Dress Rehearsal

I've been seeing a lot of posts on various FaceBook posts of people playing with their skeletons, having them sit in lawnchairs,  wearing sombreros, stuff like that.  Since I already decided there will be a dance recital among the cemetery this year, I HAD to have a dress rehearsal!  

I texted Miss Angela on my way home from work yesterday and mentioned bringing the skeletons out to play.  As soon as I got home, she went digging out her old dance costumes (she's got them going back to 2002!!)  AND she dressed them all! 

 She hated this red velvet & feathered jazz outfit from 2012 - it still leaves a trail of feathers everywhere. The song she danced to was "All Dressed in Love".

 I caught her singing to "Lucy".  The "Stars & Stripes" ballet costume from 2011 fit surprisingly well.  There's a hat that goes with this one, but it'll need some pinning to stay on the skull.  Bobby pins don't work with no hair!

Appropriately, this tap outfit was to "Man with a Hex", also from 2011.

It's got a fedora-type hat that goes with it.

We laughed so hard trying to get this little hiphop outfit on!

(this is from 2007 - song was AM to PM).

This was last year's lyrical dress from "Turning Tables".

Since Angel finally has her driver's permit, we're going to go to my sister's house tomorrow so she can get some driving hours logged and a couple skeletons are going with us to play!  

I thought this was hilarious, but since we're not taking the Vue, I undressed them and put one in the trunk of my old Escort and the other is buckled into the back seat - I had to leave room for the dog!  My goal is to hopefully get one of the horses to allow me to sit a skeleton on his back.....!  And I really don't want to mess up the costumes or get them dirty so they are going naked. 

These are some pretty bright colored costumes.....I'll have to see how they look in the cemetery lighting.  I may have to drape them with white creepy cloth, but I don't know yet.  We'll see when set up starts!

Oakland Cemetery Memorial Park, Sandusky OH

Yay!  I'm finally getting around to posting my visit to the Oakland Cemetery Memorial Park, located in Sandusky OH.  

The first time I drove by this place was last summer when we went to Cedar Point - of course the family didn't want to stop, since they don't share my interest & fascination with cemeteries (booo!)  But this year, Miss Angela's dance team competed at a Nationals competition (go HERE if you want to read more about that) and it happened to be at Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky!   We were there from Tuesday and left Sunday so I had a couple chances while she was doing dance stuff to explore until my heart's content. 

My first thoughts were similar to a kid in a candy store - OMG! OMG! OMG! Where do I start? Look at that!  What's over there?  Then it turned to - holy crap, this place is huge, where should I start?!  I finally decided to drive to the back corner and kind of methodically work my way toward the front.

According to Find A Grave, there are 9653 graves and only 53% photographed!  And there is room for a lot more burials.  There are 4 famous people buried there - all US Congressmen. 

Some of the stones and monuments were HUGE!  Others were very unique and some touching.  I'm just posting a few of my favorites here and will include a link at the end to my Photobucket album - 234 photos in their unedited glory!

 I'd never seen iron stones before and there were several here.  

All were in German, also.

 The cement plaque in front reads "Santa Clara Camp II, USWV"  I thought this was the veterans section, but it was just for Spanish American War vets. 

Sort of unusual that they were separate and not even near each other.

 J. Roman Widner

1868-1921

 Faith Darla Miller - she's beautiful!!

April 6, 1902 - August 27, 1934

Each of the sawed off stumps was carved with "Father", "Mother, "Son", 

"Daughter-in-Law", etc.

This stone was enormous for such a tiny baby - he was obviously loved a lot. 

 I didn't see any rhyme nor reason behind the pink balls (heehee!)

They didn't seem to be placed at the 4 corners of a plot.

 Johnson's Island is "Ohio's Most Significant Civil War Site"

It's mostly residential now, but the Confederate Cemetery 

there is open to the public.

(and I missed it!!)

 This is just beautiful!

 You can see this from the road, on top of a hill - 

one of the things that caught my attention last summer!

