Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall... 🍎❄️ // Halloween 2020

...who's the fairest of them all?

Happy (day after) Halloween, everyone! Because of the pandemic, we stayed home and had a really low-key evening, but we still wanted to dress up! We went as Snow(y) White, the Evil Queen, and Dopey. I think our costumes cam out super cute, and we had a great time getting into the spirit even though we were just chillin' in our living room, haha.

We did put out some candy bags for the trick-or-treaters on our front steps, and only about a third of the candy we put out was still there at the end of the evening! I also baked these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies which are DELICIOUS and I've basically been surviving off of these cookies and the leftover candy for the last 24 hours 😅 HEALTH! We ended the night playing Mario Party with our friend Mike and enjoying some Pumpkinheads with cinnamon sugar rims. A great, low-key Halloween, in my opinion!

Earlier in the day I went on a lil Halloween run dressed as Mickey Mouse. The eagle statue was also dressed up a Jack Skellington! I'm a fan of the costumed run and was glad I was able to fit in 4 miles before stuffing my face with pumpkin cookies and pumpkin beer 😂 Even though it wasn't what we typically do for Halloween, we still had a really fun day. Hopefully this pandemic business is cleared up for next year and we can celebrate big time! 🎃

"Are you Janet?! I LOVE YOUUUUU!" 🌵

Happy Halloween! We did most of our Halloween celebrations in tandem with Brett's birthday celebrations last weekend, so today will just be a regular kinda day, but I did get a spider donut from Dunkin' this morning to celebrate.

I got to spend quite a lot of time with Miss Abby on Friday morning. Brett and I commuted in to work together since we were headed into the city together that evening, but since he starts before I do I had some time to kill when getting to campus. Cassie had a class at Orange Theory so I kept her pup company while I waited to head in to work.

As one of Brett's gifts, I got us tickets to the Celtics home opener against the Raptors! I'm really indifferent when it comes to basketball, but Brett loves it so I knew he would be pumped. We headed right in to the city after work and grabbed a couple drinks nearby the Garden before the game.

I've never been to the home opener of a professional sports team before so it was so cool to feel the energy of the crowd! We were up in the nosebleeds (as you do when you're not a billionaire) but it was still a great time. We got light up wristbands with our seats (which you can see in this Instapost!), found the world's LARGEST Trulys, and the Celtics pulled out the W especially for Brett's birthday. 😉

We picked up our pals Erin and Cullen at the airport after the game as they were spending the weekend with us. It was a bit late to do anything exciting when they arrived, but we got to spend all of Saturday and Sunday with them. Saturday morning we spent lounging on the couch and playing Untitled Goose Game. Everyone helped me beat the game and we had a great time because the game is super entertaining! We now all want this shirt:

We also taught Erin and Cullen to play Super Smash Bros and got ready for our Halloween bar crawl in the city! Brett and Cullen went as Ash Katchum and Pikachu, while Erin and I went as Janet and Bad Janet from The Good Place. Brett and Cullen were obviously way more recognizable, but I loved all of our costumes. We had a blast roaming around Boston, and even got to meet up with some of his friends and family as a bonus!

 Hi there 🌵

Getting on the train to The Bad Place!

While the bar crawl was super fun, I think the funniest part of the night was waiting for our train back home. Erin was getting fed up with her Bad Janet wig so she took it off and we all decided to pass it around and take turns wearing it. We were all laughing so hard, I'm sure everyone around us thought we were psychopaths. 😂 Here's the photos I snapped on my phone, but Erin also got a few good ones over on her Instagram that make me crack up every time I look at them.

Good Janet has defeated Bad Janet 😂

We spent Sunday (Brett's actual birthday!) sleeping in, grabbing breakfast, and spending time with his family at home while watching the Patriots game. The whole weekend flew right by and I wish we had more time to spend with our pals Erin and Cullen, but we definitely made so many memories that we will look back on and smile for years to come. We will be seeing them again in February for the New Orleans marathon and I'm sure we'll have a blast down there as well!

👻 I hope everyone has a fantastic Halloween today! 🎃

Do you have a costume this year? If so, what are you dressing up as? If not, what is your favorite Halloween tradition!

Vlog: #SpookAThon 2017

Happy Halloween, friends! 
To celebrate, not only am I wearing my Georgie Denbrough costume to work today (see below), but I'm also sharing my #SpookAThon reading vlog with you all! This year's SpookAThon came at the tail end of a reading slump I was going through, so vlogging AND reading during the week proved to be a bit difficult for me. However, I did manage to snag a bit of footage over the weekend and was able to put a ~somewhat~ decent vlog together. I'm happy that this readathon pulled me out of my slump and will now remember to pick up a thriller or two if I'm ever feeling slumpy again in the future! ;) Click play to see what I got up to over the weekend of SpookAThon!

My Georgie costume, complete with paper boat!

I'm not supposed to take stuff from strangers...

Fast & Fun Fall

What a crazy fall it's been! October flew right by with craziness at work and and was jam packed with fun things every weekend. It's true that life seems to go by faster with each passing year, but I personally think it's because as you grow older life gets more and more fun! :) Anywho, here's what I've been up to these last few weeks.

We were all clearly thrilled to be at trivia. Especially Cullen.

Erin, Cullen, and I hit The Quarters after work a two weeks ago for round 2 of Harry Potter Trivia! We went a few months ago for the first round of HP Trivia and didn't do so great. I think we did a bit better the second time around (this time we were named "Gilderoy Pop and Lockharts" XD) but it was packed with people so being competitive was tough for everyone. (There were teams that got literally every question right >_>... putting my HP knowledge to SHAME!) We still had fun, though, which is what matters the most!

