The space unicorn carves a jack-o-lantern

The consulate Halloween party this weekend was all kinds of fun. It could have been all kinds of messy, too, but the weather was nice enough that we were able to do the pumpkin-carving outside. The space unicorn shed her duct-tape skirt for this set of festivities -- don't even get me started on that -- and Mr. Potato Head ripped his feet off. I guess it wasn't a good day for the family costumes overall, but the fun more than made up for it. Well, that and the candy.

That's 93,205.678 miles, in case you were wondering

Last night as we returned home from the Halloween Festival, I noticed this on the dashboard:
Our decision to buy a new car soon had nothing to do with this -- I'm not sure either of us had been paying much attention to the odometer -- but it's interesting that the two coincided.

Mr. Potato Head meets a space unicorn

Much like the rest of us, he had no idea what a space unicorn was -- but it did look suspiciously a lot like his sister.
Last night was the American School of Milan's Halloween Festival, which is a PTO fundraiser and a huge deal in general. It was fun and loud and all kinds of other things.
There was a girl dressed as a shower, which definitely was the best costume. A close second, at least to me, was Laura's friend Andrew, who was dressed as Steve Jobs. He was walking around with a homemade iPad declaring "I've got an app for that."

Oh, look! It's Mr. Potato Head!

This particular specimen apparently has an aversion to sitting still for the camera this morning. His costume's creator hopes he will be slightly more cooperative when it comes time to wear the thing for an actual Halloween event.

Here, ducky, ducky

Another photo from last weekend. Sometimes I wonder whether Owen is thinking it would be a good idea to jump in the water and try to swim after the ducks. Luckily, that hasn't happened -- at least so far.

Can't you imagine Rapunzel sending her hair over the edge of this?

We were in the Giardino della Villa Belgiojoso Bonaparte over the weekend, and I decided to snap a few photos of what I've begun to call the Rapunzel tower. No, it's really not that tall, but it's still cool-looking. Maybe I'll write a Rapunzel book where the tower is in a forest instead of on open ground like most drawings portray it.

More on the Elephant Parade

I think I've seen 34 of the 80 elephants around town now. (If you're my friend on Facebook, you can see the photos I've posted.) While the Milano map one in front of the Cardorna station still is my favorite, I like the collection in front of the Natural History Museum in the Giardini Publici as a group. I haven't found the clusters I've seen elsewhere around town to be that impressive, but all four of these are cool:

What Harry Potter may have looked like as a baby -- if he had a mustache

There's an advertisement everywhere in Milan these days that looks something like this:Basically, the Wall Street Institute wants Italian businesspeople to come to them to learn English. That's a noble goal and all, I guess, but a lot of the billboards are in metro stations and have been defaced in various ways. I've seen a bunch with a mustachioed baby, and today we saw one with fangs. But then we saw this in the Porta Venezia station, and it was worth pulling out the camera for:

Maybe someone needs this, but I don't think it's me

I was cleaning out some clutter and came across these instructions that were included ages ago with one of our debit cards. Thank goodness I figured out how to use it even though I'd never noticed this.

Milanese statue scavenger hunt

Milan has so many great statues of people and things around town. (This is typical of a lot of cities, of course, but I'm focusing on Milan's because I live here and see them all of the time.) I used this series of photos for the cover of the consulate newsletter a couple of weeks ago. The really great thing is that with the exception of the Michelangelo, all of these are in public outdoor areas anyone can see and enjoy without having to pay any money. I've blogged about many of these individually, but here they are as a group.

Cavallo di Leonardo da Vinci, Ippodromo di San Siro:
Giuseppe Garibaldi, Largo Cairoli:
Constantine, Basilica di San Lorenzo:
Vittorio Emanuele, Piazza del Duomo:
Vertunno, Giardino Perego:
Leonardo da Vinci, Piazza della Scala:
Facciata della Chiesa di Santa Maria della Passione:
Pieta Rondanini by Michelangelo, Castello Sforzesco:
San Bartolomeo Scorticato, Duomo:

How's that for random?

Tonight I was on Pinterest (multitasking while watching General Conference), and Laura saw a photo of these and suggested we make them.
And although they look delicious and I may indeed make them some day, the description on the pin I was reading went something like this:
Marshmallows dipped in butter, cinnamon sugar and wrapped in crescent rolls.
That didn't sound very appealing to me. In fact, it reminded me of this Saturday Night Live skit.
I think I can sum it all up like this: Ugh.