Thank you for being a friend!

Andrew and I threw a 'fancy dress' party for Halloween this year. (They call costumes 'fancy dress' here, which I like. It makes a costume party seem much cooler.)

We like to represent the USA as much as possible and we thought this was a great opportunity. Halloween is not nearly as big a holiday here in the UK, but it has been gaining popularity in the past few years. So much so that I was unable to get a pumpkin! I had one ordered with our groceries for Wednesday night, but was told by our delivery guy that Tesco is all out. "Good luck finding one - maybe if you go at 10am when the delivery comes in?" Thanks, buddy, I'll try that... Thursday after work I checked our local store. I was following around a woman and her stroller-bound baby, and was prepared to wrestle one away if she found one first. Lucky for her, the only thing left in the huge bin was a sad, small, green blob that neither of us wanted. Three of my coworkers looked at various places for me throughout the day on Friday, but to no avail. Sadly, we had no jack o' lantern at our party.

We did have a penguin, a pussycat, a castaway and Wilson, a lady frankenstein, a Roman soldier, the girl from The Exorcist, Beetlejuice, Austin Powers, and THE GOLDEN GIRLS! I sincerely thank my friends for being friends. Susan, Aisling, Richard and I were Rose Nylund, Sophia Petrillo, Dorothy Zbornak, and Blanche Devereaux, respectively.

Andrew's costume was among the best:

We celebrated late into the night and a good time was had by all! More photos to enjoy on flickr.

Winter is coming (but you wouldn't know it in Florida)

We spent last week in sunny Florida, which is especially amazing since the clocks have now changed here and we have about five solid months of darkness headed our way. Memories of our week in the sun will have to get us through.

I started the trip with a stop in Chicago, visiting my nearest and dearest for one night. Thanks to everyone for a great little birthday dinner! Thanks to my sister for picking me up and providing me with Portillos! Thanks to my nephew for all of the hugs and kisses he packed in! Thanks to Giordano's for making pizza!!!

The next day was Dave and Deb's wedding, the real impetus for our trip. Ceremony right on the beach, excellent food, good music, and a great bunch of people. They are a beautiful couple and we are so glad we could make it in!

The rest of the trip was spent with the Hamiltons/Lapps in a mansion on the beach: not too bad! The house we were meant to have for our week in the sun wasn't available, so we got upgraded to an insanely large substitute - Andrew and I got to stay in our own wing of the house! We spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool, swimming, taking the sea kayaks out, and I won a pretty great game of Uno one night. One day, Jon rode a jetlev for an hour. It was pretty cool:

On Tuesday, Eric, Mom & Dad, and Andrew & I spent the day in Key West. After an exciting drive down in the pouring rain (during which we had a brief brush with the local law enforcement...), we got there and had some amazing Cuban food at a little cafe. We hopped on a trolley and explored town a bit: we saw Hemingway's house, the little White House, the US Naval Air Station, a house that Calvin Klein once owned, a very tall lighthouse, and for some odd reason, a lot of roosters wandering the streets. We were also the farthest south we could be in the U.S. and the closest to Cuba.

Jon rented a boat on Wednesday, and Andrew, Eric, Jon, and I went out for a ride and some snorkeling. We ran into a small snag on the way out to sea when we lost power for a few minutes - our trusty mechanics got us on our way again in no time, though. Snorkeling was fun for a little while, despite the fear of jellyfish and the copious amounts of salt water I ingested. I was feeling a bit rough by the time I got back into the boat, and I ended up feeding the fish some of the pumpkin muffins I had eaten for breakfast not too long before. We headed home soon after...

All in all, it was a really excellent trip home. I got to see both of my families, enjoy some warmth and sunlight, and celebrate with friends on such a wonderful day in their lives.

More pictures on flickr (there are a lot of jetlev photos!).

p.s. Here's the view from the mansion. It was AMAZING!