Holly crap, November is almost 2 weeks old!

Is it just me, or is time flying faster than it use to? 

 Is this an age thing?  Please tell me it's not an age thing!

I feel Halloween was a success.  It ended up being an absolutely perfect Michigan fall evening - in the low 50s when the sirens went off at 6.   The sun even came out for a bit that afternoon!   It got chilly when the sun went down, but there was no wind or anything.  Ideal!

We got about 45 trick-or-treaters and they were all polite & in costume!  I can't imagine being in one of those neighborhoods where they get 100s of kids.  You con't enjoy being on the giving end of something like that.  I like to see the costumes & reactions of the people coming up my driveway.  

My favorite costumes of the night.... a little guy who was a Waste Management garbage truck driver - complete with garbage truck!  Hilarious / adorable!  And the other has to be a neighbor, since he walked back so we could see his costume after dark.  He had glow stick necklaces taped to his arms & legs & body - he was a stick person!  He came by the first time before it got dark, since he was bringing a little one up to get candy.  We were laughing & asked him to come back - so when he did, thanks to lack of streetlights, we could see his stick person walking down the street!  Epic!

Last weekend was the Cemetery Removal of 2018.

By the time the afternoon school bus rolled by Friday (11/2) afternoon,
this is what they saw.

It took us approximately 5-6 hours each day, Friday, Saturday & Sunday to get the cemetery taken down & put entirely away.   We actually took it easy, since Randy hadn't been feeling 100%.  

We both took Friday off work, since it was silly to take Thursday off then go back to work Friday.  Anyway, I had a meeting Thursday night, so it would have sucked to work all day on the yard, then go to that.  As it was, I was out at 0600 Thursday morning (with a flashlight, in my pjs) taking clothes off the skeletons, since it called for rain.

Bettina helping out.

And it rained all day Thursday.
On my way home from the meeting late Thursday night, I drove down Tillson Street and I'd say over 2/3 of the houses were in some stages, if not 100%, taken down.  In the freakin' rain!
That's dedication.   We had no excuses!

Some stuff got staged inside the fence, until we got to them. 

Chuck having a word with everyone.
(the pony got moved - I promise I don't have 2!)

I came across the original Maple Grove sign!
How quaint!

Brr, a little chilly!

So, do you want to know where we put all this stuff?

The shed that holds our lawn mower also has the animal skeletons, the fence, the spool, the sign, the fenceposts and all the dowels & rebar

Speaking of - this is how the skeletons get stored.  Hanging from the rafters in the back corner of the garage.  This pic is from 2015, but the only thing that's different now is that I double up on the 3 foot guys so there's 2 on each rope.

Here's how I string them up.  I put a loop around the tailbone, another loop under the ribs and while this on has a loop thru the ribs, I now only put the 3rd loop around the neck.  That way it distributes the weight of the skeleton all down its spine instead of hanging all from the neck.

 We have a 4 foot deep add-on across the back of our garage. 
These 2 pics show one side of it.  It's most of the blowmolds (and 3 window a/c units).  The coffin is also on the bottom shelf, and is storage for the smaller detail items from the cemetery. 

Ignore the people in the red & white and also the bunny in the purple dress- I have blowmolds for other holidays, too.  They're about all the decorating I do for their respective holidays. 

The other side of the add-on holds the shack, as well as the patio furniture, etc. 

I didn't take any pics of the totes inside the garage.  There's a wall of them, also for all holidays. 

Jack likes to supervise, too.  But he's feeling the cold more in his old age, so he gets a cushion and shorter times outside with us.

So here's Ethel.  I laid her on top of the trash can to work on her shoulder, attaching the arm that is broken.  Damn if she didn't slide off & break the other one, too!  So both arms are currently ziptied on.  Let's see how that holds up.

I have a stray horse treat in my kitchen, I should have put it in this skeleton's hand!

Speaking of treats....

This happened Sunday night.
FYI - Culver's pumpkin pie shake is AMAZING. 
It tasted exactly like the best pie ever.

So now that I've kind of gotten a chance to slow down a bit & think...there's quite a few things I wish I would have gotten around to doing.  But like I said at the beginning of this post - time is just flying by!  There weren't enough weekends!!  And work kept getting in my way.  And the shorter days.  Wah wah wah.
I never made it to Northville, MI to see the skeletons.  We never carved pumpkins.  We did get some cider & donuts but we didn't make it to an orchard. I didn't get to go to Hell, MI.  I'm not happy with the pictures / videos I took of the cemetery.  I wish I would have taken a lot more. I did absolutely ZERO decorating inside the house.  I didn't make a big deal about it being the 10th anniversary.  My Countdown to Halloween posts kind of fizzled out towards the end.  Same with Blogoween.

But on the plus side - we spent a weekend in Ohio with my brother, we made it to the Halloween Festival in Fairborn and also to the Lewisburg Haunted Cave again.  The Spawn turned 21 the end of September, so there were still birthday celebrations going on for her - Rochester Pedal Ride with the family was one of them.  Spent a day horseback riding with my sister, too. 

I guess I really can't complain - it was a great Halloween!