BEST HALLOWEEKEND EVER!!!

Halloween this year was SO FREAKIN AMAZING!!! We TOTALLY made the most of the holiday and had three days packed full of tricks and treats! 

On Wednesday we picked up Sully, our Halloweekend partner in crime, from the airport and said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa who were on their way back to Aus. We had SUCH a lovely couple weeks with them and it wasn't too sad of a goodbye because we'll see them next month when we're back for Christmas! We all had a delicious goodbye dinner at Red Lobster and then Halloween week was on!

On Thursday we went costume shopping for outfits to wear to a USC frat party that night. We went to a costume rental place on Ventura blvd to try to find inspiration and it was incredible! Racks upon racks of amazing costumes! We could've gotten lost in all the beautiful/crazy/colorful things! Unfortunately, the prices weren't so inspiring soo we went on to American Apparel and... Inspiration struck! Cheetah Girls!!!

We did some more shopping/errands, are lunch, Han met a new fam to babysit for and then it was time to get ready!! After dozens of curls, half a can of hairspray, and some red lippy, we were off to USC! Woo! Our friend Olivia met us in the lobby - which was gorgeous, by the way! We felt like we were in a hotel not a dorm!

Some more of her friends arrived soon after us and we went en masse to the Pi Kappa Phi house!

We had a really fun time dancing, laughing, meeting new people, finding more of our feline kind, and walking to Del Taco for late-night burritos.

Besides a small, accidental headbutt to Han's nose and a run in Luce's stockings, it was a purrrrfect night! (See what I did there..) 

We went back to Olivia's and crashed out, workin on that beauty sleep for the next day of adventures!

On Friday we had a huge brekkie (at like 12:00 soo more like lunch) at IHOP and went out again to agent the finishing touches for Sully's costume. The afternoon flew by and before we knew it we were getting ready again! This time as 2 Broke Girls (as in the TV show) and our tip jar! We were SO happy with how our costumes worked out, we even surprised ourselves with how realistic it was!

We headed into West Hollywood to go to a huge costume parade/carnival on Santa Monica blvd. Traffic was INSANE but, given that it was Halloween, there was plenty to look at! So many awesome costumes and crazy people flooded into the parade area - from girls in lingerie, to men in huge bird outfits, to glamorous drag queens in stilettos and everything in between! We ended up parking near Vaucluse and stopping in to say hi before heading into the madness ourselves! 

It. Was. Crazy!!! The best people watching ever! Our costumes were a total hit and we took sooo many pictures with other people in costume!

Lord of the Rings, the Blues Brothers, Khaleesi, Khal Drogo, and their baby dragon from Game of Thrones, 2 pimps with us 2 Broke Girls, our prison wives from Orange is the New Black, Wolverine and the 300 Spartan, and many more micellaneously wonderful costumes! We walked the whole mile-long parade, all the way to Beverly Hills! Woahh! 

We started to head back towards the car, about 2 miles away now, aaaand it started to rain..! What?! It hasn't rained once since we moved to LA and on Halloween it POURED!!! Gaaahh! By the time we made it back we looked like 3 drowned rats, SO hilarious (now, at the time it was honestly pretty miserable and freezing cold BUT we made it through!) 

We couldn't have been happier to see the garage we'd parked in! We all piled in to the car head home but the craziness didn't end there..! The rain, traffic, our tiredness, and the hundreds of drunken people combined to make for a harrowing ride home! Eeeek! Poor Luce was driving soo carefully and still had a couple close calls - one waayy too close when a crazy man darted across 4 lanes of traffic and thought it'd be fun to slide over the bonnet of our car!! TERRIFYING! But we all made it home in one piece - well, who knows about that guy if he was running in front of other cars the same way - and put on the most gloriously comfy, dry clothes we own before crashing out. What an unforgettable night! Wow!

Saturday was a rest day, thank goodness! We slept in, hung out, Han babysat, and we all watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (the most joyous movie ever created) at night. Wonderful!

Sunday was our final day of celebrations for Halloween and we had SO MUCH FUN!! It started off with the most wonderful, inspiring, heartwarming church service at Mosaic. Hank spoke and between his eloquent words and the beautiful music the three of us left feeling like we were walking on air and that we could achieve absolutely anything. 

