amy and jeem!  such a cute couple!

ditto about that for mom and dad!

jim patton is receiving his SPECIAL CHICKEN AWARD – you get it if you put the least amount of thought and effort into a costume.  maybe next year we should give it to somebody who is actually wearing a costume, but a lame one, instead of somebody in no costume at all.  last year debi iams won; she was wearing a halloween t-shirt, i think, that read “this is my halloween costume,” or something like that.  a couple of people were at the party wearing halloween sweatshirts – don and kayla – but they left before the special chicken prize was given out.  jim was very excited to get his prize, and says he is going to frame the certificate.

bill kept his very high heels on for quite a long time.

dani and bill.  i had no idea who he was, of course, till he took off his mask.

this card of gary’s reads “is it hot in here or is it me?”  i wish i’d taken the time to sit down and read all the cards…maybe he can tell me what they all said, or at least the really funny ones.

all the pictures with the fadey edges were taken by gloria deatheridge, and i’m so glad she took them.  i totally missed a couple of people.  i didn’t get a picture at all of one guy, jim leineke, and he was wearing a really good pirate costume.  maybe somebody else took one.

luda and moses arrived kind of late, but they looked like models as usual.  i’m not even sure how they found the place, because they didn’t get the first invitation i sent them, and the second one i sent just came back to me today.

keith’s tattoo shirt was really good.  he always goes all out, but maybe next year he’ll have the courage to be what he really loved to be…super scary.  i promise i’ll still invite him back.  we really didn’t have anybody scary this year, which made it more challenging to award a “scariest costume” prize.

john really needed a popeye hat.

one more picture of gena; her hair still looks purple in photos but light orange in the orange light.  he feathers looked really good, though.

now, surely, you can guess what randy is supposed to be?

a good shot of bill’s two different-colored contacts.  dramatic.

and here he is later, when he’d had enough of the wig.  i thought it was fun to wear my giant bride of frankenstein wig but i was very happy to take it off.

i mean, luda is TALL.

randy’s mom was sitting down most of the evening so i didn’t get a good look at her shirt.  funny.  i also like the fact that both dunhams are brandishing huge knives.

after the costume contest, lots of people left.  hmm, does this mean that they’re just here to see who wins?  or they’re hoping to win, and when they find out, then they leave?  does this mean we should have the contest later?  i don’t know.  there was still a group left to play pictionary, though.  randy thought up all the questions and he wanted there to be three or four groups of three people, and then he wanted two groups of three to play against another group, like elimination rounds, which meant that the other two groups would have to sit there and do nothing while the other two groups played.  this didn’t make any sense to me, but randy got highly indignant when i said that.  i know he’d bought three bottles of halloween wine for prizes, and i think that’s why he felt it IMPERATIVE that we play in these elimination rounds.

other people besides me also tried to explain that this wouldn’t be so fun for the people not playing, so pretty soon he started yelling OK DON’T EVEN HAVE ANY TEAMS JUST GUESS THE DAMN WORDS I DON’T CARE.

he will deny this and tell me he wasn’t yelling.  but he was.

everybody had a lot of fun anyway, except at some point in here kevin and i got really, really tired.  we started cleaning up, but they continue to play.  and play.  every once in a while i’d take a turn, and i think kevin did, too, except i’m not entirely sure.  finally they ran out of words and everybody left.

a good time was had by all.  that maybe be all the pictures, unless somebody sends me more of them.

and soon we go to tennessee, another short camping trip in the popup camper, only this time it’s going to be VERY VERY COLD.  mollie is already very excited about the trip.

ok then,

thursday morning grace hughes.