 This set of books was probably 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide - 

the inside was carved with verses for the girls.

This is the main veteran's section.

The center was a lovely garden with benches 

and the stones formed 3 circles around it.

For some reason, this little guy stood out to me.

Maybe because he was only 6 years old and his stone 

was on a corner of a section, 

with no family around him.

 This was a family plot - for 4 babies, none of whom made it to 1 year old.  The last name (Feick) was carved on the base and the stone (with a tiny tree stump carved on top) had each baby's name and # of months old he or she was, but no dates.

Photobucket Album

Hobby Lobby, Christmas Tree Shops & more!

After a very dramatic / traumatic end to the week, I had planned on doing some browsing while Miss Angela had her last drive for drivers training Friday night.  I should have known that when both of us were getting calls from the same number (but no messages) that it was from her instructor.  Anyway, she didn't drive until today, so I was stuck with her for 2 hours that I hadn't planned.  When Angel shops with me, I end up getting more stuff for her than for me!

My planned route was to Hobby Lobby, then the Christmas Tree Shops, then to Garden Ridge.  We also went to Michael's & Old Navy (not my idea to go there!!).  I ended up going back to Hobby Lobby today, and also Pier 1 and the big flea market / consignment store that I like.

I made a few purchases, but mostly browsed. 

The Christmas Tree Shop is very similar is style to Big Lot - it just has a really dumb name.  They carry some neat stuff and most of it is really reasonably priced. 

 I'm still so tempted to go back and get this tree - it has the black limbs and LED lights on the ends - $19.99.

I love the Reaper & stones on the base!  

  I want to get this and put Barbie dolls in it - it's plenty big enough for several Barbies. 

I liked the Day Of the Dead photo holders.   $3.99 each. 

They're a decent size and fairly heavy.

 I got this guy and a couple Christmas ornaments at Hobby Lobby.  Now that I think about it....I may already have him.  They also had matching ones with sunglasses and bowties.  I also got something for my Secret Reaper (just got my victim today!!!) but I'm not showing that, just on the remote chance that this person reads my blog - ya never know!!  It was something I saw I knew would be perfect, but I need to do some creeping on them to get more ideas.  

Hobby Lobby had 1 side of an aisle with actual Halloween items and an aisle display with vintage looking pieces. And a lot of fall / harvest stuff and of course tons of Christmas stuff! 

I didn't get anything else from Garden Ridge.  I took some pics of Christmas stuff to post on the Christmas Fan Club Forum, but that's about it.  They still had a decent amount of Halloween stuff, but only probably half of what they had when I was there before.  Heehee, last year, Angel's ballet teacher saw my latest skeleton sitting in the car and she asked to use him for her class!  Apparently just this week, she was wishing she had him for class again! 

At Michael's I grabbed the Frankie nutcracker to go with the witch I got a couple weeks ago.  They have a vampire & skeleton, too, but I passed on those.  I already have 2 vampires and the skeleton was weird looking. 

At Pier 1, I grabbed these sparkly ornaments for my year-round tree in my living room.  I was disappointed that they didn't have any of the Day of the Dead ornaments I saw on their email.  I didn't get any pics of the display because it was right next to the registers and I didn't want anyone getting emotional at me. 

At the consignment store, I grabbed a bag of random jewelry for like $8.  Those copper pieces are what caught my attention - it's a bracelet that needs to be restrung.  Very cool looking!  And 2 fake pearl necklaces that can go on either Jayne in the cemetery or the dancing skeletons.  I'll decide later. 

I also finally bought this creepy baby photo from one of the vendors. It's been there for a long time. Old photos must not be in demand around here.  It's printed on a heavy piece of cardboard and only says A.P. Drew, Bracewell Building, Dover NH on it.  It'll be pretty cool framed. 

I also got a spider plant.  I think it'll be much happier near a window! 

I think it was a pretty productive weekend! 

 Now I have to put away all this stuff - it's taking over my kitchen table!