Halloween, Dominican Republic & Back To Miami

We were on the cruise for Halloween, and whilst I was sad to miss out on all the neighbourhood kids costumes we did get to see the ship costumes and people really went all out. Here is Godzilla singing karaoke to “I’m sexy and I know it”.

Kim and I went as Wilma Flintsone and Betty Rubble. Jen and Andrew copped out with Halloween t shirts but they were in the minority. We saw an Addams Family, a Titanic couple, Beetlejuice, Dracula, super heroes, Jasmine and a genie half in a lamp (that worryingly had writing across it saying “rub my lamp”).

The next day we saw a showcase of all the different towel animals they make (I got slightly obsessed with towel animals).

After Halloween we stopped at Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic.

Amber Cove is just a cruise port and shopping center which I think is a good idea because it must stop the island from being over run with tourists from the cruises.

They had all the duty free shops like the other ports but of course we had an excursion booked. Now it was seriously hot and we were all signed up to do zip lining but Kimmy chose to switch us to go to a luxury resort and I was glad she did because when we got off the ship the last thing I felt like doing was climbing about the trees in the heat but Andrew and Jen went zip lining and came back covered in bruises but they had fun. They had a lot of excursions where you could swim with dolphins etc but since the Blackfish documentary I’ve felt a bit wary about things like that.

Kim and I went to a luxury resort where it apparently was mostly time shares where people had these big luxury villas and each villa came with a golf cart to drive around the resort in. I thought time shares were a thing of the past but apparently not.

The beach was nice but lots of little stones and seaweed about the place.

 The beach bar had swings on it.

After a while at the beach we went to the pool which wasn’t very busy because apparently most of the villas have their own pools.

After that we browsed around the shops and headed back on the ship to a towel bear.

The next day was another day at sea, the highlight of which was the hairy chest contest where a series of men who didn’t seem to know what they’d signed up for got publicly humiliated for everyone’s amusement.

And that was it, time to go!

We left the ship in Miami and Jen & Andrew had organised a rental car for the day so we had a mooch about in a minivan that Andrew hated with a passion but also seemed to grow quite attached to by the end of the day.

Then it was back on the plane to Hartford on an evening flight. Have you seen this before? A water vapour air conditioning thing? I wasn’t sure if we were being gassed or if we were on fire (luckily neither).

So that was that, but we have our cruise souvenirs from Kim and I winning the Harry Potter trivia contest on the book case to remember the (mostly) fun times we had.

This is Halloween

It’s Halloween once again, time to head over to the pumpkin patch. Actually this year we went to a gardening store near us called Edmondsons. Some of the pumpkins were absolutely giant, I thought they were all decent ones but Kim circled them anxiously looking for “the perfect pumpkin” until finally she found one that “spoke to her”.

We also got a few gourds to decorate our porch.

And a door hanger that was 97 cents in Walmart, my mum got a matching one when she was visiting.

So then we got to carving, we bought a little kit with what looked like small hacksaw blades on a stick but they worked pretty well. Kim chose the largest pumpkin of course which she could barely lift.

The kit we got came with stencils which were really helpful and it all went OK except for an unfortunate breakage that I had to fix with a cocktail stick but it looks quite good still I think.

Also we had apple cider (hot apple juice, for actual cider Americans call it ‘hard cider’) and some spooky lights.

So yes, very festive, Kim was thrilled she didn’t mess hers up. Usually Kim picks a design that’s too ambitious for her motor skills then panics when it goes wrong so stencils are clearly the way to go.

On the night of Halloween we got 95 kids! Including a small ninja turtle who opened the door and walked right in to shouts of his mum going “no no you wait, you knock and wait, don’t go in!” and a group of zombie pre-teens who said our pumpkins were “so dope”. Luckily there’s still enough sweets to gorge on in packed lunches for a week or so.

Belated Halloween

I never posted about Halloween! So this is a belated post, Kim and I started off the Halloween festivities with a PSL (pumpkin spiced latte, duh!). And we carved some pumpkins too, I created a lovely slightly wonky owl.

And Kim butchered Harry Potter/a Minion.

 But we put the pumpkins out on Halloween and bought in sweets and only got one trick or treater, a little boy dressed as a skeleton who was extremely enthusiastic. I don’t know whether the parents of Great Yarmouth couldn’t be bothered to take their kids out but I do know that my packed lunches were very sugary for days after at work.

   The day before Halloween we went on a strange Norwich Ghostwalk with some of our friends after I found a Groupon offer online. It was a bit odd, I was thinking it’d be a bit more about historic parts of Norwich City but it was a bit more comical than that with ghost stories and re-enactments. It was a laugh though. And now that Halloween has been and gone and there are no more PSLs at Starbucks it’s onto the Christmas drinks.

