Oh the Horror! Halloween Flashback

Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays! Probably because my birthday comes just before. I had my annual themed Halloween costume party again this year. This year's theme which all of my decorations centered around, was Horror Movies. Decorating is about 70% of the fun for me!

These supplies...

became this!

Another 'craft' I made for the party was a life sized Freddy Krueger. This was out of PVC pipe, a foam head, a mask, and some old clothes. Nate came to town for a wedding and crashed at our place. He is not the biggest fan of Halloween, so naturally Erik and I wanted to have some fun. We built Freddy, and stood him up in the living room to surprise Nate as he came home that night. When we woke up this is how we found him.

Nate thought Freddy needed to get his beauty sleep

I put Freddy behind some ripped plastic right at the front door. He was back lit with a strobe light for extra creepy-ness! 

I wanted it to look like there was blood all over my walls so I hung plastic covered in red paint all down the hallway and in my entry way. Making these plastic sheets was an ordeal! I initially tried to do it outside like a good responsible person who didn't want to get red paint all over her rented apartment. Well it was 40 degrees and my paint immediately went stiff. It refused to run down the plastic. I then added thinner to it thinking that would help. It really didn't and the paint started to clump and wasn't sticking to the plastic well. I now know that you can't add thinner to latex based paint - oops!

A movie I wanted to incorporate was SAW. I got this creepy little trike for $5 at a yard sale.

My next character was Michael Meyers. Building a whole person was a challenge so I wanted to avoid that again. He's just a foam head attached to my shelving in the second bedroom, but creepy right?

One of my besties, Kenny, came for the party. He made me a video of snow with the voice of the little girl from Poltergeist. It was the scene where she's stuck in the TV screaming "Mommy! I can't find you, Mommy!" Chills!

The rest of the second bedroom.

Here is a shot of the entrance to my bathroom. This is the sign I showed you in my preview post. Its a UPS box, christmas lights, and tissue paper. I treated a white shower curtain like the other plastic and back lit it with another strobe light. It was a super cool effect!

On the living room TV I had the cursed video from The Ring on loop with a skeleton dress up as the little girl from the well. That was the prop that actually scared me!

To keep the horror movie theme, I wanted to go as Carrie this year. My costume consisted of an $11 dress from Goodwill and a bunch of fake blood. Well at first it was that easy. Turns out the fake blood dried purple, so I had to go get some RIT fabric dye and try again. This dried pink so luckily the lighting was pretty low and no one could tell. I had red make up as blood dripping down my face and I got a blond wig that I poured fake blood into.

What do you think?

I also had the kitchen all decorated with skulls and chains and candles. I made some pretty creepy appetizers as well...

Cheese skull

Pretzel fingers

I took pretty much no photos of all the costumes but here are a few...

I had a blast and can't wait for next year's Vampire theme!!!

On actual Halloween, Dalyz and I got together with the pups. She was puppysitting our friends dog Josie who is an adorable riot!

Bosley as JAWS

Wordless Wednesday: Puppy Perch

It's my birthday!!!

I've had a goofy day. It started with an intense thunderstorm, which was nice. I like thunder and lightning. During work I unfortunately couldn't keep my eyes open, but that allowed me to treat myself to a yummy cappuccino after lunch. Speaking of lunch, the girls and I tried a new spot, Heirloom Salad Company, and it was delicious!

The girls also got me some cute gifts - a tshirt with something funny I said a while back "one week you're a virgin...next week you're five deep". We get a little raunchy sometimes! I also got a cute magnet with a saying that is perfect for our group - "you drink too much, swear too much, and have questionable morals. You're everything I've ever wanted in a friend." They also bought me coffee and lunch, the students even colored me pictures and hung them up in my room.

I really got the star treatment today...until my eyes melted.

I was running behind at the end of the day and quickly grabbed a bottle of ethanol to clean something. The lid came right off and the bottle fell volcanoing ethanol all over my face. I was immediately blinded and my eyes were burning intensely. Luckily I was right next to an eye wash station. They no longer burn, and I'm sure they are extremely clean!

Erik and Bosley picked me up from work, then Erik took me out to dinner at one of our favorite spots, Givannis. Its the place I wrote about awhile back with the handmade pastas. So Good! We strolled through the Pedestrian Mall afterwards and ended up at the new cupcakery - Molly's Cupcakes. This place is going to be a goldmine!

My phone and Facebook page were flooded with birthday wishes and I'm blessed to have so many amazing people think of me today! I love you all!

And, Erik, you are truly special! You have made me feel so special not only today, but every day. I love you so much!

Sorry, Mom...

The bed is full...Teddy needed your spot tonight.

Halloween Preview

I love October!!! It's my birthday month and has the best holiday ever! I have thrown a Halloween bash for the last few years and this is a small taste of the props I have made for this year. It's a UPS box, tissue paper, and Christmas lights! I can't wait to show you more!

Denver Trip Part 2: Day in Downtown Denver

We finally got to Denver on day 2 of our trip. We were meeting two of Erik's friends for the remainder of the trip and they are both super outdoorsy. We would be doing a lot of roughing it the rest of the trip, so I requested some time in the city. Erik and I headed straight for the 16th St Pedestrian Mall. Its a cute little area of down town filled with great places to eat, little shops, and tourist traps. I had reached critical once we found parking so we headed straight for food. 

