Octolidays

I always feel like once October hits, the holidays are here and the year is over before we know it!  It's been a busy month - here are some of the highlights.

My coworker, Fatima, and I once again convinced the men in our department to dress up for our company's Halloween costume contest.  The rule is: as long as we do all the work and buy the costumes so they just have to show up, they'll participate. Heh.

This year, we were the cast from Gilligan's Island.  Left to right: my boss Ralph (the Skipper), Doug (Gilligan), Fatima (Mary Ann), and me (Ginger). Our coordination paid off, and our group collectively won the costume contest! 

Last year, my department dressed up as the Scooby Doo gang, which was also fun.  Old cheesy TV shows make the best themes, don't you think? :)  I wore the same red wig as last year, but stuffed a folded shirt underneath it to replicate Ginger's amazing bouffant.

Dan and I have been spending plenty of time at Disneyland, which we love.  We want to make sure we visit during each holiday season, since we bought annual passes this year.  Every Halloween, they decorate the entire park and revamp the Haunted Mansion ride with characters and scenes from "The Nightmare Before Christmas".  They also add spooky visual effects to Space Mountain.

October is an especially busy month at work for Dan because of Homecoming week.  The students get to dress up for theme days and they have special events and games scattered throughout the week.  It's fun, but a lot more work for the administrators and teachers since the schedule is wacky.  The week culminates with the Homecoming football game on Friday night.

Right after crowning the Homecoming King

 Congratulating the Homecoming Queen

A beautiful sight at the end of the game - CCA won!  It's the first time they've won their Homecoming game, and they obviously blew the other team away - 58-0!  I did feel really bad for the other team, but at least it wasn't their Homecoming game!

Work has been a little unusual for me, too.  I got to participate in a management training course at my company last week.  They selected 12 participants to spend the week being trained by my company's senior management team on various aspects of our business.  It was interesting and enlightening, but there was a lot of work involved - more than any of us expected!  They had us read several books and case studies before the week began, plus there were additional readings during the week and a team presentation we gave to the senior management staff at the end of the week.  It didn't make me miss being in school at all! :)

To avoid having too many hours of lecture in a day, they also scheduled role playing and group problem solving activities.  This is one of the activities where we were given separate envelopes with mixed puzzle pieces. Without talking or making hand gestures to our teammates, we had to figure out how to assemble the puzzle pieces into 5 equally-sized squares.

 It was so hard not to communicate with each other while we figured it out, but we finally got it!

The Epsilon management training group

And finally, Dan and I got to visit with some old Denver friends this month! Brian and Carrie celebrated their 10th anniversary in San Diego, so we made a point to connect with them.

We went to dinner in Little Italy in the downtown area. It was awesome to catch up with them!

I can't believe Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner! I love this time of the year!