Bottom of the Well

As far as costume drama goes, especially around here, I suppose this year wasn't bad.  All that happened was that I couldn't think of anything.  At all.  For, like, three months.  It appears that three years of awesome costumes are all it takes to completely bleed my creativity dry.

Well, either that or my truly genius but completely unfeasible idea of having Katie go in for me and tell the kids she was me dressed up as her was all the creativity I was good for this year.

Anyway.  Trips to DI, trips to Halloween City, trips to every store in town that has a Halloween section (even if they do put that section on clearance in freaking August) and the brilliance, cleverness, silliness, and originality continued to elude me.  However, I had my eye on the only school/Mormon kosher hippie costume they had at Halloween city as a sort of backup and finally caved and went to get it . . . only to discover I'd striven for genius a touch too long and it was completely gone.  So I had to fall back on my backup for my backup (which, I suppose just by having, I must have known subconsciously that I would end up going with).  Which was not terrible.  Just not as original as I would have liked.  (seriously - one of the 5th graders had the exact same thing)

So.  Without further ado, behold Lacey's Halloween 2013 Costume

Can I just say I've kind of hated every picture taken of me for the last little while?  But I'm posting it anyway.  Keepin' it real around here.

One with the flash to catch all the sparkle (and fully capture my talent in wearing three different shades of BLACK!).

One without the flash . . . and also without such an emphasis on my butt . . . can you tell who took these?

And one more because I like it better than the first one, except for the part where it doesn't quite show the whole picture.


So, costume pros:

~ Easy to put together
       ~ Especially since I (originally) planned to just pull out the same all black ensemble I used as a cat a couple of years ago.

~ Impossible to get mistaken for something else (until all the kids started calling me a fairy when I was thinking of myself as a butterfly).

~ A wonderful excuse to randomly go get some glitter hairspray and body glitter yesterday. (I promise you could see it in person.)

~ Minimal effort required.

~ Cheap(ish).

Costume cons:

~ While pulling out my previous black costume base would have been perfect if my schedule were what is was last year, I was lucky enough to get that extra hour . . . which involves being outside in the cold approximately twenty years before the sun comes up (at least this week).  And since the wings wouldn't really work over a jacket . . . well, hooray for cheap, long sleeved, black shirts at thrift stores (which need to be washed before they are promptly returned to the thrift store because it has been quite copiously covered in glitter).

~ I suppose this could go in the pro column but I don't want to put it there: posture enhancement.  As in, it's impossible to slump or hunch even the slightest bit in this costume because the elastic bands holding the wings on would cut off circulation to your arms.  Seriously, would it have killed them to put one more inch in those things?

~ Maneuverability.  Going through doors was not quite the problem I expected.  I had to sidle through some, but for the most part the wings have enough flap in them that I could just walk through.  The narrow "hallways" created in the spook alley however . . . well, let's just say the wings only made it through the spook alley maybe four times.  I put them back on for lunch and then the parade though.  Which leads me too . . .

~ SERIOUSLY, would it have killed them to give those arm bands or whatever one more freaking inch of elastic?!  Pretty sure I managed to pull every muscle in my shoulders and upper back in taking those things on and off all day.



I was kind of a hit again though.  Especially the glitter on my face/hair.  (I'm thinking about pulling it back out for Valentine's Day . . . lol)

A few highlights:

5th graders chickening out at the bottom of the stairs when the lights are ON . . . only to be followed by 1st graders going through with the lights off and loving it.

Conversation between me and a nervous third grader -
Me: Would I let anything get you?
Him: No!
Me: Would Ms. Sorenson let anything get you?
Him: Umm, no.
Me: Would Mrs. Bodily let anything get you?
Him: (thinks for a moment) I don't know.
*third grader proceeds to go through a lights-on spook alley with his arms wrapped around my waist the whole time and whimpering*
At the end -
Me: Now was that so bad?
Him: No!  I wasn't even scared at all!
Other third grader at the same time: YES!!  That was the scariest thing I've ever done in my LIFE!

Yeah . . . the lights were on and all the spooks had their masks raised and were smiling and waving at them.  Terrifying, let me tell you.


Cleopatra was a hugely popular costume this year.  As in at least seven kids chose it, and one teacher.  And all but maybe two of them were this one.  Including the teacher in the adult version (and another teacher wore it last year.  Crazy, huh?)  And three Medusas, two kids and a teacher.  Apparently I missed the memo where all the girls were going with intellectual/historical costumes this year.

Second graders screaming in terror at the Garbage Monster . . . and then telling him that they're his biggest fans.

Good times.



In other news, I don't like to brag . . . but unless your Primary Program also involved flying monkeys I'm pretty sure ours (this past Sunday) was better.

Toward the end they were singing "A Child's Prayer" which, for those who don't know, has two verses that can be sung together to form a lovely counterpoint.  For the counterpoint I was leading one of the groups of kids and around that time one of the Sunbeams decided she was done.  So she left, ran down to her mom, grabbed her stuffed monkey, and came to sit with me as she often does because we're old pals from nursery.  However, we were still singing so she couldn't climb into my lap immediately.  So instead, right on the last line of the song, she tosses the monkey as high as she can in the air.  It was funny enough to those of us close enough to see the whole thing, but I'm told that everyone who only saw a monkey randomly flying high were rather amused too. 

Then there were the five years olds sitting behind the bishopric and singing so loud the bishopric had to lean forward in their seats.

