Monday, January 9, 2017

Halloween Madness

Halloween Madness started with our annual Halloween Party with the cousins/friends - this year at Cherae & Chris' home.

I'm a plethora of pinatas and Shayne is the singing bush
(from the movie The 3 Amigos)




That's Taylor as the Lego Man and Mindy as Dino.
I haven't mentioned yet that Taylor moved in with us at the start of October.  He's my kids 2nd cousin (the son of Shayne's cousin Delsa).  He's living with us while working here and he heads back to BYU-Idaho after Christmas.  He's a lego-maniac and fits in perfectly into our home.  Love having him here!


NEXT - THE HAUNTED GARAGE
Starting the prep work.  Garage gets emptied and we start hanging tarps (walls) and props.
*Note to self - don't do the set-up all in one day next year - it's too much and too stressful!


Made some eye-ball treats to hand out


Nana and Papa are the official greeters at the door.


A neighbor brought over amazing cookies and drinks to sell for no profit - really.



This year's theme was Nursery Crimes.

Eency-weency Spider


Mary had a little lamb...



Hansel was in front of this house looking for his sister, Gretel


Inside the house - there was a witch stirring her pot and to leave you had to crawl through the fire into a creepy, dark tunnel.




After the tunnel - there was Little Red Riding-Hood and a Grandma in the bed.  A wolf would jump out and surprise them as they went up the stairs.


This is when they get their treat and sent on their way out our back sliding door.

Carving Pumpkins




Hunter has been watching a lot of Halloween Wars - I think he's learned some tricks from that show!
He designed and did this all himself.  


Halloween 

My vampire - he changed his mind daily until that day.  Often times he told me his costume was going to be a surprise.   Luckily - he did tell me he wanted to be a vampire because he wanted to be SCARY. 

Danny is the mummy - I wish I had gotten up-close pics of him!!!


Cole with his friends Chris, Kevin, & Connor
Cole is a character from a game (Aperture Laboratories Test Subject from Portal).


His loot


And Hunter spent the night scaring kids on our porch.  He said it was the most fun he's had in a long time.  He pretended to be a stuffed dummy and when the kids didn't get a reaction out of him - then he'd jump up and scare them.  
Skyler trick-or-treated the longest.  Danny did some trick-or-treating with his friends, then went to their house for a movie.  It's weird to have bigger kids who want to be with their friends instead of mom and dad... I guess it is a sign of our boys growing up!
Yay - for Halloween!  and WHEW! It's done!!

IDAHO!

It was fall break and we miss our friends who just moved to Idaho - so off we went!  

Shayne has been to Boise many times for work - so he was excited to take the family to Dave and Buster's and play the first night we got there.  The big boys watched the Boise/BYU game and everyone enjoyed the arcade too.   



I just loved this tree right by Rachael's house - sooooo picture perfect.  The colors were spectacular!


We were in Boise the first day while Shayne worked and I just let the kids veg and swim in the pool.  We later met up with Rach/Greg and headed to McCall - a place that Rachael was determined to introduce us and it quickly won us over!

Eating out!

Playing games back at the house we rented together while in McCall


We got in hikes, biking, more biking, and shooting - and lots of food too.








We've been friends for 16+ years!



Eating at The Pancake House - note to self - plate sized pancakes are PLATTER SIZED PANCAKES.  See that sausage patty on the first plate?  That's as big as a regular plate!  And the third plate - that's 1 cinnamon roll!  We took a lot of left-overs home!



Biking with the troops on the city trails.




The grown-ups went mtn biking and had so much fun - we had to go back and get the big boys to do it with us too!



Cole wasn't so happy about the climbing part (can you tell?)


This was a Rach's brand new bike she just got - so glad we got to help her break it in!








This is one part of the bike trail - who can do that?!?!  
(FYI I can't)



Shooting targets


These boys didn't handle the guns - they kept themselves completely entertained close to the cars.


These two have been friends for their entire lives - I'm grateful they still find things in common and get excited to see each other!


Thanks Rach and Greg for hosting us and making it such a wonderful, relaxing, adventurous, and FUN weekend!  Can't wait to do it again!