We ate at the Paramount Cafe and I tried an Elk burger for the first time. Holy cow elk, that was delicious!

Once we had wondered the length of the mall, we headed out to meet up with the other guys. We were staying with Nate's family in Littleton. Turns out they are only a few blocks away from Columbine High. Erik and I didn't realize where we were until we were stopped at a light and it was right across the street. We both got the chills. I remember that tragedy very well because of how it affected my mom. She actually attended that high school.

Once we were all together we went out for dinner and just hung out for the rest of the night. It was a very chill start to an eventful time in Colorado

Saturday Went to the Dogs

Rosie came over for the day. We went to the local doggie bakery, Woofables. It was a challenge with two excited dogs. Bosley ended up pulling the same move that he does in Petco. He got himself so excited that he pooped right in the middle of the store. He really knows how to embarrass mommy.

Bosley got a little treat baggy of duck shaped, wheat free, pumpkin & ginger 'Quackers'. Rosie went straight for the 'Bark-B-Q Rib' cookies. She became slightly obsessed and now potentially has a problem. Hopefully she doesn't have the shakes this morning.

The rest of the day consisted of intermittent NASCAR sprinting and snoring. By the time Rosie went home my little man was all tuckered out and needed special cuddles from daddy. 

Look how CUTE I am!

Denver Trip Part 1: Omaha Zoo

OK, so its a month late, but here's the story of the first part of our adventure!

We were both dreading the tiresome and excessively non-existent scenery of Nebraska, so I came up with a brilliant plan to break up the near 12 hours of monotony before the site of the mountains breaks the boredom. I decided we would break it up into three neat little sections.

Step One: Four hours to Omaha.
We left on Sunday morning pretty early. Bosley got dropped of at his girlfriend's house before the sun was up. Erik volunteered to drive so I grabbed a pillow and tried to steal as much more sleep as I could manage. I love zoos, so I was very excited when we arrived. I had been to this particular one once in high school on a class trip, and it was great.

Here are some of my favorite photos:

I can't currently find my camera so more amazing photos are to come!

Erik got me to face my fear of heights and got me on a sky-lift tour of the park. It goes all the way across the zoo. I mainly got on out of exhaustion because we had been exploring for nearly three hours and it was hot and I was tired of walking. I white knuckled the single safety bar the entire time, but I think it was worth it. Shortly after, Erik and I just looked at each other and we both knew we had reached our limit. We had both hit our daily quota for screaming kids and large crowds. We nearly ran back to the car and devoured a sandwich before heading out on the road once again.

Part Two: Four hours to Gothenburg, NE
We pulled into the cutest little campground right around dinner time. If you ever have the misfortune of driving across Nebraska, I highly recommend spending the night here! The Lafayette Campground was extremely well maintained with very clean bathrooms and hot showers. A rarity among camp facilities. This place even comes complete with a beautiful lake and the cutest little old lady that lives on site and runs the show. She even gave us free firewood! Right before it got dark I saw what I thought were two deer in the meadow right next to us. It took me a second to realize it was two of the biggest turkeys I have ever seen! Bosley would have lost his mind!

Pup-centric Day of Adventure

Erik and I leave for Colorado tomorrow and we aren't taking Bosley so we decided to have lots of puppy adventures today. 

We went on a nature walk...

  We got frozen yogurt!

We ran through PetCo! 

Checked out the pigs feet and said hi to the kitties

Then went home to nap, but WAIT...

Is that a treat?!?

It smells like a treat!

 

ITS A TREAT!!!

After a nap and bird watching...

we played football!

For dinner Bosley got an extra special treat...

He is going to sleep well tonight!

Bossman gets to spend the week with his girlfriend, Rosie, and gets to torture her kitty sister, Chula. This is the longest we have both ever been away from him, and we are going to miss him terribly. 

I won't be able to post for the next week as I'll be pretending to be a mountain woman. Hopefully the next time I post I have tons of amazing photos of our adventures.

This is how we party...

This is what we do at work...

Dalyz decided her property taxes were too high so the students built her a new one.

Complete with a little dog house for Rosie

Bob's Your Uncle

Just had dinner at a place we haven't been to in years. We thought we would keep the trend of doing something different going. It was a perfect evening on the patio with my baby!

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Gun-day

Like a pro

Dee M., Assassin - She's a really good shot!

Erik and I spent Sunday with our friends Dee and Alvin. Erik and Alvin met 19 years ago by fate. Erik was on the school bus and began choking on a piece of candy. Alvin was running late for work and happened to pass. Erik was without oxygen for over 10 minutes, but Alvin never gave up. It is an amazingly powerful story and they have been in each others lives since.

We started our day with something both Erik and I grew up doing, but haven't done in awhile. We accompanied them to church. It was a non-denominational service which was very different from the Catholic services I grew up with. The core message was exactly the same, but it was nice to see it delivered in a different way. 

After church and some amazing grilled chicken, we set up the targets and got out the handguns. I grew up in a hunting household so I've shot rifles and shotguns, but never handguns. I was nervous I was going to be one of those girls you see on YouTube that punches themselves in the face because of the kick-back. They started me off on the smallest caliber, and with a bit of coaching I did pretty good. Even with the larger guns I had a tight-ish shot cluster. Erik was impressed and Alvin, who used to be in law enforcement, said I did better than some cops he's seen!

We had a blast and this Sunday will go down in the record books!

Wordless Wednesday