Haunted House Trial Run and Halloween Night

Saturday, November 29

We got up the next morning around 9:30, got ready and basically headed out the door around 10ish.  We didn't eat any breakfast so we stopped at Safeway for Seahawk doughnuts and other snack foods to get us through out day.  We stopped at Ben's Espresso after finding some pants for Ben to wear for the haunted house at the Goodwill next door.  We were now on our way to Puyallup before Wendy called wondering where we were.

We got there and I expected Chris to have a lot of the plastic done like he said he was going to the night before.  We should have known.  Nothing got done outside that morning.  It frustrated us.  We all went outside and tried getting as much of the plastic done as we could.  A few hours later a bunch of people came over to help.

By 3:00 a lot of the walls, plastic and decorations were done.  We hung strobe lights, black lights, red lights, stapled chicken wire to the walls of the "padded" room with the straightjacket patient.   

We ate some food and did last minute additions before we got into our clothes and make-up.

We really weren't sure how many people would come through the asylum but we were going to soon find out.  We got into our spots, Ben and I were at the beginning of the haunted house so we got to see our victims before they started crying. 

An entrance fee was to bring a canned food item so they could donate it to the local food bank.  At the end of the night there were quite a few bags sitting in the box.  It was a great start to the weekend.

Not as many people came through as I thought there might be.  It was rainy, it was a Saturday night (a lot of people were probably at parties) and maybe some people just didn't want to come out.

Afterwards we all went into the house and sat in the living room with cider and shared our stories.  We talked about what worked, what didn't work and what we needed to change for Halloween night.

Halloween Night

On Halloween Ben and I had to work so I headed up to Puyallup after I got off of work.  I got there around 4:30 just in time to have some food and scramble to get ready for the evening.  Ben got off work at 6 so he would be late and we would have to have a stand in until he arrived.

We did make some changes to the set and some of the personnel were different since some of the kids would not be able to make it to both nights.  We had a short meeting in the living room of where everyone was going to be and the changes that were made.  Not major ones but some simple fixes to make the experience for us and our guests better.  Wendy told us that the first night we actually made one little kid pee his pants.

I remember getting onto my platform to scare some children and we had another girl standing in for Ben.  An adult couple came in and was so taken by surprise with the girl doing Ben's job, one of the ladies actually punched the girl in the boob.  I couldn't help but laugh.  We weren't suppose to touch them and they weren't suppose to touch us.  Occasionally a guest will touch one of us out of reflex.

Another time during the night I had some parents sacrifice one of their kids after they took a look at my face.  We had some children come in and start crying and wanted to be escorted out.   There were some adults come in and nervous laugh the entire time.

Ben arrived just after 7, got ready really fast and made his way to his hiding spot.  A lot more people screamed at him because of his face.  His face was pretty creepy in the dark.

We had more people on Halloween night but probably could have had more if it wasn't raining.  No one really wanted to stand outside and wait their turn and get soaked.  Part of my area started getting wet from a leak in the ceiling.  We wrapped it up around 8:30 when we started getting less and less people wanting to come through. 

Again, we picked up our stuff, returned Wendy's costumes to her craft room and sat in the living room to share stories.  I had to cut that night short because I had to head home and go to bed because I had to work the next day.

Overall it was fun and I can't wait to see what our theme is next year.

Next Adventure:  Seahawks and Some Rainier100 Caching

Setting up the Haunted House and Some Geocaching

This year we actually got to do our haunted house in Puyallup.  The planning/building began the first weekend in October.  We decided to do last year's theme (which we didn't get to do because of the weather) of insane asylum.  We basically had everything except some of the small projects and the actual build out in the back yard.  Wendy showed us the plans and which rooms contained certain props.  She also shared where the actors were going to be.  I saw my costume and where I was going to be in the asylum.

For the next few Wednesdays, Ben's day off, he drove up there to help them get the walls ready and the other small projects that involved cutting wood and painting.  I was at work so I didn't really get to see what they got accomplished each time.  This was going to be a more involved haunted house than the previous ones. 

Ben had several days off at the end of October to get the build out ready.  He actually spent the night at his mom's house a few nights so he didn't have to drive back and forth from Lacey.  After work on Friday I headed out to Puyallup.  It wasn't raining so I picked up a few caches along the way.  The first one was out towards Elk Plain down Hwy 7.

Let's Talk About It (GC6FKKA) was down a side road surrounded by a fence.  I wasn't sure where it was going to take me exactly but as far as the logs went, it was an easy park and grab.  I found a place to pull over off the road and got out.  I found it hanging off of the power pole by a magnet.  Yep, an easy park and grab.  I signed my name and put it back as quickly as I could.

I headed towards Spanaway now on Hwy 7 and pulled over near the K-Mart so I could get Mushroom Tree (GC6HDHR).  This one was not hidden very well and I could see it from the Escape.  It was basically a small Altoid tin tucked near a rock under a tree that is shaped like a mushroom.  It seemed like a throw down cache and would probably get muggled a lot.

