First off we carved pumpkins at Sarah's house. Luke drew a witch flying in the light of the moon over a village on my pumpkin for me to carve, and did a 3-D melty face on his. Andy's was similar, and he outlined a spooky forest one for Amory. Dad used a drill to make his classic pumpkin, and James did one of a bat, neglecting to scrape the insides clean. Finally, Caleb graced his pumpkin with a portrait of our current president, Mr. Obama. We had a delicious dinner of soups and Sarah's incredible french bread, as well as a pie-eating contest. If Luke and I had been able to stay we would have been able to do a donut-on-a-string eating contest as well!
Friday night before Halloween Luke and I attended Joel and Leah Cooke's Halloween party. There was fun food, a fancily decorated cake by Joel, and a costume contest which Luke won. He was Jack the Pumpkin King from The Nightmare Before Christmas and I was his co-star Sally. Both of our costumes were home-made, thanks to the help of Mom Perkins, and it must be admitted that we looked awesome! Ha ha ha!
The next morning we had family pictures with the Wright fam. A weekend or so before we had tried gathering on the porch and taking our own family picture by using the timer. After about 15 or so pictures we decided that it was going to take a professional to get us all smiling and not looking awkward at the same m0ment. So Saturday morning we headed over to Masterpiece Images who shot both mine and Heidi's weddings, and have always done a masterful job. All of us managed to clean up nice, so I expect decent results.
That night we had a murder mystery party hosted by Heidi and Devin at my parent's house, and it turned out to be so much fun! The game itself was a little silly. Only about three characters had anything to do with the murder, the rest were just lookers-on. Despite that, the dinner (chicken cordon bleu) was fantastic and everyone's costumes were too much fun! After the game was over we also ended up playing a few fun games, namely Zoom Zoom ERP, and Vikings and Rowers. The first one is fairly tame, you just have to keep up with which direction the zoom is going. The second, however, gets pretty rowdy. Vikings are yelling and making silly faces while rowers are rowing for dear life and grunting all the while. We called on everyone to come and play, and eventually got them all, except for Dad Perkins who eluded us by slipping out to take a little stroll. Next time, Dad. Ha ha ha!
We were all tired and hoarse afterward, and Heidi couldn't even unwind a balloon from our ceiling fan (which had gotten there thanks to Kaden's efforts) without her arms shaking. Needless to say, we were all exhausted the next day and were exceedingly grateful for Daylight Savings giving us an extra hour.
Luke and I especially, since we had to attend Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake that morning. My British Literature teacher assigned everyone in my class to go to this particular Mass because it was a high holiday--All Saints' Day.
First of all, I don't know that I've ever heard such a beautiful, angelic choir in all my life. They are made up of young kids that are trained at their local Catholic school. The acoustics in the cathedral were incredible, and the organ was huge. It was so cool! The service itself was also an interesting experience. It's certainly different from an LDS Sacrament Meeting, and yet there are many similarities. For instance, we started off by singing a familiar hymn found in the LDS hymnbook. They also read from the scriptures and told a story (called a homily) about a saint they recently canonized for his service to lepers in Hawaii in the 19th century.
After the service they offered tours of the cathedral, and the man who gave it to us turned out to be very knowledgeable about it, especially all the art and stained glass windows. He himself was interesting because he had converted to Catholicism about five years previous from being LDS. When he realized that a few of us in the tour were LDS he explained the different things so as to cast light on some of the misunderstandings we typically have about the Catholic faith. Overall it was a really interesting day, and we fully intend to go back some time, especially if the choir has a christmas concert.
Sorry this post currently has no pictures, but it will as soon as I can get them!
