Hallowe(EK)en(D)

It was a pretty busy weekend.

On Friday evening I picked M up from work and headed to Fresno for some shopping and the first visit in a while to our - and America's, apparently - favourite gourmet burger restaurant, Red Robin. The burgers were good and we managed to stay mostly on task and get the stuff we needed for our annual Halloween party on Saturday.

Saturday morning saw us getting up, taking Sunny for a nice long walk and getting organized before heading to breakfast in Selma and to watch the Band Review that Meleena and the Washington School Thunderbirds Band were performing in.

In spite not placing in the main marching competition - we don't know why as we thought they did a great job, as you can see here:



they redeemed themselves by winning first place in the percussion competition:



Note: Unfortunately the video is about a minute too long to play from Flickr - to see the full effect you'll just have to visit our house. :)

As a bonus, I also managed to make it onto the local TV broadcast making my across the street to get the video footage.

From there it was a quick trip back to the house to do a bit more party preparation (including the cooking of my special 'Blood and Guts' shot) before heading off to see Michael Jackson's This Is It at the movies in Fresno.

After having seen it - including footage that was shot on the very last day before he died - I am of the opinion that he was very likely going to pull off something spectacular with this show. The production and effects they were putting together were immense. And, while definitely rusty towards the beginning of the rehearsal process, you can see him getting his act (quite literally) together as time went on. Whether he would have had the stamina to do all 50 shows is another matter, though. I also get the sense that they are holding back some of the more elaborate and complete footage; the scene in the picture above doesn't actually appear in the movie, for example. Perhaps the movie should have been called 'This Is Nearly It' or 'This Is Almost It'.

Anyway, the UlloaSullivan team give it a thumbs up and suggest you go see it.

And then, after all the other excitement of the day, it was time for the Halloween Party. Meleena, Kayla, Ronni, James and Mark Anthony made it over in their requisite costumes and enjoyed such traditional Halloween games as 'Navigate the remote controlled Spider around the course marked out by masking tape' and 'Catch some fish, Blow up a balloon, Eat the Blood and Guts, Take two bites out of an apple hanging from a string and hit the ball three times' against the clock in order to win a prize. I guess the Blood and Guts were a bit too gross for the kids as it was left up to Michelle and I to try them - seriously, where's the trust?

There was also cup cake decorating but the biggest hit of the party seems to have been the feature length Scooby Doo animated movie about a scary witch and her Grandson with a weird British accent. Or perhaps everyone needed some time to sit down and let the copious amounts of party food settle?

And with that, and the prospect of getting an extra hour in bed with the time change, we wrapped up our Saturday evening.

What did we do on Sunday? Oh, pretty much nothing. It was great. :)