Pumpkin Attempt 2014

I like to try and carve a pumpkin every year for Halloween so trick or treaters know they can come to my house for sweets.

I usually go for a face but I thought this year I’d up the stakes and so I googled a template.

Drew it on in gel pen and then set about gutting out the pumpkin.

Barclay the cat wasn’t loving the smell.

Then I set to work carving with a smaller knife. You know I should really get one of those kits with the special tools in… never mind,

Cat pumpkin is now in pride of place with a candle in to welcome children to my house (sounds sinister doesn’t it!?).

Also, on another note, I got carried away with the Christmas things in Marks and Spencer and so I bought a pack of dried mulled wine berries and cinnamon and stuff. Only I don’t like red wine so I’ve put it in apple juice to make hot spiced apple. Yum! Hurrah for Autumn!

Scaresville 2014

It’s Halloween soon… and for my annual Halloween activity some nursing friends and I went to Scaresville, driven by the very capable Jo. You might remember I went last year with my lovely chum Kiran and her work mates.

The unfair ground was smaller than last year but we all got dinner there (mm hot dogs), measured our heights (haha, Nancy’s a hobbit) and waited for our ticket numbers to be called.

And then we entered the queue to go to the stables, where there was a video before entering… the scare zone (it was really called that!).

The horror trail took us an hour and a half to get through, winding through out buildings, a hedge maze, woodland, farm fields, over bridges and into tents – all in darkness! I laughed so hard.

Here’s what my camera could see… (nothing basically). The tickets were just over £20 but it was really worth it, it felt like it took a really long time with all sorts of scares from clowns to people with chain saws, masks, hazmat suits… you name it. I did notice there were less scarers than last year but I think the scarers are volunteers so I suppose that can’t be helped and it probably varies night to night.

And then like last year you escaped the scare zone into the bar, sadly it was without the screen so you could watch other people getting scared but luckily it was still serving hot spiced apple so I forgave them.

Scaresville

I got a text late yesterday from my friend Kiran – do you want to go to Scaresville tonight? I wasn’t exactly sure what this was but I said yeah sure and so we took a long car journey down the windy country roads to….

Which is held at an old country manor house in the very expansive grounds and out buildings. It was a full moon (I’ll apologise now for the crap night time photography – awfully sorry) so there was a fair bit of light outside

As we arrived we got our tickets (pre order, it’s busy!) and waited for our group to be called for the Scaresville trail. They had an area to wait in called the Unfairground which was pretty fun, we took a photo with a creepy gypsy fortune teller

And then walked through, there were lots of food stands and fairground food like candy apples and popcorn etc

Along with spooky props and halloween music

They had a fire juggler and a ring master in a michael jackson-esque mirrored jacket and lime green bowler hat who called out the next groups to go through to the trail

And then you walked over to the stables part of the grounds and lined up in groups of 8, you had to stand single file with one arm on the person in front of you’s shoulder, one arm to feel the wall and ceiling, it’s pitch black in a lot of the trail which is a maze through the dark lasting for about an hour through buildings, forest, grass, hay bales – all sorts. It was great, I think I was pretty brave (I even went through the creepy clown tent first – get me!). But Max, Kiran’s much beloved boyfriend, bravely led us most of the trail though (although he had several incidents where he walked headlong into walls but this did not faze him).

The trail is full of scarers dressed up, sometimes you can see them, sometimes you can’t. The can’t touch you and you can’t touch them but they made us jump a lot! Scaresville sold pants this year because last year they had a few people wet themselves (and more besides that!). There were all sorts of scary things, including someone with a real chainsaw but I won’t give all the secrets away. Well worth a visit though. At the end of the scary trail (in which we were very much terrorised!) you come through to a bar which was very decorative and you can watch the other people getting scared on the monitors they use which was pretty funny.

Also they sold really tasty spiced apple (and mulled wine, shots, tea etc) which we needed for our throats after all the screaming and laughing. Beware, if you go with people you don’t know that well; you will become very well acquainted after spending an hour clutching them in terror!

Go and check it out they still have tickets – http://www.scaresville.co.uk/ and theres a funny video on there of one room of the Scaresville trail.

Pumpkin Carving

The boyfriend and I did the traditional pumpkin carve on Monday night.

We washed the pumpkins (I washed the pumpkins)

Then we I took great care scalping and gutting the pumpkins

I carved it with beauty and love

And then in went the candles, lovely! I’m working Halloween night so I won’t get to see any trick or treaters, we bought chocolate but I don’t think that many kids live near us. The boyfriend’s in charge of the sweets so I expect I’ll come back to no trick or treaters but all the chocolate gone!!