This is Halloween

Last night we had a Halloween party. Meredith and Zach, Lori and Christian, Mandy and Ryan, and Bethany came--basically, every non-family friend we have in the entire state of Texas. I wasn't sure how the blending of my college and high school friends would work out, but it was practically seamless, especially since Mandy and Ryan and Bethany spent half the night discussing sports, and Christian was so interested in my giant journals that Mandy and I got to tell some college stories to balance out the high school ones. 


We'd talked about watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (one of my all-time favorite movies), but we were having so much fun playing Pop 5 and 90's Trivial Pursuit that we never got to it. We considered putting it on in the background while we played so we could have the music--because although Mike and I used to own the soundtrack, we have discovered that the CD is no longer in its case and we don't know where it is :( --but then learned that Meredith has never seen the movie. A person's first time watching an amazing movie should not be with it just on in the background, so we decided to reschedule the movie for another night.


The food is kind of a sore spot for me. I made four things: potato and egg casserole, potato soup, cornbread, and lemon cheese bars. The lemon cheese bars I'd never made before, and the cornbread only once; both turned out great. The potato/egg casserole and potato soup I've made at least one billion times each, and both were blah. They were still alright for the people who'd never had the dish before, but I could tell, and I was bummed. This is what I mean when I say that I am a pretty inept cook; my success with making any particular dish seems to be based more on luck than skill. 


In any case, we had a lot of fun, and it was nice for once to be the ones not driving home afterward! I was a fan. Someone mentioned the Muppet Christmas Carol as everyone was leaving, which is when I started planning our next party. (Lori's never even seen it!) I am really excited.


Right now we are over at my parents' house doing--what else--laundry, and Mike is in the backyard playing with Sammy the Lonely Puppy, whose mommy is in Idaho visiting her other baby. In a little bit we will go home, and then my brothers and sister will come over to make dinner, watch She's the Man, and eat all our Halloween candy. It will be good times. And I will not be doing the cooking. :)