Stroke of Midnight

Our Halloween Nerd and Halloween School Teacher did not put their head onto their bedroom pillow until Midnight. Last night we partied at a Haunted House themed annual Halloween party.
The three girls, who have been known to be the ones that have not appreciated the scare and gross in the past, must have felt some sweet revenge coming in way of the prior party planners as the three planned a true Haunted House. The parents were surprised they planned that scary of a party.

Take into account that my pictures were taken after the tour, while the lights were on and the scare was over. But imagine the pictures in the correct format in a pitch black room with only strobe lights or candles or other spooky lighting marking your way. We video taped our tour, and if I can get it sized down, I might be able to show that on another post.

After I literally dropped the girls off yesterday, my mom shared with us that the girls went through their Haunted House (which was made throughout the upstairs of my parent's house) to practice and get their details organized. The Girls Were Even Scared Of Their Own Plan!! So they cut a few things out, like the overly creepy music. Whew. They played that later for us while we were all chatting downstairs about our upstairs experience. It brought goose bumps to the moms!

So their main event consisted of our Vampire Tour guide led by Cousin A. She did a fantastic job talking very calmly, very solemnly, and she moved perfectly slow so we just never knew when we'd be jumped at, or poked at, or grabbed. It was fantastic.

Cousin M was a slimey Skeleton Swamp character who fooled every tourist because she sat perfectly still in this rocking chair at the top of the stairs. Perfectly still that we thought it was just clothing and a mask in a chair. Until she slowly moved forward toward us. Creepy!!

A sparkling skeleton was sitting on the toilet, the Mad Scientist that drank the wrong potion that he created in his bathroom lab and didn't make it out the door. The arm moved as you were trying to get a piece of candy treat from the bowl (no pun intended) that was left sitting on his lap. At first I thought the arm was mechanical, until it started moving perfectly to block my reach. Then I thought that perhaps Cousin A was moving it by a string connected to the door, but she was holding perfectly still. The shower next to the toilet was completely covered in black landscape fabric, I thought for a more eerie effect, but really it was to hide my now giggly daughter who was controlling the string that was attached to the arm from behind the shower door. Brilliant.Our Vampire tour guide led us to a Funeral Home that had a lady laying on the bed (aka: a doll wrapped up with a dead rose upon her). We stayed there for a few moments with the door closed, paying respects and saying our prayers for Dear Sweet Mary. We stayed. And stayed. My SIL under her breath kept asking, "So, is she gonna let us out of here?" Then there came a knock on the door (the signal) that our time at the Funeral Home was over. We walked to the final room, the biggest room upstairs, that was all creeped out with flying broomsticks, talking monster heads hanging from the ceiling, a crime scene investigation tape of a body on the floor, goolish faux drinks and food, cob webs, a small television playing Tim Burton's Corpse Bride movie, and two characters dancing slow and moving towards us ... the themed room was the Night Club with a Werewolf (my sweet daughter turned not) and Cousin M in her creepy Skeleton Swamp Costume.
The boy cousins went first together through the Haunted House, followed by the remaining two girl cousins, followed by the three moms, and finally the three dads. Then my SIL encouraged my parents to go through the Haunted House. She was genuine, afterall they had worked so hard all week setting it up and helping the girls, that it would be fun for them to go through with the Tour Guide to see how it all worked. They did. And while they went up the front staircase, the three husbands decided instantaniously to play their dirty trick of scarying my mom, and ran up the back staircase to hide in the Night Club room. That left the three moms downstairs wondering if this was such a good idea. One; my mom could really freak out! Two; our sweet girl party planners would have no warning and would also be scared. It was too late to intercept, so we waited for the screams. And waited. And waited. And Bingo!

My husband had opened the attic door and just had his video camera (on night vision effect) peering through the door jam, which apparently my mom saw and questioned, just as the desk chair that was in the room started to swirl around (thanks to my BIL), and just as my brother came out of the closet door. All perfectly timed as if they knew for days prior how they were going to pull it off. Our girls were scared, but not as, I must say, as my mom.

The strike of midnight came and my Nerd and Schoolteacher crawled into bed, asking for our hall table lamp to stay on all night, just because.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for a fantastic, frightening, fun Halloween Party.
Girls ... You made it Rock!!