Rachel Sarah Thurston portrait, events, travel and wedding photography and travel/lifestyle writing

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.
~Author Unknown

I can't help it...I absolutely love Halloween! As soon as September's days become cooler and candy begins to appear on the shelves of local stores, I get this restless excitement to buy pumpkins, bake, and start decorating our house like crazy! There's something about the changing leaves, the cool nights, and the edginess of Halloween that I just love. As a kid it rocks b/c you get to dress up, go to strangers' houses, and ask for free candy. But as an adult, it's even more fun. You get to drink and eat really fun stuff, dress up as your alter ego, and party like a rockstar.

I always look forward to watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and decking out our house with giant hairy tarantulas, orange and purple lights, and things that jump or screech unexpectedly. It's just such a macabre, pagan, wonderfully artsy holiday that I can't seem to get enough of (I'll probably leave our decorations up until Turkey Day). Every year I seem to convince myself that I need to buy more decorations. This year I've deemed it the "Year of the Spider," putting up way more cobwebs than any self-respecting home should ever have. Steve and I have a self-proclaimed spider-friendly home (we personally escort the larger ones safely into the backyard). Recently we discovered that we have a beautiful orb spider which built it's web right above our front step as if knowing it has arachnid immunity near our abode.

Here are a few random pictures from this year's Halloween...my angel costume, our band dressed up for a Halloween gig at the Doubletree Fess Parker (Rotary Club Halloween Bash), and a bunch of decorations at our place, and a few choice pictures of our friends dressed up for Halloween. I hope yours was as much fun as ours was!