Anniversary and Halloween

So a few things happened last week.  First, we celebrated our one year anniversary.  My parents were here over the weekend to say hi and Jeff and I went to Fleming's (where I work) for dinner.  Anyways, tradition is you are supposed to save the top tear of your wedding cake and eat on your one year anniversary.  Well... ours didn't survive the drive from Utah.  So I decided to make my own!  It was a chocolate cake with a raspberry filling and I think it tasted pretty good.  I thought I would make a cake roll.  Did everything I was supposed to but when I unrolled the cake, it kinda broke apart.  So I tried to put it together all puzzle-like and try to make a regular layered cake.  Picture below.

All I have to say is... Nailed it!

Second, it was Halloween!  Both of us had to work so we weren't home for the majority of the night.  My mom bought us pumpkins when she came down and we decided to save carving them for the day of to do something festive for Halloween since there were no costume or parties.  But here are our results.

And lastly (on a more somber note), it has been quite a while since I posted anything.  I have been in a bit of a... slump.  I'm over/out of it now but... it wasn't fun.  It was for reasons that I'm not ready to tell anyone yet.  I will at some point, but this is not that time.  I apologize for not "being here" if that can really be used as a term.  

But Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up and I'm excited to cook a Thanksgiving meal for the first time ever.  It'll probably be just the two of us, though I think I'm going to invite this other couple in our ward over.  So if anyone has any favorite recipes, I'd love to hear them.  And I'm sorry to announce, we will not be coming back for either holiday.  I was told very bluntly by my boss that I better not even think about taking vacation time around then.  We aren't open those days but it is our busy season and since all the other hosts we have I have just barely trained, they don't want me gone.  Also at Buca, Jeff is required to work on those holidays as well.  So we decided to wait until January to go visit my family in Michigan.  We will be back at Utah for a wedding at some point.  Maybe even two points, but right now we can't afford it and can't take the time.  I hope everyone is doing well!