2016 Ward Trunk or Treat

After taking our family photos that morning, we came home and got down to the business of carving the pumpkins. Pumpkin carving is in David's wheelhouse. 

I bought a pumpkin decorating kit from Target and made a mummy pumpkin. And unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished pumpkin (Zara wanted it to have heart eyes and she calls it Lovey) but I'll try to get one tomorrow night.

After pumpkin carving, we got dressed in our costumes--Firefly. I love doing family themed costumes and I know I only have a few more years left that the kids will let me dress them up as whatever I want. The kids were so excited to be their characters even though they've never seen Firefly and have no idea who these people are.

We had a lot of fun piecing together our costumes. David found that absolutely perfect brown coat at the thrift store last year when we were shopping for our Star Wars costumes and it inspired us to try for a Firefly theme. He bought the shirt at the thrift store as well and bought a holster, gun, and suspenders online. He already had the pants and boots. 

Benjamin of course had to be Wash. We found the Hawaiian shirt at the thrift store as well and I thought the dinosaur shirt underneath was a nice touch. We also brought a few dinosaurs with us as well.

For Adelaide, we layered a few of her existing dresses and added a petticoat to make her dresses more poofy. (That white pinafore is part of a dress that my mom made for me when I was a kid and which Adelaide likes to wear still.) Her purse has a pair of white gloves but of course we had to add a toolbelt as well to denote her mechanical prowess. 

For Zara, we found the pink dress at the thrift store as well and I think it's a close approximation. We had the sweater and boots already and picked up a sword at the dollar store. For my Inara costume, I found a gold dress at the thrift store and used some beautiful purple fabric I already had as a shawl. I also bought a black wig on Amazon which was a little itchy. I also don't think I look great with black hair but I had to do it.

Zara took this photo of us. I think she managed to do a pretty good job. Most of her photos are blurry.

David even decorated our trunk to look like Inara's shuttle complete with the symbol on Serenity. It's easy to do when we've got so much Asian stuff laying around.

But all-in-all, I thought our costumes turned out pretty great. Not many people recognized who we were, but that's okay. It's good to know who the true browncoats are. If only we could have managed a Jayne and a Zoe too. I have a few ideas of what we can do next year but I don't know if it'll top this year.

Public Service Announcement - You Should Watch Firefly

Hi. This here post is about obsessions. Over the years, I've had many, many obsessions. Some of which were fun and fleeting and some of which were enduring and all-consuming. Some of which had to do with *Nsync which I'd really rather not talk about right now. (Seriously, how embarrassing is that? Sorry everyone who knew me freshmen year at BYU.) Over the years, I have learned how to monitor my obsessive personality and my tendency to, well, obsess over many things and to keep them in check. Well, almost.


I have a few long standing obessions: Chocolate. History. Books. Museums. Pretty shoes. Checking my email 82 million times a day. Pop culture.


Right now, I have two new addictions: the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon and Joss Whedon's Firefly.


Several friends of ours [me and David] had repeatedly told us to watch the short-lived but critically aclaimed television show Firefly. I'd heard about it, of course, but never knew much about it except that it was created by Joss Whedon, he who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which I once loved. (Actually, I still think it was one of the best written shows on TV but that's another discussion for another day.) But I also knew that it got cancelled after only half a season (there are 14 episodes) and I'm tired of falling in love with cancelled and/or soon-to-be-cancelled shows. (Stupid ABC.)


But then I found all 14 episodes for free at Hulu.com, so David and I sat down to watch them last week. By the third episode, we were hooked. We watched as many episodes as we could each day and then on Saturday, after a long and draining morning attending Sister Kim's funeral, we came home to watch the remaining four episodes we had left. We finished the last episode around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night and we both wanted to immediately watch Serenity, the feature film follow-up that basically wrapped up the series. [You could watch Serenity without having seen the show first, but it makes a lot more sense if you do.]


Well, I had planned on renting the movie from the library because it only costs a dollar, but neither David or I could stand to wait until Monday when the library re-opened, so we raced to our room to put on clothes (as we're much in the habit of of wearing our pjs as soon as we get home), and then raced to Wal-Mart to see if we could just buy the movie there. They didn't have it, so we raced over to the nearest Blockbuster to rent it. The movie secured, we came home and popped it in at 10:30 p.m. It was a completely satisfying ending to a very good television show. And I was grateful that the movie had been made so they show could have its final good-bye and not leave the fans with no answers.

The best way I can describe the show is a western set in space. It's far more complex than that, but that gives you the general feel of the show. Like all Joss Whedon creations, the characters are complex, the dialouge is rich and filled with wit, and the banter is snappy. If you like sci-fi, if you like Star Wars, if you've ever liked an episode of Buffy, you should watch this show.

I'll let you know if I find any other obsessions. I have a new one about every other week.

And you're welcome.