Halloween Activities 2013

Our Halloween activities started at the beginning of October.  Some friends invited us to camp with them at a nearby campground during one of their Halloween Weekends.  It was a warm weekend for October which made it nice to be outside.  It was rainy too, but only at night while we were sleeping.  The kids enjoyed a scavenger hunt, looking at the campsite decorations and trick-or-treating.  There was a haunted hayride too, but we figured they were too young.

Morgan as a fairy and Blake as Hulk.

The kids with our young friends.

 

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The following Friday night we had made plans with another friend of mine to go to one of Greenfield Village's Halloween nights.  It had cooled off a bit, but was a pleasant night and perfect for being outside.

 

The kids just outside the gates waiting for our time to go through.

The amount of carved pumpkins was AMAZING!  There must have been hundreds lining either side of the walking path, plus more stacked in places and the neatest was seeing several decorating a tree!!  (Bottom left picture is the tree with the jack-o-lanterns.)

There were several 'spooky' sites, but nothing really scared us.  Some of our favorite spots were a covered bridge that was full of smoke, the carousel with ghosts riding, the mad scientist lab where all the glassware glowed neon colors and the headless horseman!  The kids thought for sure the headless horseman must have been fake.  We reassured them that he was alive.  His costume was just so good that you couldn't really tell that his head was in it...we didn't tell the kids that though ;-)

 

There were also treat stations along the way with people in really neat elaborate costumes.  The whole experience was really quite awesome!  The only thing I wished was different is that it wasn't so crowded!  Keeping track of the kids, in the dark, in shoulder-to-shoulder people, was a tough task!  Thankfully they're really good about sticking with me.

 

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We didn't make any new decorations this year, but we enjoyed the ones we already have.  The kids absolutely LOVE the decorations that glow and had me take pictures of them all.  They thought it was fun to turn them all on and shut the lights off to make it 'spooky' in the house. :-)

 

 

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We also took advantage of the library's Halloween activities this year.  They had a Halloween Origami night this year.  The kids were able to make some neat origami pumpkins and bats!

 The library also had a movie night where they showed Monsters U with snacks, a treat bag and a costume contest.  Blake was still the Hulk, but Morgan changed her mind the week before and said she wanted to be a vampire.  When I asked her why, she said her teeth made her look like a vampire anyway!  LOL!  (She was missing her 2 front teeth.)  I didn't think it'd happen, since we didn't have anything to make her look like a vampire, but she found a cape at her grandma's, she wore her own black pants and white shirt, Blake's vest and some orange teeth he got from his teacher, we pulled her hair back and she inherited her pale skin from her mom.  ;-)   She was all set!  She won 2nd place ($2) in the costume contest! :-)

 

 

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Halloween day was busy!  I didn't even stop to take pictures...how bad is that?!?  The kids had their Halloween activities at school that I went to to be with them.  They went at separate times to see a magician who was quite good and it was all Halloween themed tricks!  They would typically parade through town and the businesses would hand out candy to them, but it was rainy and our town's main street was torn apart, so someone from each of the businesses lined the hall of the school to pass out candy.   Then they'd usually enjoy donuts and juice outside, but they had that in their classroom instead.

 

I then took them out of school early, so I could run them over to meet up with my mother-in-law and go to Rich's great-grandmother's nursing home were they handed out candy to the kids.  Afterwards we had dinner with Rich's family, then spent the rest of the evening driving around visiting family.

 

That was the gist of our Halloween this year.  Very fun times that I'm sure we'll always remember. :-)