spooky

Halloween is here and with it comes one of Melissa’s absolute favorite holiday traditions. This is probably the most important tradition that could ever be had, up to and including the tradition of blowing stuff up on the Fourth of July. Every year around Halloween, we make Monster Tacos. These are tacos made out of actual monsters captured from under our bed. If we’re really lucky, we might get a closet monster, which is much tenderer and doesn’t taste so much like old gym clothes.

Making Monster Tacos is an art and not an undertaking to be attempted by the faint of heart. One must be at least able to hold a spoon before even thinking of making a Monster Taco. After catching the monster and appropriately grinding the monster meat into a hamburger-like substance (coincidentally, hamburger can be used if monsters are not available), you do a bunch of other stuff the same as you would a taco but different. This isn’t a recipe blog. I’m not going to give recipes.

Another great part about Halloween is the chance for Melissa to make Halloween costumes. Lily went as Little Red Riding Hood. She looked great. Lily wasn’t bad either.




This part was definitely not my idea. Please pray for Bruce's terribly scarred soul.

great panic

“JUSTIN, COME HERE RIGHT NOW! COME HERE RIGHT NOW! I NEED YOU HERE NOW!”

These are the sounds of a desperate woman in serious trouble; a woman whose home is being invaded by mutant, blood-sucking aliens, or who just cut her hand off in a blender and is picking her fingers off the floor one at a time, or who has been out of toilet paper for 46 minutes while I was trying to figure out what the horrible screeching sound interrupting my Mario Kart Wii game was. As it just so happens, they are also the sounds of a woman who sees a gopher.

We got a new pet. His name is Gill and he’s a gopher. He’s not a pet that we want and is apparently waterproof (after shoving a hose down his hole for approximately infinity minutes, he’s still alive). Gill has actually been around for awhile. The plants in our front garden started mysteriously disappearing over a month ago. Really, the whole thing was sort of creepy. It was as though we were living in some sort of time warp: one day a pretty little flower would be blooming in the sunshine, the next it would be gone without a trace. Like cookies or celery when Ian and Christen are around.

We thought it was the neighbor’s dog. Melissa even wanted me to set up the camera to time-lapse videotape so we could catch it in the act. Good thing I put that off for as long as I did. Finding out it was really a gopher saved me a lot of work. Actually, it just saved me the work of setting up the camera. I still have to get rid of the gopher. Maybe this means I’ll post again before December just to keep you posted on Gill’s status. Maybe.

boring

I will readily admit that this is probably the most boring blog ever. With almost monthly updates, there is no way it could not be boring. Now for those of you wishing for an update on my life, here it is:

The most exciting thing to happen recently was the finding of this article in my company health newsletter (the important parts are highlighted):


I think this is probably the best advice I’ve read in a very long time.

Other than that, Ma and Pa Pierce came down for a visit last month. It was great. One of our SD cards won’t let us pull the pictures off it so we can’t see any of them. Most of them are airplanes flying around in a big circle really fast and really low. It was awesome.

We also went camping which was a lot of fun. Our tents look like a Coleman advertisement. Unfortunately, there were no vicious animals stalking us unrelentingly this time which was pretty disappointing.

Anyway. Now you’re pretty much caught up. Melissa has agreed to give me ‘undisturbed visiting’ time, I haven’t had to see a doctor yet, and Ma and Pa had a great time on their visit.