I was so proud. Growing up, I never really carved pumpkins because I thought it was nasty. This is like my 2nd year carving pumpkins (no lie). So this is a big deal for me. But Amber's pumpkin was amazing and she wasn't even done by the time we left. She was etching a face into the pumpkin. Super. Cool. She's so talented. I need to get a picture of her finished product. It was that good and she was only halfway done.

Even though I miss my Floridian friends a lot, I'm so grateful for the lifelong friends that we do have in Provo!

BYU vs Oregon State

Thanks to Jocelyn, my awesome friend from work, we were able to go to BYU's homecoming game! She was taking her engagement pictures that Saturday and wasn't going to use her tickets. The seats were pretty sweet, too! We were way close to the end zone, but not directly behind it. It was a "blackout" so the entire stadium, players, cheerleaders, and even Cosmo, were dressed in black. It was a lot of fun.

Walking to the game.

Awesome view! 

The game was a good one to watch. The score was tied for most of it. We left right before the Beavers killed us in the remaining of the 4th quarter because it started to drizzle. Even though we lost, we had a great time cheering the Cougars on (and screaming at Riley Nelson for his ridiculously bad throws). I'm really happy that we got to go to one more football game in the stadium before we graduated! Thanks Jocelyn! (and Alec, too, for proposing to her :]).

Cougar Run

This week was our last Homecoming Week at BYU. Usually, I don't do much to participate in the festivities other than watch the game and stare at the beautiful Y when its lit. While I was searching for homecoming activities, I found that there's a 5k every year called the Cougar Run. I was thrilled.

The 5k was on Saturday morning. I got there early and watched the little kids run their races. It was so cute and so much fun. Mechaella met up with me and we anticipated the start. We heard that they were running late and decided to quickly meet Blaine in the parking lot and give him our phones and sweaters (it was pretty chilly but then it got warmer). Blaine surprised me with a nice, long-sleeve, Nike dri-fit shirt that would keep me warm. I was so happy! But it didn't fit (he always thinks I'm a teeny tiny size!). So we took longer than expected and ended up being 2 minutes late for the start of the race. We heard the gun indicating that the race had begun and booked it as fast as we could. It was SO frustrating. The race began with an incline up University Parkway towards 900 East. So we were sprinting, trying to catch up with the group of runners, before we even reached the starting point. What a waste of energy!

Even though that was frustrating, this was by far my favorite 5k. It was so much fun. The course was the route of the homecoming parade that would occur shortly after the race. There were tons of people lined up and sitting on their chairs, waiting for the parade. Everybody was cheering us on. It was so cool. My favorite part was high-fiving all the little kids on the side. They were so cute and would say things like "You can do it! You're so good! Keep going!". I had a smile on my face most of the race. I wish I had a camera strapped on to me to catch it all on video.

Another reason why this 5k was so fun was because it took me by some of the places that I will remember the most as part of my BYU experience. Going up University Parkway, we passed by the Marriott Center and I was reminded of all the wonderful firesides and devotionals I've attended there. That was the place where Blaine decided that he wanted to marry me. On that one occasion, we were lucky enough to be in the front row listening to President Utchdorf speak on marriage. It was a very special day for us - one that we will never forget. When we turned on 900 East, I caught a glimpse of the temple. I also passed by the Creamery and the unknown-to-BYU-students-other-than-ComD-majors-Taylor building, where I've had so many of my classes at. On 820 North, I passed by J-Dawgs - the first restaurant I ever went to in Provo. On 800 North, I passed by so many houses and apartments that I've done inspections at for my job. I also passed by Southridge (where we lived before we got married) and the duck pond. We then took a right onto 150 East. We passed by BYU's iconic Brick Oven Pizza and by our first apartment that we lived in when we got married. The last stretch was through Helaman Halls. Even though I didn't live on campus as a freshman, all the stories from Blaine's freshmen year came to my mind. This is the place where he made lasting friendships that influenced him to make the decision to go on a mission (and eventually meet me!). It was a miracle that I wasn't crying while thinking of all these things. BYU has been such a special place for both of us and it made me feel so grateful for our time here! The last part of the race was one lap around the Robison Track Field. I was so glad to be done! We ran it in 35:40. Again, not what I wanted but we started late and I really enjoyed the run anyway!

I look exhausted, but I felt great!

After we finished, we had some blue pancakes that were surprisingly delicious. It was such a fun and organized event. I wish I would've started running earlier to participate in this every year!

True blue pancakes!

I have to start setting some goals to pace myself better and decrease my time. But overall, I was satisfied. I walked a lot less than I usually do and didn't feel like dying at the end of the race (that's always a good thing). It was a little bit harder to run in the chilly weather. My lungs definitely weren't used to it. But now that I have my awesome dri-fit shirt that will keep me warm, I'm going to start running outside more. At first, I liked the treadmill better than running outside. But now, I get so distracted by the little numbers on the screen telling me how much I've ran and how long I've ran, that it really keeps me from focusing and doing my best. I'm hoping to run one more 5k before the weather gets ridiculously cold, but I'll still be running and training (for 10ks and half-marathons) all winter long!