I found Seamus's costume at this great second-hand kids clothes shop called The Childrens Orchard. It was nice and cheap and in perfect condition. He loves it. For the first few days he wanted to wear it around all the time. For the next week he would take it to wherever he was playing and sit it up and growl at it. Then he finally forgot about it for awhile, so I put it away for Halloween. This past week I got it out, and we went through the whole cycle again.

Needless to say, I was excited to put it on him for the Ward Halloween Party. The party was interesting. They hadn't even started decorating when everyone showed up. There was kool-aid and cookies, a great sugar fix for the kids. And they started at about 7:30, which is some kids bedtime and definitely after Shay's bedtime. I can understand this on a weeknight when you have to get home from work/school and get ready, but it was Saturday! We still went, though. There were no games, just a Halloween quiz. There wasn't even a costume contest. The kids just paraded around in a line for a minute. There was a pumpkin contest, but you had to pre-carve the pumpkin and there was only one winner.

So, kind of a dissapointment. I'm not sure if I'm taking Shay trick-or-treating tonight as he can't even say "Trick or treat". "Boo" is kind of the extent of his Halloween jargon. Maybe we'll go over to DT where they have trick or treating for the kids from door to door. It's at 5:30...a much smarter time when you're dealing with kids. We'll see. My mom's work has a designated trick or treating time today. They turn their whole building into a maze/fun house and the different departments have a contest to see whose area is the coolest. Fun! Maybe we'll go over to that.















My cute, scary dragon.

In the costume parade.

This morning, for some reason, I woke up singing the theme song from Gilligan's Island. I don't know why. The part that was stuck in my head was "no phones, no lights, no motorcars! Not a single luxury!" I thought about that for a second, and decided that Lost and Cast Away have destroyed the fantasy of being stranded on a deserted island. No phones, no lights, no motorcars? How about no food, no fresh water, no toilet, no shelter? The show would have been much better if they resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. I think Mrs. Howell would have been the first to go. She's the weakest. Plus, Ginger would probably kill her for her jewels alone.

They finally got us. Dylan and I haven't had to speak in Sacrament since we were married 3 years ago. It'd been longer than that for me, but Dylan had to give a homecoming talk when he came home from his mission. I couldn't believe we've finally been caught. There were several new families that moved into our ward, so I guess I should have expected it.

It went ok. I hate, loathe, despise, and detest public speaking. Nothing frightens me more, except perhaps making phone calls to strangers asking for things. I'm not cut out to be a telemarketer, if you couldn't tell. I started writing my talk a week ago, and spent many hours on it refining the wording and adding concepts to make it longer. Dylan, on the other hand, has a different approach. He waited until 10:30 on Saturday night to pick a topic and start writing his talk. I don't know how he does that and still writes such a great talk. It's amazing. The bishopric asked us to speak for 10 minutes each, but we ended up with about 30 minutes to fill. For some reason the chorister picked the three shortest songs ever for the opening hymn, the sacrament hymn, and the intermediate hymn. Plus, we were the only 2 speakers! Our last ward would have 4 speakers and an intermediate performance piece. Granted, we almost always ran over by 10 minutes or more. I think we need to find a happy medium here.

The one great thing was having family in town. My mom and brother came to our sacrament meeting to watch Seamus. We didn't have to worry about him running up on the stand and playing the organ, or throwing a fit because he couldn't stand at the pulpit with me. Seamus loves my brother, and will do anything with him. They all had a grand old time, and Shay spent the hour waving at us and taking walks with my brother/mom. Dylan and I were both incredibly nervous, but we both did a good job and it's all over now.

Here's hoping for another 3 years of not speaking!!!