festive-ly yours

I'm a pretty big fan of fall and Halloween. And food, and hayrides, and hanging out with people, and costumes. Therefore the latter 2/3rds of my weekend was a lot better than the first third. Whew. I'm as relieved about that as you are.

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent in a nearby-ish town (Washington, Ga, anyone?) at a Fall Party/Chili Cookoff. Several families that go to our church live in Washington (meaning they drive over an hour to get to church...THAT is dedication), and one of the families happens to live on this really old, really ridiculously awesome farm. Their farmhouse is (guessing here) maybe 100 years old?? And SERIOUSLY...their house is like the Pinterest Dream Home. Like all that crap you're pinning on Pinterest and will never, ever do...and if you did, it would probably look weird and out of place in your otherwise-not-crafty house? This is the place all those ideas came from. I think it's the original crafty-and-repurposed-decor house. It's ridiculously envy-inducing. (One of my friends confessed how she deals with her jealousy of this home: "Well...sometimes they have mice. And so just when I'm about to die with jealousy of their house and hatred of mine, I just have to focus on that. THEY HAVE MICE! And I think about the mice, REALLY think about that...and then I feel a tiny bit better about my own house." Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. I use variations on this same technique when I think about people who are pregnant or have babies.)

Right, so, Fall Party. You have probably figured out that I get excited about the annual Fall Party out there halfway because I like fall and chili and stuff, and halfway because I can snoop around the awesome house and think of stuff I could do if I ever owned a 100 year old farm. 

 The house I speak of. There's Matt walking up the front steps...he looks natural there, right? So we should probably start thinking about buying a really old farm somewhere so that we won't have to creep around other people's.

 The outdoor dining area. Naturally, they have 28271 different kinds of tables and chairs. Who doesn't, right?

  Then, just for the fun of it, they decided to make a REAL LIFE "Angry Birds" game! Because who doesn't just have a humongous slingshot laying around? So they set up the slingshot on this hill, and down in the pasture below set up various things to knock over (buckets on top of posts) and huge pieces of plywood with the pigs painted on them. We used water balloons and launched them at the obstacles. It was pretty awesome. Oh, and they had the music from the game playing over the sound system! It was so funny to watch when new people arrived at the party...after a few minutes, they were like "is that the music from Angry Birds? Why do I hear that?" (because you couldn't see the slingshot, etc., unless you went looking for it). So in the picture above, there I am giving it my best shot (literally). Unfortunately, I'm not really any better at Angry Birds in real life than I am on an iPad. Oh well. It was still fun.

Matt got picked to be a chili judge this year. Here, he and the other judges are hard at work.

 After the sun went down, we enjoyed sipping coffee and listening to live music in the perfectly chilly night. We also enjoyed listening to the score updates from the Georgia-Florida game, and had fun celebrating with the whole crowd when we won. Go Dawgs!

So Saturday night was pretty perfect. Then next came Sunday. (Surprising, right?)

On Sunday night our church had our annual Costume Bowling party at a local bowling alley. It's always a fun event (like the time we dressed up as old people, remember?) people usually go pretty all-out with their costumes. Bowling isn't really my best sport (come to think of it, what is?? Not Slingshotting. Not Bowling. Not anything that requires running. Ummm...is blogging a sport?), but costumes are one of my passions, so it all evens out pretty well. This year's costume didn't require much planning...a simple phone call to my mom (previously known as the Woman Who Created the Clown-Baby Costume) and it was done. Then I acted all mysterious for the next few weeks and wouldn't tell anyone what we were going to be. Gotta get people hyped up, ya know?? And then it was last night. And here is what we were:

I know, right?? What the heck ARE you??!!! Well...this. Back in the 70s, my mom sewed together two of my dad's Army fatigues (note my maiden name on the breast pockets) and made this...this 2-headed-Army-monster-sorta thing. And she and my dad wore it to a costume party. And then she saved it in the attic, because after you've done that much work...you never get rid of that thing!
 

Words wouldn't have done it justice if I'd tried to explain what we were going to be beforehand. This one you just have to see to believe.

 So we enjoyed marching around and bear-hugging people and just generally basking in people's awe and compliments. Oh, and we won first prize in the costume contest which garnered us a Jason's Deli gift card-- not bad for a costume that required literally NO work on my own behalf (other than getting my hair to stay in a side pony, which was a challenge).

 We even perfected our three-legged-bowling! Or not. When it came time to actually bowl, we stripped the costume off and bowled like normal people. Boring but safe.


We had a great time in that costume! I think that all people should be forced to share a costume like that with their significant other before marriage...there's just NO GETTING AWAY from the other person!! Which I apparently forgot, since on one occasion I actually (while we were still 'attached') turned to Matt and exclaimed "oh! Did you know that...[repeated something I'd heard a few minutes before]...?" and he looked at me with the biggest DUH on his face and was like "yeah...I am RIGHT HERE, I've heard EVERYTHING you've heard tonight..." Right. Of course.


So that was our festive weekend. Today my classes went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch, which is also festive, and now we're sitting here waiting for trick-or-treaters to take this candy away from us before we eat it all. Come on, kiddies, come on!!


Happy Halloween!