Next on the schedule for the day was the American Apparel factory outlet store. HOW HAD WE NOT HEARD OF IT BEFORE?! We spent over 3 hours in there!! We actually showed a fair amount of restraint in our actual purchases and we got suuuch great deals! YAAYY! We went to Wurstküche for an early dinner (yum!) and the headed home to get ready for... Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios!! We had suuuuch a great time! It was truly terrifying and so much fun! 

We headed down to the lower lot where the main attractions, the three mazes, were. We were thrown in the deep end waayy sooner than expected because the way down to the mazes was an experience in itself! There were heaps of people dressed up on scary costumes/makeup who, noticing our terror, completely targeted us! All of a sudden we found ourselves completely alone with about 15 zombie people, in the dark, with fog pouring in..! Luce starts screaming "where are the humans?! Where are the humans??!?!" as these freaky zombie surround us, we're clinging onto each other, huddled against a wall, screaming, until we finally broke free to see the silhouette of this huge scary man surrounded by fog!!! Ahhh!! We made it past him and got to the entrance of the maze which, after waiting in line for ages, was another harrowing experience! We reached the front of the line and tried to mentally prepare ourselves by talking to this guy in costume.

It really didn't work because there was nooo way we could've prepared ourselves for that first haunted house! When we were finally going in we were at the very front of the group so we experienced EVERYTHING first! Countless people jumped out at us, screamed in our faces, came within an inch of hitting us with terrifying objects, so scary!!! 

After that we were ready for something a little slower paced so we texted our friend Eddie who works on the Terror Tram (the Halloween version of the backlot tour) and he was just about to head out on a tour! We hopped on the front of the tram and settled in for a less alarming attraction. About four minutes in to the drive, they played a Walking Dead video and showed us clips from the show, which was all well and good, but then next thing we know that tram's stopped and Eddie says "this is where we drop you off, the rest of the way's on foot". Ummm, excuse me?! Han even laughed cos she thought he was joking and asked "wait, are you serious?" He was serious. We got off the train first and the flood of people started moving toward an entrance way. When we got closer, though, we saw all these zombies and men with chainsaws were there terrorizing people and all three of us, without saying a word, turned and went to get back on the tram..! They, obviously, wouldn't let us back on because it was already pulling away, so by the time we turned back to face the horror, EVERYONE ELSE WAS GONE. We stood there, three terrified girls, facing a wall of about 18 creatures of our nightmares and we started to timidly walk forwards.. It's hard to retell the level of fear we experienced but it was just SO real! It was like we were in our own horror movie that we couldn't escape! We walked forward and before we knew it we were surrounded by men with chainsaws - that looked, smelled, and sounded aaaall too real - huddled in a cluster looking up at them and literally crying with fright. Sullivan starts screaming "time out! Time out!!" and against all expectations, one of the chainsaw guys actually lifted his mask and gruffly said "Time out". Everyone else took a small step back and the three of us stood up and took a deep breath. Next thing we know, he says "Time in," snaps down his mask, and revs his chainsaw!! AHH! Everyone took his lead and we were dealing with the onslaught again! We decided, right, we just have to get outta here. So Luce and Sully lock arms and start to take off running with Han a few paces behind. In a wild attempt to keep us from getting past, a zombie guy ran in front of Luce and tripped her over!!! She was A-okay and it was, retrospectively, pretty hilarious. Sully didn't let go of Luce's arm and ended up dragging her a couple steps, Luce goes "I'm fine! It was all jeans" and gets up and keeps going, but then Han got all momma bear on that zombie and gave him a bit of a fright and a piece of her mind! Finally we made it past, through some area none of us can even remember because we were still in shock, and then out the other side WHERE THERE WERE MORE CHAINSAW GUYS! Noooo! We got surrounded again and battled our way out, with them using the chainsaws to separate us from one another, losing each other then finally reconvening and dragging ourselves back onto the tram. Scariest. Experience. Of. Our. Lives. 

After that we went through 3 more mazes - a werewolf one, an Alien vs Predator one, and another Walking Dead one - and we really just had SUCH a blast! We stayed until well after 1:00, did all the best attractions, and left feeling proud, tired, and very hoarse. It was far and away our most successful Halloween since moving to the US and we couldn't have been happier to get to spend it with Sullivan! The three of us make a pretty unstoppable team - well, unless it's dark and you're a freaky man with a chainsaw...