This is Halloween!

Halloween always includes a trunk-or-treat at church.  This year the party was held the Saturday before Halloween and the youth groups were in charge of organizing, so after a couple of years off---I was back to doing the trunk-or-treat.  Originally, I didn't mind and agreed to help take the lead, of course, little did I know how busy the month of October would be for me!  Fortunately, I recruited some great people to help me out, and the young men and women also stepped up.

The Young Women, specifically, were in charge of decorations.  Another leader (aka super creative, party planner extradordinare) came up with a cute idea to make "bats and hats."  So we gathered all the materials and had the girls help us put them together.  I think they turned out pretty cute--the paper lanterns even lit up!

As often is the case, when you are busy "working" during an activity, you never get any pictures.  I only got two and neither of them do justice to the how the room looked.  We coordinated efforts with the other wards we share the building with, so we ended up with great wall decorations and puff balls hanging from a the ceiling as well.

To include the teenagers, who are a little too old for trick-or-treating, they were asked to provide a little entertainment and boy, did they deliver.  The Young Women did a flash mob to Michael Jackson's Thriller.  I worked with a couple of girls who choreographed a dance that we taught to the rest of the girls.  I thought it turned it well; they did a great job considering we only practiced once!

The Young Men also came through with their very own "Haunted Hallway."  This was the first time we have had a spook alley and I think it was a lot fun.  The guys really did a good job.  In fact, it was so good that the fire department came.  Yep, you read that right.  The fog machine set the fire alarm off.

Let's just say there was a period of some confusion as a blaring alarm deafened everyone and as some people evacauted outside.  At this point, dinner was finished, the Haunted Hallway was wrapping up and we were just getting ready for the costume parade, so we just decided to skip ahead to the trunk-or-treat.  All I can say is that you have to look on the bright side---I mean we got a huge firetruck with flashing lights and firefighters to come to our trunk-or-treat and now we all have a good story to tell.

Plus, this year our whole family dressed up.  Ashley was a medieval princess, Paige a princess bride, Dave was heavy metal headbanger, and I was a flapper.

Both girls came home with tons of candy that they pretty much tripled when they went trick-or-treating on Halloween night.  Our city sets trick-or-treating hours from 4:30 to 7:30 pm, which doesn't give you much time to get ready after coming home from school.  Halloween was also on a school night, so we ended up going out early to trick-or-treat first, then ate dinner later.  This year both girls went out with friends.  Paige and I stayed in our neighborhood and went out with one of her classmates and her mom.  Since I was with Paige, I have lots of pictures.  Paige dropped the "princess" in her costume and opted for the masquerade mask.  Her friend dressed up as Marie Antoinette--how cool is that?  I swear I want to dress up like that next year.



With a friend, both girls were willing to stay out longer to trick-or-treat
and brave the spooky houses.



 

As for Ashley, she went to her friend's neighborhood, so I don't have any pictures, but she had a great time and game home with a FULL bag of candy.  She also went to a Halloween party earlier in the week, so she got to wear her costume a number of times.

And if you were wondering, no I didn't wear my flapper costume around the neighborhood...too cold!