The BYU home football game against New Mexico was to be our gang's last together as students. Therefore, everyone dressed up like ninja turtles (thank you Heidi Torgeson's sewing skills!) except for Dave, who dressed up like a gorilla. It's a logical connection--believe me. Congrats on your conference championship, Cougs!
Maloni's b-day. 
Eatin' pizza for Maloni's b-day. Notice the sweet shark hat we bought him.
These folks are the Walkers: Emily and Jeremy. Shortly after this photo was taken Jeremy made a crude comment and his wife slugged him.
CyFry, me, and Corn Derek during the oasis from selling that was the Sabbath day.
Party Island. I don't think Steve could have made a better investment in the morale of the office.
Garduños: real gringo Mexican food.
Dion's: the best pizza in town.
When we took Party Island down the Rio Grande we all turned as dark as Maloni due to the chocolate waters. Note Chris' D.I. short swimsuit.
Lauren and I dyed our hair a dark shade of brown together.
The birthday of Swag, our fearless leader.
One Sunday we had a picnic at a park in the mountains and watched the sun set.
Ready to roll on our first attempt to conquer the mighty Rio Grande.
Our automatic pump didn't work, so Steve's mighty trumpeter lungs blew up the raft.
Preprocessed meat tins can be a dangerous business... Just ask Zander and his 8 stitches. The funniest part to me about this is that the doctor that sewed him up was Irish and rebuked him for his cooking methodology...
This is proud Uncle Buck holding her up Pride Rock-style post-blessing per LDS tradition.
The Salt Lake Golden Eagles were Utah's hockey team when I was growing up. Were they any good, you ask? Let's look at the following superlatives:
Dad would take me to at least a couple games every year so I would be indoctrinated into the magical sport of hockey. In fact, he even got us tickets to the Golden Eagles' last game in '94. It was the most intense sporting event I have ever attended. People were throwing enormous paper airplanes onto the ice they'd fashioned from complimentary posters that had been handed out at the doors the whole night. At the end of the game, which was a close victory for the Eagles, the crowd literally exploded. A torrent of popcorn, soda, and beer flooded onto the ice. For a 10 year-old, this was an impressionable group dynamic. As a said before, that was their last game in Salt Lake City. Larry Miller had sold the franchise to Detroit. To this day, I refuse to buy a car from "Larry Miller the Eagle Killer." He robbed Utah of its amazing hockey franchise and me of part of my childhood. The Grizzlies are an OK team, but I will always remember the glory days of the Eagles and their graceful yet violent ballet on ice that ranks as one of my fondest childhood sports memories.
Meghan and I dressed up as Jim and Pam from the Halloween episode of The Office. Folks either got our costume or they didn't. The most common guesses amongst the ignorant about my costume were a domino, a musical scale, and a polka-dotted man...
Katie and Will made quite the nerdy team. Let's leave the rumors that this photo spawned for another occasion, shall we?
"Who ya gonna call?" Shirley and Rachel, of course.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Heidi and Molly. Props on the costume sewing skills!
Swag was none other than fellow wardie Shirley Escobar through the power of her trademark glasses, apron, oven mitt, and missionary copy of the Book of Mormon.
The pumpkins Meghan and I carved. I was a typical former geography major and fashioned the gourd's features from political boundaries dear to me. The eyes are Michigan and Utah. The nose is Ecuador. The mouth is Virginia. Meghan went with a more traditional "normal" look for her jack o' lantern. I guess it's a personality test of some kind... We toasted the seeds afterwards. Tasty!
Mom showed off her mad domestic skillz by creating this haunted chocolate gingerbread house complete with a brownie graveyard and an internal fog mechanism.
Megs has nice teeth. But this juxtaposition really isn't needed to underscore that fact.
This is why Katie Deibel should be kept away from sharp objects when she's in the presence of rotting gourds...
Baby Emma was a CareBear. Ain't she darling?
This is Wong (more or less). He does not play into the many Wong stereotypes.
He is not a Chinese restauranteur.
He is not a detective.
Nor is he a deified Kung Fu master.
And he's been doing it for a long time...
Great indigenous peasant leader Massasoit honored for work with the people's agriculture.
Katie gets special classroom at university...
Glory be! Look at all of those pumpkin-related foodstuffs! Happy birthday, Renny!
This was my contribution to the party, pumpkin swirl cheesecake. Mad skills being manifest, my friends! Get the recipe here. It must have been good, because it was consumed faster than a steer in pirahna-infested Amazonian waters...
