070 HALLOWEEN SUCCESS

So, there we have it.  The first Halloween in the new house is in the books.  It sure didn’t start out very promising.  It pissed down rain, almost in deluge format from 5:00 AM until 5:00 PM and it wasn’t looking good for the trick or treaters.  Then almost on cue at 5:00 PM it stopped raining and turned into a relatively pleasant evening for the little kiddies, and us big kiddies.

DECORATIONS

ANIMATED PUMPKIN FACES

BACK DECK DECORATIONS

Unfortunately, I could not put out some of the animated stuff until the last minute.  It took me awhile to get the projector set up with the three pumpkins, but it worked perfectly.  It’s too bad that the way I had it set up, it couldn’t be seen from the street.  But the main thing is that it worked and it was a lesson for next year.  It took a while to get it working perfectly and so I was crunched for time.

I filled the fog machine and put it out to warm up, and it was too bad that I hurried it, because I could not get it working under any circumstances.  It was only afterwards when I was packing up that I discovered that the intake hose had a plug in it for transport.  Had I removed it I’m sure it would have worked perfectly.  But that was the only glitch on the night.

Well there was one other when Renee closed the screen door and I didn’t know and just about walked through it.  Luckily, or maybe not, I bounced off it.  But, man it hurt.  I did manage to remain upright, but it’s like skating g with your head down and that big defenseman comes across the ice to take your head off.

ANGEL

OLD DUDE

COME TO ME MY CHILDREN

Renee dressed up as an angel and then later tossed on an old man mask and caught me completely by surprise.  It worked well with her costume.  I had not planned on dressing up, but I got into the spirit of it anyway.  It was just something I had lying around.  I debated wearing my Canucks uniform or even wearing my old police dress uniform.

Instead, I had bought a camouflage Ghillie suit (aka a sniper suit) last summer with the plan of using it for wildlife photography.  I never did get around to use it, because my sidekick Toby would give me away anyway.  So, I threw it on and was amazed by the number of compliments I got from parents walking with their kids.  I was even more shocked when an 8-year-old boy said to his Dad, “Hey Dad, he has a Ghillie Suit”.  Most people don’t know what it is, let alone what it’s called.  Even on a cool night, it was hot in that thing.

GHILLIE SUIT GHOUL

BOO

The weather held off all evening and there were lots of kids patrolling the neighbourhood.  We ended up with close to 50 kids and used up more than half of the candy in the bowl.  There’s still some left for us though.  It was great to see that many kids around, as last year in East Vancouver, my neighbour had less than 10 kids.  This was more like the days when I was young, although, then my Mom used to get over 200.

Since the complex isn’t even half constructed or full yet, we weren’t expecting too much.  But it was way better than expected.  We had close to 50 trick ort treaters and once everything is occupied by next year, it should be a great turn-out.  Still, it was an awesome evening and it felt like being a kid again.

GOODIE BOWL

MY JACK-O-LANTERN

RENEE'S JACK-O-LANTERN

I learned some lessons about setting up decorations and next year I will be better prepared.  Or at least I hope I will.  Having it rain all day though, limited my options.  Maybe next year the weather will be better.  One can always hope.

The other thing that was great, is that the fireworks were very limited and much farther away, so Toby wasn’t panicked.  With the park across the street from the old house, the fireworks were constant from 9:00 PM to 2:00 AM.  Tonight, the fireworks, even in the distance were done before 10:00 PM and Toby wasn’t freaked out at all tonight.

Hurray for Halloween and already looking forward to next year.  The next big project will be Christmas decorations.  Going to have to get lights for the front door and the back deck.  I’ll even think about doing the windows and getting a tree.  I just must decide on real or artificial.