And the part where people were saying it was the best Primary Program they'd ever been too . . . and can I just say I really wish there a job somewhere on the planet where I could use that as an achievement because while writing it was a group effort that's seriously the closest I've gotten to using my degree.

On that note, I've been in Primary for a year now - and I'm starting to feel like I know what I'm doing.  A little bit.  Ish.  Yay.

So all in all it's been a pretty good week.  And next week I don't have to go to work at midnight anymore, so it should be pretty good to, even if I do have to pull out my coat.  Seriously though, it occurred to me right around the time I was in the middle of the street in front of the school this morning that I was wearing all black, the sun wasn't even beginning to pretend to come up yet, and crossing the street was perhaps not the safest thing to be doing.  Good thing I looked both ways, eh?



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Every clip I could find of Disney's Sleepy Hollow short, no matter how brief, has had embedding disabled . . . how obnoxious is that?!  This shall have to do instead.

Things That Are Good to Know

So Luke's parents came to visit last weekend.  It was a lovely, busy couple of days that left us all pretty exhausted as we tried to hit everything there is to see in two towns in two days.  More time would have been nice, but what can you do?  Anyway, it was a weekend full of lessons, most of them coming from our semi-impromptu stop at Antelope Island on the way to the airport Friday night.  So . . . ummmm . . . presenting Lacey's Things that People Really Should Know:

~ Admission is only ten bucks a car, which is awesome.  The park closes at 5:00, which is a bit awkward when you get there around 3:00.


~ There's actually a lot to do there.  For such a small island, anyway.  A lot more than I'd ever thought - mostly because my family never managed to check it out and somehow in my head that translated to my parents had been there and decided it was lame.  Or something.  Whatever.  Anyway, there are lots of small hikes, some with more incline than others, and a lot of interesting things to see that we did not have time to see.  Which was sad.  Also, the buffalo burger place was closed by the time we got there.  Which was very sad.


~ For being called Antelope Island they really push the part where they have a buffalo herd.  And the only animal we saw less of than antelope was rabbits.  And we actually saw as many rabbits as antelope . . . only because I saw him (the bunny) in time to slow down and not roadkill him.  But I got the impression he's used to almost getting roadkilled because he didn't even move as we drove by.  Anyway.  Animals.  Other than antelope.  Behold.

You can't really tell, but that buck is something like ten points or something.  (I've never quite understood how that whole point thing works.)  *insert "nice rack" joke here*



~ It's really very pretty.  Much more so than I'd imagined.

In dead, barren, desert-y way.



~ Someone has had getting into the water of the Great Salt Lake on their bucket list ever since we moved here and finally got to check it off.

~  Some people can listen to the park's radio station and its ten minute recording on repeat for half an hour and still do this:

(the recording talked about how the lake is up to EIGHT times saltier than the ocean depending on what part of the lake you're in)

(and that third picture is of someone gagging and spitting out that saltwater they just had to try)



~ There is a freaking hilarious footprints in the sand joke here and it's just not coming to me.

~ There used to be two causeways to the island, one on the north end, one on the south.  The one on the south end took you right to the airport.  They both washed away in a flood in 1983.  It took ten years for them to rebuild the north causeway and reopen the park.  The south causeway has not been rebuilt.  Google maps?  Shows the south causeway as a currently existing road.  The road that washed away FIFTEEN years before Google was even founded.  Explain that one.


 ~ It's a really good thing we checked at the visitor's center to make sure we were reading the conflicting maps right before we tried driving the length of the island to leave from the south end right before closing time.  One of the most confusing moments of all time was when we looked at the map they gave us at the entrance with only one way in and out when we'd just been looking at google maps a couple of hours earlier and figuring out how to get from the island to the airport and loving how convenient and straight-shot-y it appeared to be.


~ Also, I was there.  Luke insisted on proof.

Still all dressed for school rather than outdoors-ing.  Like I said, a somewhat impromptu trip.

Other lessons:

~ So there's this place in SLC called The Pie.  And apparently it's been voted, like, the fourth best pizza in the entire country.  Or seventh.  Or something all prestigious-like.  It's kind of not.  Like, it was highly edible.  I would not turn it down if a slice was offered to me.  But as for ordering it and having it flash frozen and shipped anywhere in the lower 48, as one can apparently do?  No thank you, I'll just go to Pizza Hut.  Or get a Digiorno.  Because they're both just as good.


~ Also, for being such an apparently famous and awesome place their parking situation SUCKS.  And by that I mean "does not appear to exist. "  Well, they do have a minuscule parking lot for their take-out location which is on the other side of the block from their dine-in location (because that makes sense).  But let's get real here.  If you're a big enough deal that you ship your pizzas nation-wide, you're a big enough deal to expect that people will find you when internet searching for unique places to eat when they come to town.  And those people will need a place to park to come eat your "world famous" food.  And those people will have no idea that there is a kickball game or whatever going on that day and will park in your only parking lot to go eat.  And will not be pleased to come back and discover that you've booted their car.


~ The good news is that when they saw our pizza boxes with the leftovers (I'll give them this much, those pizzas are filling) they took off the boot with no charge.  The bad news is none of us were particularly impressed with them before that happened.  I wouldn't have recommended the place to begin with, but after the whole parking/booting thing . . . well, I recommend staying away.  Really not worth it, unless you live right by campus or something and can walk there.  Even then I might still get Pizza Hut delivered.


~ Cramming four or five days worth of stuff into two days is exhausting.  But we're both starting to feel recovered.



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Did I already post this one?  Oh well, it's still funny.