Making of the Monster Mash at Marketecture

So one of the quirks of working for Marketecture is Halloween is a super big deal. It's because it's one of the exec's favorite holiday. So we go all out in a Cubicles of Death decorating contest. This year my group worked ridiculously hard to bring you the Monster Mash. We decided on our theme on Friday. My roommate happened to be gone for the weekend, so it seemed like the perfect time to get started, and I dragged out the cardboard to cut out these gates:

 Saturday the craziness continued, and I crafted a coffin for Dracula:

I painted them in the next couple days. Meanwhile, back at the office, Amberly was hard at work cutting out bats, which were then hung...lots and lots of bats. I think almost 300 bats. Yeah. Crazy. We also worked on putting together a graveyard. (While not specifically mentioned in the song, doesn't a graveyard seem to belong?)

We spread the rumor that we were doing Nicholas Cage Halloween and the bats and graveyard was all part of National Treasure. People really believed it. But we didn't want our secret to get out, because our secret plan was to make a music video, and we didn't want to give anyone ideas. So we didn't do a lot at first on the lab, master bedroom where the vampires feast, or the monsters during that week.

Amberly, her husband, her friend, and I came in on Saturday to create our big monsters on the windows. If you'd told me last year I'd come in on Saturday to decorate for Halloween I would have laughed in your face. The crazies have gotten me.

I started out with the castle:

Amberly and co started with the monsters. I had previously drawn out monster options for them to work off of and they turned out pretty well! Once I finished the castle, I mostly helped by rolling tape, because boy did we go through tape.

Finally, we added smaller monsters down the backs of a row of cubicles. I don't have a picture of them out, but I do have this from when I was creating them:

We finished up the lab, with some bottles and vases and some pictures I drew of more vials and such, and we had a bubble machine for the music video. We also had the coffin, candles, and glasses of "blood" in the vampire's bedroom. Plus, we took the Darth Vader toy and made him into Dracula, with a red collar and fang teeth. 

Here's a photo of the whole area: 

You can even see Drac Vader in the back there, if you look closely. All the gravestones have funny things on them too, courtesy of Victoria on our team.

The final step was the making of the music video, which was a lot of fun. It's cheesy, but what do you expect in a video we made in a couple hours? We got our CEO, Ollie, to star in it and all dressed up as various monsters. Stayed late on Monday night and got some help from spouses even to get it done. You can see our video on Marketecture's Facebook page, link below.

So as you can see, we worked really hard. And we need votes so we can win this thing! Team 1 did Doctor Who, and they've been trash talking the whole time about how they're going to win it. They feel so confident, they haven't even put up their pictures and video yet. So vote for Team 2! And tell your friends to vote too! Just go to the Marketecture page on Facebook, find our pictures and our video, and like each one (5 pics, 1 video) and you can help us win! We really appreciate it!

I Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray

Wow I'm behind the times here. I've meant to write about various things, but never did. So a little while after the fact, here's how I celebrated my birthday.

It stretched out a bit. I kicked it off by getting my hair done. Just another shade of red with some lighter highlights. There's a birthday selfie a little later in this post that could give you an idea of it. I also bought a new top that I wore on my birthday (also pictured in said selfie).

At work, I've taken over birthdays this year, making a card that everyone signs and bringing in a treat. When they learned my birthday was coming up, apparently everybody wanted in on it...we had three volunteers to bring in the treat, and two of them did, so I had two cakes. The one on the left was Mississippi mud cake and Taylor made the chocolate cake on the right from scratch. Both were good.

Morgan made the card and they had everyone sign it. I had to laugh. Maybe I sing that song too much to my content team. I do sing it to my team when we meet, changing the words to be "everything is awesome when you're on content team." (Oh btw, I got made team lead a couple months ago, so that was cool.)

After work, I went and got a massage. It wasn't super relaxing because they really dug in to get rid of those knots, but it worked, so can't complain. I then went to get a pre-birthday dinner at Spicy Thai and my friend Greg (owner's son) was working and he gave me my delicious masman curry for free. I was not expecting that, and it was super nice. So extra plug for Spicy Thai—it's amazing, the curry is my favorite, and obviously the people there are the best. Try it sometime. It's our fave.

It was super nice to have a birthday on Saturday so I could relax and enjoy the day! I was hoping to sleep in, but that didn't happen. I woke up and was wide awake. So I got up and opened a couple presents and got ready for the day. When my roommate awoke, we went to Kneaders for breakfast. We both got the French toast with hot chocolate and it was delicious! That place was hopping, so our seats were at counter against the window so we had a nice view of the mountains...I attempted to capture my view and my breakfast in the same shot but it didn't really work...so you get to see yummy food and parking lot...enjoy.

My parents and brother had sent birthday gifts to my grandparent's house, so I went there after breakfast. I visited with them for a while, which was very nice. Then I had plans to have lunch with a friend, so when he was ready we went to Savory & Sweet. I was still quite full from breakfast, so I got a dessert crepe and he got a real lunch. (Are you seeing the theme of food on this birthday?) This I guess would be my birthday cake on my actual birthday.

Here's the aforementioned obligatory birthday selfie.

After lunch, I had some free time before the next birthday event. So I set up my new television (thanks mom and dad) and watched The Importance of Being Earnest. See, that whole relaxing on birthday thing is the best. It was awesome just to enjoy the day and do various activities with friends but also take some time to just relax.

My birthday evening activities weren't specifically planned for my birthday, but that's when it worked out best to do them, and I was fine with that. Angie, Stacy, and Leah, pictured two below, and I went to Boudreaux's for dinner. They're all mission friends and so we got us some good Cajun cuisine.

After dinner, we went back to my apartment and chatted for a while, took the picture below, and then Stacy and Angie left as our friends from the ward showed up to watch Austenland. We had a nice little gathering of our girlfriends. There were at least a couple who hadn't seen it before, and the rest of us are obsessed, so it was fun to watch all together. Lots of laughs. Tallyho!

Sunday we got to relax more. We had stake conference in the morning, leaving the afternoon open for movies and Oscar's red carpet stuff. Then we watched the Oscars. I was sick of Gravity winning everything since out of all the movies, it's the one I have the least interest in. So I was relieved it didn't get best picture. Just ask my roommates, they were quite amused by my reactions.

Mom and dad came into town the following week, so I got to celebrate again at dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which was fantastic, and then dinner at my grandparents with grilled salmon—yum! Tons of amazing food, that's pretty much how to describe my birthday celebrations. For reals.

And while not directly connected to the birthday celebrations, I also got to go to a Vocal Point concert. I just super love them. It was a great concert.

We took this at intermission and Instagrammed it with the designated hashtag, (plus one of my own, #fangurls) so a few members of Vocal Point liked it and I felt so cool. ;) We're practically BFFs now. 

So there you have it, my more-than-a-week long birthday celebration! Here's to a great rest of the year. (I have a lot of plans to make it so...just you wait...)