1200 Miles West

We bought enough candy for at least 100 kids and ended up with only 19! Thankfully we handed out handfuls to each of the trick-or-treaters and the rest will go to work with us in the morning.

I don’t have the ability to calculate calories like Sara does (her skills blow my mind!), but I’m sure I had more than my fair share today. I guess that means I’ll have to put in some extra time on the elliptical tomorrow morning.

Here’s a snap shot of Mike and I after lunch. A special thank you goes out to Tom for letting us borrow his costume. Can you believe that he picked it up on Ebay for something like $40 bucks.

Ideas for next year include:

• Tarzan and Jane
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Sonny and Cher

If you have any ideas. let us know.

By the end of the day, we were both ready to take off our costumes as Mike turned his mask around and I was wearing my wig backwards.

I not sure why people were so intrigued by my wig, but I was somewhat disappointed by it as the wig in the picture looked much better than mine!

When I say extravaganza, I’m not kidding! I had heard stories from last year (Becki and Ronnie as the Umpa Lumpas - face paint and all), but I didn’t expect a majority of the staff to dress up in full costumes.

Here’s some snap shots from the morning festivities…

From left to right:Sara Pacheco as Betty Rubble
Mike Minton as a Beached Gorilla
Dale Gloude as Elwood Blues
Michael Bucks as Luigi
Tom Whittaker as Jake Blues

For those of you who know Ronnie, he made a great Vanity Smurf, while Becki’s eyebrows allowed her to play a darn good Grumpy Smurf. I’m not sure what it is about painting their faces that intrigues them, but they were SMURFARIFFIC!

No he’s not dead, but would you guess that this photo was taken during our 9:30 meeting? At this point the donuts had yet to be delivered, although there was no shortage of candy and sweets lingering around the office.

Tom was wired with speakers that played Blues Brother related songs throughout the morning.

Here’s a snap shot of him gettin’ jiggy with my Wilma wig on. Tom what is it with you swapping costumes with fellow party goers? Wait! Don’t answer that as I don’t want to subject myself to any further speculation as to whether or not my costume fit Mike.

Sara and I elected to dress as Betty and Wilma. We thought it appropriate as we share an office that we would go as a “pair”.

Since the wig looked better on Tom (see picture above) I only wore it for a few minutes during the day.

Sara and I didn’t win the costume contest, but I think we looked pretty darn cute. Don’t you agree?

Here’s a group photo of the Client Services Team. Here’s the cast:

Becki Dilworth as Grumpy Smurf
Ronnie Guidry as Vanity Smurf
Brandon Hess as the Lucky Charms Leprechaun
Me as Wilma Flintstone
Laura Ling as Ms. Pac-Man
Wayne Rodgers as a Jim Halligan
Thomas Noon as Jerome the Yoga instructor

Indigio brought in Qdoba for lunch and for those of you who know how much I like cheese, I was in heaven. My desert was a caramel covered apple with a gummy worm on it.

I finished out my day by jamming to old TV tunes with Sara. She not only got a free concert, but I even threw in a few dance moves.

I have yet to see what Ronnie and Becki’s costumes look like, but in honor of their dedication to paint themselves blue and dress like a small shirtless cartoon character, I thought everyone might enjoy this video:

I loved Greatest American Hero growing up. I can’t really remember much about it except that the main character’s name was Ralph and he wore a red suit and never could really fly.

Maybe it was the theme song that I liked and not the show. My officemate Sara was subjected to an awful rendition of the song with special emphasis on the part that includes the lyrics “free-ee-EE”.

While I’m not looking to do any encores anytime soon, here’s the lyrics in case you want to give the song a whirl:

Look at what’s happened to me,
I can’t believe it myself.
Suddenly I’m up on top of the world,
It should’ve been somebody else.

Believe it or not, I’m walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it’s just me.

It’s like a light of a new day,
It came from out of the blue.
Breaking me out of the spell I was in,
Making all of my wishes come true.

Believe it or not, I’m walking on air.
I never thought I could feel so free.
Flying away on a wing and a prayer.
Who could it be? Believe it or not it’s just me.

If this song gets stuck in your head…don’t blame me!

Today while digging through a bag of candy at work, I started thinking about the treats that I received while going from door to door in Livonia. Here’s a list of my favorites:

• Fun Dips - who didn’t like sugar sticks dipped in more sugar?
• Candy Cigarettes
• Teaberry and Black Jack gum - I can still taste the licorice…can you?
• Sugar Daddy’s
• Candy Buttons - half the time you ended up eating the paper, but it didn’t matter!
• Charleston Chew
• Wax Bottles and Wax Lips - who cared about the liquid…it was more fun to chew the wax!
• Chuckles
• Boston Baked Beans - this one was a trick to make kids think they liked beans!
• Bit-O-Honey
• Necco Candy Wafers
• Fruit Stripe gum - the flavor lasted for what, 4.5 seconds?
• Pop Rocks - yes…I drank a Coke with them in my mouth, didn’t everyone?
• Razzles

Do you have a candy from the past that you’d like to share?

After hearing everyone at work talk about facebook, I gave in and had to check it out.

I now have an account with a “movie star” like picture, so if you’re on there and I haven’t found you yet…add me as a friend. I can’t believe it’s only been 2 hours and I’m already addicted.

Mike already had an account and until I found him, his said that he was “dating” me. I wonder what other information he has posted out there for others to read. He tells me that he’s using the accounts to do research for work…what do you think?

