Haunting Your Yard!

Finally!

We needed a bit of recovery time after Halloween before getting back to it.  Our house is back to “normal”, Halloween is put away for another year.

But….how did Halloween night go?

This year we had 175 trick or treaters.  Add in the parents and we are guessing just over 300.  We weren’t sure how the Friday night was going to effect us.  It was either going to be bigger than usual because there was no school the next day, or smaller because of a Friday night high school football game and parents going to parties.

It seems as if the football game effected us (not as many older teens) and in general, not as many kids.  But it was a wonderful night.  Perfect weather, and everyone really seemed to enjoy the walk through.

As usual, we get so busy with the kids and parents that we don’t take as many pictures as we’d like.  But we did get a few with the fog.  The weather was ideal earlier in the evening to get a very nice fog rolling on the ground after running it through the fog chiller.

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween.  We’ve already got some ideas going for next year!

Halloween 2007 almost didn’t happen. We were so busy dealing with our little side business that it seemed like the last thing we needed to be doing. What ended up happening was that it turned into a nice distraction from everything else going on.

We had big hopes that another new, large “something” would be added. That didn’t happen. What did happen was new tombstones were made and other things, such as the pillars, were redone. Dylan made his first crypt - the above ground sort of burial plot. It was really the first time he’s done a project completely on his own. He’s old enough now to be trusted with the various tools it takes to cut and carve the foam.

He did a pretty good job and his final product turned out nicely.

The garage scene almost didn’t happen.  But we decided to go ahead and do something - but just use props we already had.  So we went with the mad scientist theme again, but went a bit more gory than we have before.  We had bodies in body bags hanging from the ceiling (interesting story regarding where we got the bodies, but I’ll save that for another post), beakers and body parts, etc.

Once again we had a party.  This year I went all out in the voodoo bathroom down in the basement.  Surprisingly, no one wanted to actually use the bathroom.   They all seemed a bit freaked out.  This was really one of the best areas and I have to figure out this year how to incorporate it into the outdoor thing - maybe the garage will become a voodoo room.  I think the thought of the unknown is really creepier than blood and gore.

This is an example where attention to detail makes all the difference.  I will write more detail about this in another post to give ideas on how to go about doing your own voodoo bathroom.

Halloween night last year was one of the few times where the weather was perfect and everything came together.  For our fog chillers to work (a contraption we make to cool down the fog after it is released from the machine) we need to get the fog colder than the outside air.  When this happens, the fog does not just disperse, but it rolls along the ground.  If there is no wind, it is one of the coolest effects you can have in your graveyard.

Last year all those pieces came together - no wind, perfect temp - I wish we could have captured it better on camera.  This year our goal is to do a better job of that.  I have a friend who is a professional photographer and I hope she can give us some good advice and tips this year on how to accomplish that.

So that brings us up to date!  From here on out we’ll write about how we are preparing for 2008, and also some information on how we built and put together some of our props and scenes.