Haunted House 2011

Halloween is David's favorite holiday.  He started doing haunted houses years ago in the Spring Valley Ward.  Some of those were a little over the top, and he's reigned himself in a bit.  But he is still known for his enjoyment of the holiday and willingness to help out.  Our friend Becky is the new Stake YW President and was in charge of the Halloween Dance.  She got David to be in charge of the haunted house.  Thank goodness there was a TON of help this year!  I didn't get too many pictures of the finished product, but thought it would be interesting to see just how much goes in to putting on one of these things. 

If it were me putting it together, I would just put plastic everywhere.  But maybe it's David's construction background that requires wood - a lot of wood - to build anything. 

And every haunted house needs a sewer to crawl through!  What a great idea!!  This is how they put the sewer/tunnel together.  Tables to lead them and plywood over the whole top.  Not sure what Don is doing there, but I'm sure he was working hard:)  Kevin & Eric also worked hard, screwing all the wood so it wouldn't topple.

Freddie Krueger welcomed the victims through the sewer. Jessica, Becky and I stuffed the monsters.

Here we are getting a little closer to being ready.  JR was the bloody victim getting his leg drilled.  He was so good at yelling "Help Me!" Bishop & Don were bloody construction workers with power tools chasing people into the sewer.

Jessica was in the tunnel and would scream as the visitors would crawl through.  When she screamed, all the girls would scream too.  That would trigger the floppy rat with red eyes. 

There was also a dead baby (prop) that you can see in the back of my car.  That was in the tunnel as well.  When people would crawl by it, it's head would spin and eyes lit up, and made a creepy noise.

The wooden box that you see has a hole cut out and a picture of Freddie Krueger is lit up as they come through the end of the tunnel.  There's a bat that activates that drops down and was pretty awesome too, and of course a few monsters in corners.  Kevin was in the last room with some sort of power tool (can't remember) scaring people as well.

As the people left the room, they were relieved that it was over...until they saw monster Ian with a chainsaw.  Screams and running out of the building!  Awesome!!!

It was a super busy day.  Lots of prep time for David, setting up from everyone for about 5 hours, and back at the haunted house and then clean up for another 4 hours.  Our only problem - too many power tools!!!  (saws, air guns, with tons of strobes, fog machines, and the big light on Freddie's picture)  We kept blowing fuses and had to try to get that worked out, so unfortunately there was about a 20-30 minute delay. 

There was great feedback and the youth had a lot of fun.  The adults were all exhausted Sunday, but smiling and having lots of laughs about the previous day.

The Wait is Over

Eric is such a good sport - in more sense than one.  He got his letter for swim back in May, but had to wait until October to finally get his jacket.  I'm so glad he's such a patient boy!  He's so excited to finally have it, and it's nice that the weather is a little cooler so he can actually wear it.  I'm so proud of him for achieving his letter his Freshman year.  What an accomplishment!!

Latest Project

It seems that everything goes wrong at once.  Things are breaking like crazy around here.  After getting the pool vacuum fixed, I noticed something laying in the bottom of the pool.  I thought "Kirby" broke again.  As I looked a little closer, I noticed it was actually a piece of pool tile.  We knew that we were going to have to fix these particular tiles sooner than later, but we weren't planning soooo soon, since David's been in the middle of a big project anyway.  That would have to wait, since we couldn't run the filter still.

   

 It's amazing how cold the pool gets after Labor Day!  He put on his wet suit and snorkel, drained some water, and got to work. 

 In between working on the tile, he cleaned the pool up a bit.

It's amazing how a little project can take so long, but he finally got it finished and our pool is filling up with the filter running once again.

Now back to his other projects that he's in the middle of, and the ones that haven't started yet.  Haunted House, VALT training and fixing the car, just to name a few.  He was really thankful to have broken his leg to get those 4 weeks off!  Always looking at the bright side, and soooo cute!