All Hallow's Eve

Halloween was not just one eve, but lasted a week for us this year. 

It started last Saturday at the annual Texas Exes Halloween party.  We grilled out at Paul and Alyson’s first before heading out to Covent Garden for the scholarship fundraiser.

Laura (a loofah), Alyson (a French kiss), Ali (soccer player), David (Jack Sparrow), me (Edward Scissorhands), Paul (Jesse from Breaking Bad), and Jordan (lumberjack).  In the first few pictures, I tried to be like David and stay in character, but after a few pics, I went back to smiling.  When we looked through all of our pictures later, David was in character in every single one of them!  That’s dedication!

Originally, David and I were going with a Tim Burton theme with me as Edward Scissorhands and David as Beetlejuice.  I ordered my costume first, and then David placed his order online a few days later.  When we were putting on our costumes Saturday before the party, David realized the crazy Beetlejuice white wig was sold separately… and he didn’t buy it.  Oops!  Without the wig, he just looked like Robin Thicke and I refused to don a leotard and go as a twerkin’ Miley Cyrus, so instead, David recycled his pirate costume from a few years ago and we did a Johnny Depp theme.

When Jordan told us that he was going to be a lumberjack, I thought, Lame!  Jordan’s from Alaska and wears plaid shirts all the time!  What’s the difference?!  Little did I know he would show up at the Tart’s with a giant homemade ax constructed out of cardboard and duct tape.

David dubbed it the ‘aprodiasax’ because the ladies loved Jordan’s costume!  And whenever someone got separated from the group, all we had to do was look up and find the ax to know where everyone was hanging out.

Kim, Mary Brandon, Frances, and I.  Thank goodness for my scissorhands.  Without them, I felt more like Kris Jenner with that ridiculous hair…

Laura won the Best Female Costume with her homemade loofah and bubble machine! 

Maybe David and I should have gone as Miley and Robin because these two won Best Couple’s Costume!

Best Male Costume, hands-down, was deadmau5.

Early the next week, David and I watched the classic Night of the Living Dead, carved our pumpkins, and roasted the seeds.  Whole Foods recently opened another store in Richmond in West London, and we had visited the week before to pick out our pumpkins and buy stencils.  After my first stenciled pumpkin last year in Connecticut, I wanted to show David how it’s done.

My Trick or Treat, David’s raven on a skull, and Kirby’s wolf.

On Wednesday, Jordan, Paul, Alyson, David, and I ate dinner at the new Shake Shack in Covent Garden (my new favorite burger place in London!) before seeing The Woman in Black.  I’d wanted to see the play since we moved to London, and Halloween week was the perfect time! 

For anyone that’s seen the movie, you know it’s scary as hell.  David saw the play when he was a kid living in England and was terrified, so he built it up for us.  The play was a play within a play, with the old man telling his story of his encounters with the woman in black.  It was very creepy and there were a few moments when I had to cover my eyes, but not quite as scary as the movie.

On Thursday, we stayed home and passed out candy to the kiddos.  And as in previous years, we had a ton of kids!  Our new neighborhood has even more children than our old one, so even though it was Fall Break, we still had well over 150 kids.  They would come in throngs, and after about 90 minutes, I ran out of candy!

David was on his way home from work, so I kept opening the door and telling the kids to come back in 10 minutes.  Finally, as I was turning away some children, I could see him pedalling home as fast as he could on his bike, his backpack overflowing with Mars bars!  Whew!

Once he got home, he dressed up as a pirate and Kirby had a wardrobe change.  Kirby’s costume this year was Indiana Jones, but David wanted him to be his ‘first mate’ so we quickly changed Kirby into last year’s pirate outfit.  They would open the door together and Kirby was such a good boy to sit there nicely and greet the children.

David is still in character...

Then Paul came over with Kirby’s girlfriend, Belle, and Belle got to wear Kirby’s Indiana Jones costume.  

David fears for our future children!

People were taking pictures of the dogs, our lanterns, and complimenting us on our cobwebs and pumpkins.  Almost every parent asked how we carved our pumpkins (I guess they don’t have stencils outside Whole Foods).

Belle welcoming the trick-or-treaters

Our favorite quote of the night from the trick-or-treaters was, “Are you American?”  David – “How’d you guess?”  Kids – “Because this is the best house on the block!”

But alas, even with the extra candy that Paul brought over, by 9:00 we were out again and had to turn away more kids.  We quickly took down all of our decorations and turned our lights off.  Then we watched Hocus Pocus, ate some chicken taco soup, and for dessert had brownies and homemade Butterfinger bars that actually tasted like Butterfingers but I will never make again because making candy is really, really tough. 

It was an epic Pinterest fail.  I thought it'd be simple with only four ingredients - candy corn, peanut butter, white chocolate, and brown sprinkles.  Nope.  First I melted some candy corn in the microwave, but I didn't check it every 30 seconds, so it spilled over the bowl and quickly hardened on the microwave plate.  While I was soaking the plate in the sink, I tried to melt the white chocolate in the microwave but apparently you need that protective glass plate or the microwave will start smoking…   Then it was impossible to cut the candy because it was way too hard, so instead of the perfect little Butterfinger bars from the pin’s picture, I had chunks of melted candy corn and peanut butter that looked more like peanut brittle.  And in the process, I almost cut off my thumb.  It seems that I’m doomed to have a horrible Pinterest fail every Halloween. :(

Oh well, it was still a great Halloween and now it’s officially the start of the holiday season with our Thanksgiving trip to Texas quickly approaching!!