Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloween Costumes - Jungle Style!


Halloween was celebrated thoroughly at the House of Dreams!   We had a great time re-creating the holiday tropical-style, as you saw from our tropical fruit carvings.  The day started off with coffee, toastlettes, and backgammon.   While Kirby and I played our first game, Denise acted as our news anchor and relayed the highlights from different news stories she had gathered during our time online.  One of the articles was about a witch's coven somewhere on the east coast and how they celebrate Halloween.  This particular group referred to themselves as druids instead of witches and worshipped nature and mother earth.  We had already been planning on dressing up as forest nymphs because of the plethora of natural materials that could be gathered from just outside our house and this article gave us the idea to add a little element of magic to our character as well.  What really sealed the deal, though, was the backgammon game.   On our second game, when rolling to see who would go first, Kirby and I both rolled a 6.  Then again we both rolled a 6.  We knew that whoever rolled the higher number after double doubles should win something, but what? Denise had the great idea that the winner would be crowned Druid Queen of the day and got us both very excited, with Kirby dreaming aloud "then you will be my minions..." And we were. She rolled another 6 (crazy!), I got a 4, and we honored our new Druid Queen.


 It often rains in the eary afternoon, so we got an early start on our festivities.  After our game, we set to work on our fruit-o-lanterns.  Denise and I chose to start on papayas and Kirby cut into the pineapple.   She got very creative, turning him into a pirate complete with a big funky hairdo, an eye patch, and a pool of vomit in front of him as a testament to his most recent drunken
 debauchery.  Denise and I kept ours more simple but spiced them up with wounds and stitches.  The watermelon was just begging for a more intricate design, so I did the best I could and turned him into a spider.   We ended up with 4 beautiful fruit-o-lanterns and 2 huge bowls of fruit.   Luckily there is a blender at the house of dreams, so we drank smoothies all day and still have a lot of fruit to finish up.  It's nice to have "drink more fresh fruit smoothies" on your to-do list.




While admiring our work and thinking about how exciting it would be to light them up at night, we realized that we didn't have any candles!  Denise saved the day by going into town on a candle mission (and to blast out a picture of our masterpieces!) while Kirby and I started gathering costume materials.  We got sidetracked by one of the most beautiful sunsets we've ever seen!  The clouds were rolling and swirling their way up, around, and over the volcano and made their way from white to yellow to pink and purple.  I think I took over 100 pictures in 5 minutes and we just couldnt stop staring at the sky and saying the same thing over and over: wow. 





Denise returned with the candles just in time to light up our fruits and start on our costumes.  We had intended to make Denise a more scary nymph but her costume had a mind of its own and ended up very un-scary, as you can see. 

I had no real vision for my costume except that it be composed of leaves from one of my favorite plants.  They ended up creating a kind of evening-gown/pageant look that was interesting to look at but really hard to move around in.  I was so wide that I had to go sideways through the doorways.


Kirby was a very gracious and kind Druid Queen and did hair and make-up for all 3 of us, as well as a very talented costume designer.  She got us all dolled up and then we set to work on adorning our Queen with leaves and flowers.  We gave her wings, a crown, and all the natural ornaments we had left. Unfortunately, I forgot to download all the pictures onto the computer before coming into town to write this blog, so our best full-length picture of Kirby's costume happens to include me.



After all our preparations, it was time for the photo shoot.  We bowed to our fair Queen as she sat on her throne surrounded by her minions and the beautifully lit "fruits" of our labor.

 The photo shoot turned into a thriller dance, then we got back to business and took a couple hundred more pictures.  We had such a busy day that we still have more celebrating left to do - the bobbing for apples in the mini-pool and drinking hot cider were saved for another day.  All in all it was a very happy Halloween!

5 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had a full Halloween day. I loved the pumpkins and the costumes are cute. Post a picture of Kirby's whole outfit so we can see the Queen in full regalia.

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  2. You girls are so creative, your costumes look beautiful. I love your facial expressions in the first picture. And the fruit-o-lanterns look awesome with the candles at night. Where's a picture of that most amazing sunset? Glad you had so much fun. Love, Dad

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  3. I LOVE IT! ALL OF IT! FANTABULOUSTASTIC! Wonderful costumes, girls, and more festive than my Israeli Halloween, for sure. I wish I was there to celebrate with you ladies! Seriously, so awesome. I can't think of anything more to say except how awesome you ladies are....

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  4. Hey , how bout this..figured out how to sign in all my myself (for those of you who don't know me, this is Major! ...really "clumsy" on the computer! Kirby and Katie I have so loved reading your blog! Thanks to Ki printing them out and sending them to me (THANK YOU, Ki !) I have read them from the beginning ..and now have internet at home ! I've been so extremely grateful for your blog because I can keep up and your "adventures" and not worry quite as much as I would have with out it ! Love you guys and miss you but am so glad you're able to do this now!! Halloween costumes were amazing ! Looks like you guys had a ball !!

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  5. Dude! That party looks AWESOME!!!! and the costumes are amazing, I am so impressed!! You look like King kamehameha and the Hawaiian Royal Family! looks like a lot of fun, of course I really wish I could be there with you!!

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