Happy Halloween - 2010

Here are the pictures from our 4th Annual Halloween Haunted House. This one was a bit bigger than before since we added a few more elements to the experience.

Here is the entrance to the inflatable haunted house. We put together this setup for the kids in the neighborhood (about up to 12 years old). Meanwhile, Katrina and her friends dress up and hide in all kinds of spots in order to scare the souls brave enough to attempt to run our gauntlet.

In this picture, from left to right, we have Bradley, Melissa, Katrina, Philip, Willis, Pick and Laura. Yeah, many a scream was heard coming from our 'guests' due to this crew.

This inflatable headless horseman carriage is one of the new pieces in the array. One of the neat things is that there is a coffin inside and a vampire pops up, then lays back down into the coffin. We also added the "Bone Cracker Chiropractor" sign towards the front near the graveyard.

This giant snow-globe inflatable seems to be a favorite, as many of our visitor's parents had them pose in front of it to take a picture.

This Dracula-in-a-coffin inflatable was used last year, but was positioned along the exit this time.

And this moving, inflatable spider was placed near the exit too.

Katrina chose to build the graveyard in the front yard. Meanwhile, Brad is working on getting into character for the role he will be playing tonight.

This old, rusty trenching shovel is a neat addition to the graveyard.

Yeah, the bone placement is working out too.

The front entrance is coming together, with lighted skulls off to one side, an inflatable witch to the left and inflatable ghost to the right.

Work begins inside the enclosure, to include lots of wiring.

Meanwhile, Brad decided to see what a baby rat might taste like (a rubber one, actually).

Melissa is stationed by the candy bowl, ready to dispense the treats.

We placed several snack items out for our 'Scream-Team', and Philip volunteered to be the official 'first-taster'...

Luann went out of her way to make the graveyard scene with the skull cake and pumpkin cupcakes. It came out real nice.

Ah, the bench is set up inside the haunted house and more skulls were put into place.

It's time for everybody to get into their costumes and work out what roles they will be playing and where.

Here is Katrina's makeup, expertly applied by Laura.

Kylor and Karen showed up and Kylor helped out with keeping things going during the show.

A shot of some of our guests and yet another pose in front of the ghostly snow-globe.

We also have the projector running. We decided to display the slide show with another page added to it, then after that, we played the movie; Van Helsing.

Here's a picture of our outdoor 'movie theater'. Many times, the parents will send their kids through the haunted house while they watch the slide show or the movie.

A different view of the haunted house opposite of the movie theater.

This is a shot of the new slide I call, 'The Pumpkin Slide'.

Yeah, we seem to be the place to be on Halloween. The road in front of our house is usually this busy all night long.

Ah,now it's Willis' turn at manning the candy dish.

Here's a shot of the activity in front of the haunted house.

Yeah, Brad is doing a good job of it...

And so is Laura too. The look on these kids' faces are priceless...

This closeup shot shows why. Nice makeup job.

Yeah, look at them strut their stuff.

This picture is priceless as 'Mario' seems to be asking himself how badly wants the candy on the other side of that entrance...

And here's Karen! I like Kylor's hat that makes him look like Guy Fieri from Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Well, we don't know how many kids visited the haunted house, but I stopped counting after 132 kids at about 7:30. And for the first time, we didn't have to run back to the store for more supplies because Luann bought enough for us to hand out over 38 pounds of candy...

We had a great time with this one, and things went off without a hitch (thank goodness). Well, see you next year!

Katrina Cut Her Finger

It seems that Katrina had an accident with a pair of scissors at work and cut her index finger. It was severe enough that we had to take her to the emergency room.

So, here she is after getting a lidocaine injection in her finger. We're waiting for the pain killer to take effect.

It looks like it's starting to work.

At least she still had her sense of humor and laughed at my bad jokes.

Will you look that? Just because her left hand is out of commission doesn't mean that she can't tap out a few text messages to her friends on her cell phone...

And here is the result of her handiwork after the 10 stitches were applied. It looks like she won't be able to play the piano for a while. Of course, she couldn't play the piano in the first place, so I guess that isn't such a big deal...

Franken-Kitty Had His Stitches Removed

We had to take Smokey in to have his staple/stitches removed, so here are a couple of pictures of the veterinary doctor and nurse working on him.

While the nurse held him down, the doctor used a pliers-type of tool that bent the spine of the staples which forced them to open. Meanwhile, I made sure Smokey remained quiet, which was actually no problem.

A close-up of the handiwork. So, I guess Smokey's tune-up is pretty much over with...