I Heart Halloween

For as long as I can remember I have loved loved loved Halloween. When I was 8 I won a costume contest at my boyscout troops Halloween meeting making a killer Darth Vader costume using stuff around the house(with the help of mom and dad). I remember trick-or-treating from sunset to 9 at night on streets packed with other sugar crazed kids looking to fill pillow cases full of candy rations that would last well into the next year. Sadly (at least in my opinion) it seems like the tradition of trick-or-treating has died out. I don't know if parents think its just too unsafe or if church and community sponsored events are preferred but these days trick-or-treaters are sparse. I have decided that when I settle into a house somewhere I'd like to see the hood on Halloween night and use the level of Halloween spirit to gauge the sense of community, safety, and personality of the area. Call me crazy but living between the guy with a chain-saw dummy on the porch and the house with the hanging witch might be ideal. If people bring their kids to your neighborhood its because its safe, fun, and you don't give out candy corn. I haven't been able to trick-or-treat for a while now with my last trick-or-treat eligible year being tragically robbed from me by strep throat. But the great thing about Halloween is the post-trick-or-treat-era adult fun to be had is almost unlimited. This year Halloween was a ton of fun and despite having to work over the weekend I still managed to enjoy my favorite holiday.
Thursday night was our pumpkin carving party. Ever since the "Gould Method" of pumpkin carving was introduced to me in 2009 my pumpkins have been freakin awesome and this year I attempted my most elaborate pumpkin yet. Check out a few from years past.






This year Carolyns wicked witch and Quentins PinHead we're impressive. The zombie girl from The Walking Dead one was mine.


On Friday night a group of us went downtown to see Evil Dead: The Musical! The live stage show is an off-Broadway touring musical that features elements of all three Evil Dead movies with colorful and campy musical numbers intermingled. We had tickets in the "splatter-zone" where we were continually sprayed with stage blood as the demon killing action unfolded. Good times.
Saturday night a group of us drove up to Solvang to visit the Theatrefests' Haunted House. The line was long but it ended up being worth it. As we walked through the maze of grave-yard scenes and all-too-dark hallways I was sure to gently nudge Carolyn uncomfortably close to any scary character actors that we encountered. After that, we headed over to Sort-this-out cellars to check out some live music and have some wine. Carolyn and I had our palms read at the party and (spoiler alert) the fortune teller predicted 2 maybe 3 kids for us. She seemed kind of iffy on vet school telling Carolyn we wont be leaving Santa Barbara for a while yet. According to the fortune teller Carolyn will achieve great success as a writer and go on to do book signings and reading all over.
Seth dressed up as an old man and I was quite proud of the make-up job I did. I was Johnny Cash and Carolyn was stunning as a swing girl.


Sunday was Zombie night with a new episode of "The Walking Dead" on AMC if you haven't seen the show you are missing out, its awesome. Sundays at 8:30 on AMC.
Monday night Carolyn and I are heading down to LA to see her favorite author read some of his scary stories while being accompanied by his wife, a musician. We are going in costume and it promises to be a great end to an epic Halloween. Here's a few costumes from years past in case you missed them. Happy Halloween!!! Mu ha ha ha ha.