1. Reunited with Brittany & Matt at the Pageant!

2. The Homecoming Court in their best duds!

Later in the week I headed to BSU for the Homecoming Pageant! The Pageant is my absolute favorite event that is put on every year, and this year was extra special because I knew pretty much the entire Homecoming Court through working with them during Orientation or through PC. As it does every year, the court made me laugh with their talents and costumes, and made my heart melt with their interview answers. Bridgewater students love their university and every year the seniors in the court reflect on their time at BSU - it gets REAL emotional and I love it. I'm so happy I was able to make it back to campus for this special event.

1 & 2. Jenna toting Erin around in the Student Life wagon after wrapping up FallFest! XD

3 & 4. Staff photo day! We love Dinosaur Office - can you tell?

As I mentioned before, work's been crazy busy. I've found that this part of the year has been even more hectic than September (at least for my position) which is crazytown to think! In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving Break we have multiple events on almost every Friday & Saturdthat ay, meaning the time leading up to the events is spent answering emails, holding meetings, and on Fridays and Saturdays I hang out at work til the wee hours of the morning. I'm so happy that I love the work I do, but I'm even happier that I have amazing colleagues to make the craziness all bearable! (Examples of how we laugh through the stress above!)

Birthday cake surprise at midnight!

Brett had his golden birthday last week - 27 on the 27th! Unfortunately he had to work all day, but I surprised him at midnight with a slice of chocolate cake, brought him some lunch, and we we able to have some Chinese food for dinner (our fave)! Later on in the week we were able to have some fun (Halloween weekend!!!) so having a nice low-key birthday was actually pretty nice. :)

1. I was Katniss at work on the 30th - yes that's a marshmallow bow!

2. New Found Glory at the Palladium! 3. My lovely date to the #NFGYC show!
4. Our costume for *official* Halloween - a Blue Barracuda & a Temple Guard from Legends of the Hidden Temple!

Then, my favorite part of the year, Halloween! This year was particularly fun because the holiday fell on a Saturday which works perfectly for both Brett and my schedules and we were able to plan lots of fun activities for ourselves! On Friday our office hosted a trick-or-treat for students so we all dressed up in costumes. I was dressed at Katniss from The Hunger Games and was complete with a marshmallow bow and arrow (these are the things you'll find in your office when you work in Student Activities). Everyone else had great costumes, so I highly encourage you to check out our Instagram page to check them out!

Friday evening was something that Brett and I had been waiting for since June - the New Found Glory & Yellowcard concert at the Palladium! NFG and Yellowcard both played for about an hour and it. was. awesome. It's so amazing to see such a passionate crowd and performances that had so much energy after nearly 20 years of each band being together. We had a blast belting out nearly every song of both sets and dancing around. Even though each set was an hour I wish they could have been longer! Hopefully, because NFG's 20 year anniversary is in 2017, they'll be touring again very soon!

Finally, on the 31st, we were able to hang out with Erin, Cullen, Tim, and a bunch of their friends for a Halloween party! Brett and I went as a Blue Barracuda and a Temple Guard from Legends of the Hidden Temple, a Nickelodeon game show from we were kids. True 90's kids right here! I loved our costumes this year and we got a lot of compliments on them (though there were quite a few people who didn't understand what we were, haha!). We had a really great time hanging out with everyone and having a fun, relaxing time for a change!

Clearly, things have been crazy, but they've been lots of fun as well!

How have things been for you all?

Happy Halloween #bestholiday

Happy Halloween, everyone! Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year and while I'm spending it at a conference this year, it doesn't mean I didn't celebrate! I was pretty proud of my last minute costume. I had the idea while I was exhausted and driving from one campus to the other and REALLY wanted coffee, so I decided to channel my craving into my creativity and turn myself into a coffee! What do you think?

Wednesday night my CA staff (as well as some other ResLifers) had a reverse trick-or-treat program where we walked around in costume (mostly just my CAs and I were dressed up... I have the best staff, clearly) and gave our residents candy! It was a fun and laid back way to work my favorite holiday into my schedule, and I'm very happy it worked out so I didn't have to miss out on the fun!

Are you doing anything fun for Halloween? Let me know in the comments! :)

A Very Spooky Birthday

Aren't these adorable? My mom hand painted them and gave them to me as a gift!

Last weekend Brett had his 25th birthday! Since I was going to be away for Halloween, we thought what better time to throw a combination Halloween/birthday party than the weekend before? So we invited a few friends over to celebrate with us!

Nerd, Misty, and Wolverine!

Wolverine was feeling a little aggressive

One of the X-Men and a Pokemon trainer... the unlikeliest of couples.

We made a cauldron of witch's brew...

...and when the clock struck midnight and it was *officially* Brett's birthday, I brought out a candle-lit peanut butter cup cupcake and we all sang happy birthday to him. We spent the rest of the night playing N64 and chatting. It was a great, relaxed night with a few close friends and we all had a great time together!

The next morning Rob and I went out to grab Brett some birthday breakfast from Elizabeth's Bagels which Brett had been raving about since we've met, yet somehow we hadn't gotten together yet. (It was delicious.) After breakfast I gave Brett his birthday gifts! I was so excited to finally give them to him (they had been sitting in my office closet for about 3 months just waiting to be opened) and I'd say he was pretty excited to receive them!

I got him some new socks (which he's been asking for), a new pair of sandals (his were falling apart), a basketball hoop he's been wanting, and, of course, a bag of Reese's (his fave!). I'm so happy he liked all of his gifts - he's been playing basketball ever since he unwrapped his hoop! :) We finished the day by heading to his hometown to watch Red Zone at his friend's house, and to visit his family for dinner, cake, and ice cream. It was such a nice day and I'm so happy Brett enjoyed it! :)