Mike and I were invited to a Halloween party at our friends Tom and Dale’s house last weekend.

We didn’t know what to expect as we hadn’t been to a Halloween party in years, but based on the pictures that we saw from the last party and invitation we received (it was printed on an eight-track tape) we knew we were in for a good time.

Here’s some pictures from the party courtesy of Sara as I didn’t take any pics during the festivities. At work they have nick-named us the Quinton’s. What’s funny is that some of our co-workers still haven’t figured out that we’re married. I guess the fact that we have different last names doesn’t help…

You can tell which one is Mike and YES I did wear that costume…thank goodness I work out at least three times a week.

The party was well stocked with great food and drinks. They even had two servers on hand to mix drinks and make sure that the snacks were available.

It’s been a while. I apologize! Here’s what we’ve been up to lately…

Mom and Dad arrived in Denver on Wednesday, Oct 10th. After picking up their Budget rental car, they drove downtown to meet us at work. We parked the car and jumped on the 16th Street Mall bus and headed down to Wynkoop Brewing Company. Upon arriving, we quickly found out that they were closed due to a Great American Beer Fest event. (BTW - next year Mike and I might volunteer to work the event…one for you, one for me!). So we got back on the bus and headed to Rock Bottom Brewery. All in all it was a good dinner.

The next day I stayed home as we were expecting our new love seat and chair to arrive. Mom and Dad ventured out during the day and the three of us had dinner later in the day as Mike was at an emerging technology conference where the guy who runs the North American division of Google spoke.

We’ve made it to Friday and our plan was to head up to Winter Park, so Mom and Dad meet us at the office and we took them for a quick tour. They got to meet the usual suspect including, Sara, Dale, Tom, Becki and even Tim. Indigio was kind enough to get them a gift bag FILLED with chocolates from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Needless to say, we enjoyed the contents with them!

While in Winter Park for the weekend we enjoyed the outdoors driving up to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday morning. We had originally planned on driving through the park from Grand Lake continuing all the way through to Estes Park on Sunday, but the forecast predicted 6 to 10 inches of snow. Here are some snapshots from our drive:

Before entering the park, we made a quick pit-stop to take a picture as we were entering Grand Lake,

Shortly after entering the park, we saw a heard of Elk running across a field. After turning around, I jumped out of the car to ensure that we got some good pictures of the herd. We didn’t see much more than a bird the rest of the trip!

We stopped a number of times to take pictures of the beautiful scenery. I also make sure to include snap some that included people as Dave Hamill mentioned that it was more interesting to look at pictures that had people in them.

After making it to the “TOP” we headed down for lunch. We did a little shopping, but Mike was the only one who bought anything…a t-shirt.

When we woke up on Sunday morning there was at least six inches of snow on the ground. Knowing we were going to head back home we headed out to breakfast and upon returning to the condo we quickly figured out that there was no power. The good news is that we were all packed up and ready to go!

With a week left in Colorado, Mom and Dad decided to help us shop for home decor while we were at work. Each day when we came home, there was something new for us to see. The funny thing is that we liked and have kept everything they bought.

We also are extremely appreciative of the picture they bought us as a house warming gift. It was something that we saw at Bed Bath and Beyond and I’ll try to get a picture up on the blog so that everyone can see it. It matches our new rug and accents the love seat and chair perfectly.

Mid-week, they decided to head off on a drive to Glenwood Springs, Aspen (where they spent the night at the Hotel Jerome) and then the following day headed back through Vail and another snow storm, before returning to our house.

On Friday, we headed up to Fort Collins to check out the New Belgium Brewery. After an hour and half drive, Mike was ready to leave the brewery without even getting a beer as it was packed. I thought it was crowded because it was Friday, but after finally getting a table and ordering, we figured out that all the college kids were there because the tastings were FREE. While enjoying our beer we sent out three free postcards - one to Michael, one to Grandma and one to Jayden. Sorry to those of you who didn’t get one, but we couldn’t remember anyone’s address.

The next day, Mike and I got ready to attend a 70’s themed Halloween party at Dale and Tom’s house. Watch for a separate entry with pictures and details…

Sunday morning we got up at the crack of dawn to head down to Pike’s Peak. This was our last scheduled adventure for the trip and unfortunately we got snowed out. The good news is that we got to try breakfast at a new restaurant and then relax before Jessica and Chris Gilliam (Bill and Peg’s daughter and son-in-law) came over for dinner.

Mom and Dad packed up and headed out the next day on their journey back to Michigan. It’s hard to believe that they were here for 12 days. It seemed to go by too quickly, however we were fortunate that we got to spend some quality time with them. We can’t wait for their next visit!

In our family room we have a built in section that was designed for a TV and other decorative items. Since our big LCD TV was too large to fit into the space, we are using it upstairs in the bonus room.

So after much research and a handful of trips to Best Buy, we came home with a new 50″ Plasma TV last night.

What’s humorous about the whole experience is that by the time we got it home, unloaded it…Mike figured out that the cable wasn’t working on ANY of the TVs in the house. He attempted to fix it, but had to go to both Home Depot and Lowes to get a replacement part.

We’ve only watched a show or two on it so far, but it’s definitely worth investment we made.

Next on our list is to build a custom TV stand for it with matching bookcases. Don’t expect any pictures next week, but then again Mike does have a majority of the garage cleaned out so who knows!