For anybody who doesn't know, I've been setting up my mother's garage almost every year since 7th grade (about 16 years now) with halloween decorations. Each year I add at least one significant prop and overall, it just gets a little more elaborate. (This year, I found some heads on sticks at party city.)

This year was a wonderful success! Sure, we had the usual occurence of small children who didn't want to come in... But we also had quite a few older (9-16 range I'd say) kids who didn't want to come up... Hell, even some of the adults were reluctant! Folks of all ages were especially appreciative this year, and we got quite a few compliments. (We think that maybe the level of appreciation as well as the high turnout may have to do with Halloween practically being cancelled thanks to Hurricane Wilma last year.) However, the defining moment of success in the evening was when a group of adults who were out with their kids, came into the garage and took a picture, standing with us!

Everything just worked so well this year... It really just came together. I invited a few of my long-time friends over as well this year. I was surprised that they'd never been over to see this or participate before! Or if they have, it was so long ago that it looks nothing like what it did. In any case, we ended up with three of us filling the roles of 'creepy' this year instead of just me... I think that played a huge role in the way it turned out!

My roommate took some nice pictures through the night and is compiling them now. I'll update this post with a link as soon as he gives me the url. In the mean time I think I need sleep. It has been an exhausting few days of running around and performing setup tasks!