Despite the wet weather, we still had a really good time. And, what a massive turnout!!!

Okay, get this...my sister invited the classmates of her two children to come down, and she invited their cousins, and a couple of neighbours, because we were planning to have a lot of people come by.

We ended up getting FIFTY-TWO CHILDREN!

Okay...just picture 52 children inside my sister's garage, and you have pure bedlam! Oh my god, it was loud! Thankfully, we had a lot of adults there to calm the kids down. And, once we got the kids sorted into their houses and divided into groups, it calmed down considerably.

But, because we never got a chance to sort out the kids at the beginning, I had to play the sorting hat to 52 kids! Boy, that was an adventure. (and boy was my back stiff from bending down on the floor to get down to their level!) It was fun though.

Eventually, I ended up with a group of seven kids, and we made our way through the five classes (there was supposed to be 8, but three were planned outside, and we had to shrink it down), and my group learned about Charms, Divination, Potions, Defense Against The Dark Arts, and History in that order. (My other sister was very convincing as Professor Trelawney, BTW!)

After that, we had a feast, and let me tell you, there was so much food, I couldn't believe it! Black cauldron cupcakes, homemade punch, and lots and lots of candy! We all ate a lot! And, then the house cup was awarded, but I won't spoil which house ended up winning yet.

And, to top it all off, as each kid left, we gave them loot bags, and each bad contained a pencil, an eraser, a couple of candies, and of course, a little bag of Bertie Bott's flavour beans. To make it interesting, we bought a large box of regular Jelly Belly jellybeans, so that there were packages that contained good flavours like strawberry, watermelon and fruit punch, and the B.Bott's flavour beans that had flavours like bacon, earthworm, and boogers! Mmmmmmm.

I am just so amazed that the whole party went off without any major problems. It worked out well, and I'm happy to announce that with the success we had this year, we're going to make it an annual tradition!

And, I managed to snap about 6 dozen photos. If I can find someone with a scanner, I will scan the best pics and post them here!

Wow - sounds amazing. Glad it all turned out.

Soooo...it's 5:30 PM and pitch dark outside. (Sigh). Going to be a long winter.

I just got home from having a booth at the HOWL'wen dog costume contest and parade. OMG! If you thought the bulldog beauty contest was either cute or dispicable, this event was 10 time more. Funny FUNNY costumes. One of the best was a bunch of chihuahuas all dressed as farm animals and parading around in a wagon decorated as a barn. There also was a very large Captain Hook dog (complete with curley wig) and a Peter Pan. The owner was dressed as Tinkerbelle.

I'm exhausted, but boy was it fun - and VERY successful for our company.

No kidding! We had giant hail today. Well, giant for around here. Larger that pea-sized.

That sounds really cool! I have to admit...some of the doggie costumes I've seen in my travels are quite elaborate...even more so than some human costumes.

Yeah...we were all just thankful that the only setback we had was the weather. I think we adapted well though!

Never Grow Up said that the pictures would be up online in a week or two-- as soon as I have the link, I'll post it here!

Tom and I had our engagement pictures taken there yesterday.

Wow! That sounds like SUCH a rockin' party. What lucky children (all 52 of them, especially the 2 related to you) to have such a fun a creative bash to attend. Were that I were little (or, hell, exactly as I am) and able to attend! Definitely upload those pictures, I want to see!

Actually, LS, I was related to four of them! I have two older sisters, and they each have two kids. (One has a girl and a boy, the other has two boys). I probably should've mentioned it up above, but I only happened to mention the sister whose house it took place at.

As it so happens, the group I was in had two of my nephews!

Well, it survived the trip over the Cascades- we got it as well. Rain, hail, fog, sunshine, then early nightfall. This day feels like it's been going on forever.