Monster Bash

We had a little Halloween party for our friends. Every single guest came in costume, perhaps due to the subtle hints included in the invitation. Jason sadly couldn't make it. But I met this awesome bass-ass long-haired drummer guy and asked him to be my date for the night. I was most proud of the kick-butt brownie graveyard. I came up with the idea from the internet and long-hair executed it with pizazz. Apparently myself and Jason are buried together (although I die first) and also Mitch Hedberg is buried just one row back. Hopefully that means we all hang out in heaven.

We enjoyed the company of old friends and new. About 18 people crammed into a tiny apartment. And zero noise complaints from the neighbors, so I guess next year we'll have to try harder. Jason put together an excellent Halloween music mix that included Thriller, heavy metal, and Nightmare Before Christmas and Dexter tracks. Some people visiting from Spain totally dug our pumpkin art piece.

Pumpkin Picasso

So after I posted that gloriously plump blank canvas, I'm sure you've all been waiting with much anticipation to see how this one turns out. Well, we started out getting our creative juices flowing by sketching out some ideas, and then we dove in. Since we had no Halloween music to listen to, I picked out the closest thing possible. That's right. Sheryl Crow's "First Cut is the Deepest."






So you know who is responsible for what travesty -- Jason did the right eye, nose, and eyebrows. I did the right eye and the mouth. Then Jason signed it. This jack with preside over our Halloween Party, the Monster Bash, this weekend.

Celebrating Fall

This weekend we went on the extremely terrifying Haunted Hayride at Sonny Acres in West Chicago. Just before we boarded that hayride from Hades, we picked out an orange canvas on which to express our imagination. The selling point, as you can see, is the superior handle. According to my bathroom scale this engorged gourd weighs 19 lbs. Although I am sure this is a crude overestimate considering how much this scale informed me I weighed only a minute previously.

Door County

Our first sunset in Door County. We shared this little cove with a bunch of ducks while we watched the sun drop below Green Bay on a perfectly clear evening. That night clouds rolled in and rained on our tent, but we woke up to a perfectly dry campsite.















We took a pleasant hike around Eagle Terrace where the limestone bluffs of the Niagara Formation meet the bay. We saw common mergansers, double-breasted cormorants, and even a Bald Eagle made an appearance to confirm that we were indeed on his terrace.















Fall colors were in full bloom.














Here's some of those common mergansers. They had red heads and liked to pop under water.















Here I am at the Eagle Terrace overlook. We actually had to wait a while for the massive crowd of people to move so we could get a clear shot. I can't blame them -- the view was amazing. Also amazing -- the lady bug infestation. If you look closely in this pic you can probably see at least a million of them.















Some fall color and a view of the bay.




















Here's Jason at Cana Island, lookin' studly.















Exploring the cliffs on one of our hikes. Jason checks the ceiling to make sure it is sound for our new waterfront cave home.

This is the U.S. Coast Guard lighthouse in Sturgeon Bay. We walked waaaay out on the breakwater and saw giant monster fish that could eat Chicago.