Well, although we spent a ton of time getting ready and planning this year's new decorations and costumes, the trick-or-treater turn-out was terrible.  In previous years, we'd get anywhere between 75 and 150 kids/teenagers coming to our door.  This year, we got about 20... and that's estimating on the high side, and including the adults.  We still had fun, though.  The pumpkins are listed in order:  Tan, Erica, Tess, and Eliza.  Eliza drew the face, and I carved it for her. 

Harris and Linda came down to see the festivities as well.  Thanks to Harris, I have decent pictures of my costume.  It's difficult to take pictures of one-self in a costume like this.  Harris and Linda also helped scare the few kids that came to the door.  Frightening small children can be very addictive.

Well, this was a very busy year and we only had a few weeks for preparations.  Tess wanted to be a mummy.  Eliza was a pirate, and I decided that I needed a new "scare costume" because the kids have learned to look for the guy in the bushes with the black cloak and grey mask.   My costume this year was "The Gatekeeper" whose design is mostly pulled from the creatures in M. Night Shyamalan 's "The Village".  It's not really supposed to be the same creature, but similar.  It worked out well... many small children screamed, and some adults, too.

I finally got around to building a fog chiller out of a big cooler and lots of sheet metal ducting, but when I went to power up my fog machine, it stopped working.  A phone call to tech support yielded almost no help, so I broke out the tools and dismantled it myself.  I got it working for about 2 hours, then it stopped again... so no fog this year =(

On another note, we promised Tess that she could actually Trick-Or-Treat this year.  In years past, we took her to the 8 closest houses and then rushed right back home so we could prepare to scare kids that came to our house.  This is a big dilemma for us; Halloween is only 1 day, and you can't be out taking your kid around to strangers' houses AND be at your house trying to get strangers' kids to pee themselves - like I said - big dilemma.   Erica had a great idea.  The plan was to take the kids to a "Trick-Or-Treat Street" that takes place on the preceding Saturday!  The plan was perfect.  Tess was satisfied with candy from a different day, and we get to scare kids without interruption.  BUT - things didn't go as planned.  The Saturday event in Salisbury was canceled due to "possible inclement weather".  What the hell, man!  It didn't even look like it was going to rain.

Anyhow, Erica quickly scoured the internet for other possibilities and we ended up driving to Rehoboth, DE for their annual SeaWitch Festival Parade.   Luckily, the event runs until midnight - so it wasn't a big deal that we got there around 7:30PM.  It was a big hit - we're definitely going back next year.

Tess wanted to be a witch this year for Halloween, and Erica spent a lot of time and effort in building this costume to make it just right.  Tess had a great time Trick-or-Treating in our neighborhood, and then we rushed back to the house to scare young children and hand out candy. 

This year, we didn't get as much done as last year.  I was working a lot in October, and things just didn't get done as quickly as we had hoped.  I still didn't make the fog chiller that I wanted to; but it was a little windy this year, and all my fog ended up blowing away anyhow, so no big loss.  I'll have a fog chiller next year.

Tess is so thrilled about being Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz this year.  She's watched the movie dozens of times and knows most of the lines.  Yes, we let her watch the same movie over and over again.  Sometimes we just rewind it and push "Play" over again.  We've also got some great new decorations this year!  The Cemetery is a new addition.  I've constructed a faux fence with 1/2" dowel rods, some trim wood from the lumber store, and cast iron finials purchased on eBay.  Painting the fence was such a pain.  I ended up buying one of those Wagner Power-Sprayers and several gallons of black paint from Walmart.  Did you know that the paint department doesn't make black paint?  What they call black is just a really dark grey.  I'm not sure how I expected them to take a can of pure white paint, add a few ounces of color, and end up with flat black... but it was close enough.  It turns out that the "black" latex house paint is almost exactly like the "black" spray paint you get off the shelf. 

Lots of work, Erica also gets tons of credit for finding our life-sized ghouls and demons.  Tess likes them a lot, too.

Monsters Inc. was the big movie of the year, and Tess was a perfect fit for Boo.  Tess's costume was almost entirely made by none other than myself.  We found some huge shirts that matched the color, and then I made the long shirt and tights.  I didn't make the socks - those are from WalMart.  Erica is sporting a two-part white dress that I made for her.  It's a tailored slip underneath, and a shear gown over top.  That's her in someone else's graveyard below.  We also got creative with a few pumpkin designs; Erica made the devil woman pumpkin and I made the Linux pumpkin.  This was my first year with a "scare costume".  I covered myself in shredded black cloth, hid in the bushes next to the front door and scared people as they came to the door.  Many screamed, some laughed, a few cried... one little girl wet herself, I think.  Ah... good times.