Happy Halloween, last week...

I haven't gone trick-or-treating since about 10 years ago. Between hockey, game night, and growing up, I've not gone in a while. Well, this year I went! I didn't actually get candy, but I got dressed up with the family and we all walked around while Nikki and her friend got candy. It was great fun and I'm really glad we all did it.

Shannon and I were in Wichita for the weekend, Jayme played with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (cool!). Shannon, Mom, Sandra, Charles, Nikki, and I went on Saturday night. Rhonda watched Keagan at Mom's house while we went. It was pretty good. I haven't been to a show like that before. I'm glad I got to go, and even glader that my little sister played in it.

For Halloween, Mom broke out her boxes of costumes from over the last 15+ years. She's still got so much! My mutant Rainbow Brite costume is there (I made in 1996), the hood from the radioactive green squirrel (I made in 1998), and dance costumes, and more! Mom wore her renaissance dress, Jayme dressed as a witch.


Shannon, Keagan, and I wore pirate gear.


Charles dressed as an out of work fairy. He wore random parts we found (zombie shirt, silver pants, and fairy wings).


Nikki was Clifford the big red dog. Jayme made her a cute costume and painted her face. It was fun to walk around.


One of Mom's neighbors goes all out for Halloween. Music, lights, decorations, the works. It's pretty cool.

Opah!

This past weekend we saw a lot of our friends and family. We ate dinner with Andy, Rusty, Mom, Jayme, Charles, and Nikki at Firkin Bull on Friday evening. Then we drove through to Manhattan. There we saw Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, and Chris. Shannon and Chris got to go to the K-State game Saturday night with Michelle while Jenette and I stayed behind. We sewed and Rhonda made us a good steak dinner!


Then Sunday Shannon, Rhonda, Michelle, Chris, Jenette and I dressed up and got in Rhonda's new van, drove to Bonner Springs and spent the day in the 16th century.





We met up with Newgen and Andrea. Mom, Jayme, Charles, Maria, and Nikki came a little after that. It was great fun. We went to the tea again. The gypsy son's danced on the table for us. That was fabulous, in an awkward way.

Shannon went as a pirate, as did Maria. She wore Jenette's costume. Rhonda, Jenette, Jayme, and I went as girls in dresses....or ladies of the court. Michelle and Mom were gypsies. Chris was a steam mechanic. Charles wore Shannon's alchemist costume, and Nikki was a fairy. Jayme made her cute costume.

After, we got out of our costumes and ate a satisfying meal at Johnny Carino's with all 13 of us.

I must say these pics are not taken by Shann and I. Our camera died. These are all from Rhonda and Jenette. Thanks!

Costumes Part I

Rhonda made her own outfit. She was a lady of the court. As the rest of us, she's worked on it since this summer. We bought the patterns and fabric at JoAnn's pretty early (they were having a sweet sale 1$ McCall's patterns).


The coolest thing is all the work Rhonda put into her costume. She sewed on a lot of detail by hand. Check out the pearl beads on the skirt and bodice, the border of the bodice, the hair piece. Even her sleeves have some beaded goodness. I helped her hem the dress, but every thing else she did. :)


Chris also made his own costume. As far as I know, he made it all himself too. He was a vampire hunter.


He also has a cape to go with the costume. But his picture shows off his detail work (of which there is a lot). There was a lot of leather work that he did. He got pretty good at it too. He made some really neat things for not only himself, but Jenette as well.

I don't have a very good picture of Jenette's costume. Maybe after I look at their pics I will :). She went as fairy and tried to make it a pretty realistic one. As with Chris' costume, Jenette had a lot of detail .


She had fairy dust, cicada wing earring (made by herself), butterfly wing chain on her belt (made by herself), a light up fairy in a jar (made by Chris), and a plethora of other good things! For her wings, they decided to use boning to keep them stiff, but not sticking out. She found some really neat glittery-woody fabric to use. They were attached to her wrist bands so when she moved her arms, they moved too.

These three guys had really neat costumes. They put a lot of work into them and worked on them for a really long time. They came out really cool.