Frightfully Fun Times!

Last week was so crazy and busy that I'm still trying to get my sleep schedule back on track!

I briefly mentioned (amidst my excitement at scoring a bag o' crap) that we were participating in the Fircrest Haunted Trails last week... And we did! For me, the scariest thing about it was that Thursday morning was very rainy. Not a good start for a day whose evening would be spent haunting the trails of Fircrest... But by 11:00, the clouds had parted, the sun came out, and it turned in to an absolutely beautiful day! I got home from work and immediately started getting ready. Cindy was already working on makeup for herself, Andy, Kaylee and Zoë, one of our Puddle Jumpers who was helping us out. Here they are, in near-complete form.


(If you don't see the whole picture, just click on it)

We got out to the park as it was starting to get dark, which made the setup a little bit tricky, but we got it all ready before the first victims visitors came passing through. Our graveyard scene was filled with tombstones, bones, and of course, the skulls, bats and rats that I'd rigged with glowing eyes. We had our fog machine pumping a steady haze into the area, blacklights to make the ghosts in the trees glow, and three strobelights to make our motions look creepier. The city had run speakers throughout the trail, and was playing classic haunted house sounds throughout the evening. I wish I could have walked the length of the route, because it seemed like the whole thing was pushed up to a higher level than the previous years when we'd simply been spectators. But the flow of traffic was far too constant for us to go exploring on our own, and we stayed put in our little graveyard. During one lull, I did manage to snap a shot of myself though...


(If you don't see the whole picture, just click on it)

Nice, huh?? One lady told me I needed to floss - my quick reply was, in my gruff, growling voice, "After every meal!" My gruff, growling voice for that 90 minutes left me virtually voiceless for the next few days! Yesterday I was finally MOSTLY able to talk without dropouts... But my voice was still more gone than present for Friday's big activity, the Harvest Hop, aka Halloween dance at our local elementary school.

This was the 4th or 5th year I've DJ'd the Harvest Hop, and it's always a great time. It was kind of strange this year, since we don't actually have any kids at the school anymore... (If you missed it, I also did the Harvest Festival at Kaylee's new school.) The 2008 Harvest Hop was still a great time, though there were a few glitches. With our renewed push for the DJ business, we've purchased some new lighting, and the 'Hop was going to be the big debut for our new, fully expanded lighting rig! I was excited to get some pictures of it in action for promotional materials. Ahh, the best laid plans...

Upon setting everything up, plugging everything in, and jacking up the light bars higher than I ever had before, I started flipping the switches... Aww man! One of the moving-beams lights, one that I've had for like ten years with no glitches, blew a fuse. Since it's never given me any trouble, I haven't carried extra fuses, and was powerless to bring it to life. I ended up not getting any pics of the slightly crippled setup, though at several points I thought "I need to go do that..." But I DID get pics of the kids having a blast! Tyler has always enjoyed going to the Harvest Hop, even though he goes to a different school. That's him with the red mohawk in the middle of this pic:


(If you don't see the whole picture, blah blah blah...)

Another great Harvest Hop in the books... But there was another big school dance the very next night... This one, I wasn't DJing though... Instead I was, for the first time, watching my daughter go off with a coursage on her wrist, with a boy who formally asked her to go with him. Luckily he seems like a really nice kid, so we didn't really worry about her all night.


(If you don't see the blah blah blah...)

Instead of worrying, we decided to go to a haunted house, to see what it's like being on the other side after our haunted trails experience! So we loaded up our three remaining kids, along with Sarah, one of Kaylee's friends from Church, and headed up to Wild Waves for their annual Fright Fest.


(If you blah blah blah...)

Ellysa had gone to the haunted house earlier this month and told us was REALLY scary, so the kids prepped themselves by picking a giant witch nose.


(blah blah blah...)

Having survived that, we made our way over to the Scream Factory!


(you know what to do by now, Susan)

It was a great haunted house! Poor Sarah was really scared - she was a good sport for the first half of it, then she had clearly hit her limit and covered her eyes through the rest. Of course, right as we exited the building, there was a psychotic lunatic with a chainsaw chasing everyone, which sent all four of the kids running for their dear lives!

By Sunday, we were definitely in need of a day of rest! So naturally, we planned a big dinner / birthday party for my nephew Mathew's 18th birthday... His family (my sister Karen, her husband Lewis and their crew) came down for roast beef, mashed potatoes, Dr. Mario, Guitar Hero and homemade Strawberry Cheesecake! Incredibly good times, but man was it hard to get up this morning!