The next one, Lightening McQueen (GC6AVGK) was actually on the backside of K-Mart.  I made sure it was there because this one doesn't get found all that much.  I knew it was going to be a nano and the hint took me right to it.  It took me a few minutes to actually locate where the nano was.  It was a great moment when I saw it in the corner.  Yessss!!

I couldn't help myself I had to get the last one near the Halloween store behind the same complex.  G's Lamp Post #4 (GC6HDG6) was pretty hard to actually get without anyone seeing you.  I parked as close to the cache as I could to kind of shield the traffic from me.  I knew where it was and I had to get it out of the lamp skirt as quickly as I could while traffic wasn't stopped.  I signed the log and put it back just as quickly.  Now I had to get out of this congested area and head to South Hill.

I got there around dinner time because they had just taken the pizza out of the oven.  I grabbed two pieces and sat on the couch.  We talked about work and other random things.  I saw how much they didn't get done today.  I thought they would have been further along.  I helped Wendy work on some small projects inside while Ben and Chris worked on the walls.

By 9:00 I was getting antsy to head to his mom's house and start winding down for bed.  I know they wanted to get as much done as possible but they had all day to work on it.  We stayed until 10 and I was getting tired.  When we finally left and headed to Bonney Lake, it was around 10:15.  We told them we would be over as soon as we got up and had some breakfast.  We had a lot of work to do the next day and I hoped we had more help than just the 5 of us. 

I got a shower and we watched some TV as we winded down.  We chatted with Trish and Amy for a bit.  I needed to go to sleep since we had a long day the next day.  I was so done with Friday.

Next Adventure:  Haunted House Trial Run and Halloween Night

Pumpkin Carving Game Night and the Seahawks Tie

This month we decided to do a day pumpkin carving game night on a Sunday afternoon.  All of our Saturdays were full so I had a great idea to watch the Seahawk game while we carved pumpkins.  Later on during the month, I looked at the schedule again and was like, we can't carve pumpkins during the game...it's a Sunday night football game.  Whoops!  I guess we were going to carve pumpkins and then go home to watch the game. 

We all decided on having tailgating type of foods on our Facebook group discussion.

Ben and I got up that morning late like we always do.  Since we both get up really early for work during the week this is the only time we get to enjoy sleeping in.  Sometimes we sleep in too long.  We've been really busy and he has been going to Puyallup on Wednesdays, his day off, to help with the haunted house.  We ran out of spare time so he wasn't able to get a pumpkin yet.  I asked him which patch he wanted to go to for a pumpkin to bring over to Celeste's.  We decided upon Hunter's, which is right down the road from us plus it was on the way.

It was busy!!  But we assumed that everyone was trying to get their pumpkins before the Seahawk game later on that day.  We found a parking spot and walked towards the entrance.  We've never been here before so we had no idea where to go.  This was definitely catered more towards children.  There were goats you could pet, a pumpkin sling shot, tractor rides, a slide, food, stuff for sale, it was crazy.  We just wanted to know where to go get a pumpkin so we asked one of the workers.  We grabbed a wheelbarrow and saw Ben being weird with it and smiling.  I turned around and there was Isaac and Celeste! 

We walked down to the patch together and talked about various things.  These pumpkins were on steroids!  Their stems were huge!  Isaac, Celeste and Ben all picked out a pumpkin and we took it back to the check out. 

This place doesn't weigh them but compares their sizes to other pumpkins with prices on them and that's what you end up paying.

We took them to our vehicles and told them we would see them in a bit since we were going to Celeste's house.  We stopped at Safeway in Yelm along the way because Ben needed some food.  We ended up getting some doughnuts.  They were delicious.  We got to the house way to early.  I thought it started at noon instead of one.  Whoops.

We helped them prepare some of the food and everyone started to trickle in.  I was really excited to carve my pumpkin.  We have this running joke every year about our Facebook group's cover photo being seasonally appropriate again since we only change it after we carve that year's pumpkins.

Nicole made a very tasty Halloween dip, Celeste made her famous jalapeño poppers, I brought cupcakes, Megan made some buffalo cauliflower and we all brought our own drinks.  Everything was tasty but we really wanted to get onto carving pumpkins.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to carve so I looked through my phone for various patterns.  I found a simple one that wouldn't take very long to carve.  Nicole was done really fast so she got bored waiting around for everyone to finish. 

Ben took the longest because he couldn't decide and he took a long time carving it.  We didn't get to any games because carving took up most of the time and everyone really wanted to get home to watch the Seahawks vs. Cardinals game.

We left just before 5 and Del and Nicole followed us to our house.  We still had to pay Del for letting us buy tickets to one of the preseason Seahawks games in September.  They stayed for a few minutes while I fumbled with our computer to get the game on.  We missed kickoff but we still made it close to the start time.  Del and Nicole still had at least a 15 minute drive to her house in Tumwater.

We watched the game.  High anxiety.  Our offense played like garbage but our defense played phenomenal.  We went into overtime and had several chances to win it.  There were two missed field goals at the end that cost the game for both teams.  We ended up in a 6-6 tie.  I sure hoped that did not factor into post season.

Next Adventure:  Setting up the Haunted House and Some Geocaching