Yet Another Monster Mash

The weekend before Halloween can only mean one thing, America. . .

It is once again time for the Hough's Annual Halloween Party.

This ended up being our third go-round with this, and definitely not our last.  We went a little overboard this year, adding significantly to our Halloween tote stockpile, and purchased additional items to help with the party's 'atmosphere,' if you will.  Colored lighting, a fog machine, creepy video looping, additional interior - and exterior - decor, etc.  I'm sure in a few years our Halloween tote count is going to rival our Christmas tote count.

Anyway, folks had a great time, there was a crap-load of awesome food on hand, and we once again solidified our status as the go-to costume party of the Halloween Season.

Behold. . . the Third Annual Hough Halloween Monster Mash.

Like last year, BP and his family came up a few hours early so him and I could catch up and visit before I had to put on my Hosting pants.  He brought up a slow-cooked pulled pork that was awesome (and appropriately named 'zombie flesh.')

The Study is the designated Husband zone of the house whenever we have parties, and sure enough all the dudes could be found in here throughout the night.

Preparing zombies.

This year, like in the past couple of years, we let the girls pick out our family's costume theme.  Alayna was set on Ancient Egyptians, and eventually was able to get her sister to go along with it.

I assisted in this effort by showing the girls Youtube clips of famous female pharaohs from history, and they pounced on the opportunity to dress up as their favorites.  Alayna decided to go as Cleopatra.

Watching the shredding of zombie flesh. . .

While zombie flesh was simmering in a crock pot, and all the females in the house were busy with costumes and make-up, BP and I worked on fixing the hack-job I did on my SNES Classic.  As I told you before, this baby cost something like $80, but was rarely in stock.  I was fortunate enough to nab one last spring, and, despite the fact that it came pre-loaded with 32 classic SNES games, BP showed me how to hack the machine to load hundreds of more on it.  I did this last summer, but for some reason my uploaded ROM files from the NES, Sega Genesis, and GameBoy Advance systems wouldn't play.  After an hour or so of working with it, we were able to upload a few more, but ultimately we couldn't get all of them to work.  Still, I ended up with about a hundred or so SNES games on it, which I'm definitely not complaining about.

Prepping the craft table in the basement 'kid zone.'

The DeBoers prep for their photo op (Kris once again set this up in the basement.)

Abby (also known as Queen Nefertiti) is not amused.

The DeBoer Family, as the Super Mario Bros.

Nefertiti and Cleopatra.

Ramses II (more commonly known as Ramses the Great, greatest of all Egypt's pharaohs), Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and Queen Hatshepsut.  It helps when Dad is well-versed in Ancient History, having taught it for years.

. . . and featuring Watson.  We got our family's Halloween pics out of the way before all the guests began to show up.

As always, the Halloween spread this year was pretty insane.  This is what Pinterest does to moms. 

The Youn Family, as The Little Mermaid's Ariel, and some dude from Minecraft.

Our next-door neighbors, Dave and Sherri, at far left, showed up this year, which was cool.

The Larson Family, as the Odd Squad.

The Circle of Dads, deep in low-brow conversation. . .

The Kyro Family, as Pac-Man (and a dinosaur.)

Kris and Courtney

The Charles Family, as a Star Trek medical officer. . . aaaand a unicorn.

The Order of Moms.

Inflatables are HUGE these days.

 

The Johnson Family, as Medusa and her victims.

This is about the best couple picture we had from the night.

The Shepherd Family, as characters from Grease.

Maddie and Sophie.  I ended up wearing my hat like this a good portion of the evening, because the way it's supposed to be worn, I had no peripheral vision whatsoever - I was bumping in to all kinds of stuff.  By the end of the night, I was just wearing my trusty Rancid trucker hat around.

The Davis Family, as. . . who the hell knows.  Bunch of random stuff, I guess.

The Mom Zone.

Photobomb, courtesy of Andrew.

The Collier Family, as random characters from Hotel Transylvania and Thomas the Train.

No idea what Cristy is doing here. . . I didn't take this, Kris took most of the cell phone pics.

Pete and Andrea danced along to the whole number of 'Summer Lovin',' which was blasting on the Alexa in the kitchen.

Then there was some Sir Mix-a-Lot going on in the living room.  After a couple hours the party was definitely pretty random.

At some point in the night, Alayna grabbed Kris' phone and some selfie stick Kris won at Kroger (long story), and took a series of pictures with her friends. . .

See ya next year, kids. . .

- Brian

Family Picture Attempts, etc.

As you may or may not recall, during this fall's great Back to School exodus, Abby was forced back into a classroom full time.  As such, she's been required to participate in more of the everyday hooplah that goes on there throughout the day.  Earlier in the week, when picking her up, one of her teachers told me that they needed a family picture for something they were going to be doing in class.

I passed on this request to Kris, who, upon going through her iPhoto library, discovered that we hadn't had a family picture taken since June (remember this?).  So, in order to save face in front of a bunch of people we hardly know, we set aside some time in the afternoon to take a Hough Family Portrait.  Check it out below.

Oh yeah, and there's some other crap that happened this week, too.

Enjoy. . .

More Ukulele lessons.  The Cannonball's got the 'C' chord down. 'Smile for the Camera' face?  Not so much.

Alayna wanted a picture taken with her and her newly-constructed pyramid. . .

What's bizarre about this is that she told us she was going to build an Egyptian pyramid, then proceeded to do so.  I was impressed . . . but didn't have the heart to tell her it looked more Mayan than Egyptian.

The Houghs.  Celebrating Mediocrity Since 2008.

Abby's new favorite thing to do is scream at passing cars and pedestrians from my Study window.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - the kid's personal favorite.

Abby prepares to call down the wrath of Ragnarok.

Throwback couple picture likened to those from that short period of time before we were controlled by miniature people.

Pedicure time.

Kris' turn.

Weird faces.

Kris gets an earful. . .

- Brian