It was a Rockin' Halloween Eve Eve

Melissa and I were two children tonight making our jack-o-lantern. We started out with gossip and Diet Dr. Pepper, followed by gabbing and pizza with salad, and then it was time for pumpkin carving. Here's the before:

We decided we'd have a Keep it Simple jack-o-lantern and first cut off the top, and Melissa pulled most of the guts out. It was so stringy and tough to get out but she was not to be denied and cleaned it all out. Then we sketched eyes, tried to make them even. I did the nose, and then she did the mouth while I got a candle and matches.

And then all hell broke loose and the party went into full swing. We had our party favors which was supposed to be glow in the dark hand sanitizer which turned out to be just the label that glowed in the dark... and our Halloween cookies... and our apple cider. Here's the party all laid out:

The cookies were fun -- here's a close up:

We toasted old friends with our apple cider, ate our cookies, and that probably took 10 minutes and like all good parties, this one had to come to an end... and we so admired our jack-o-lantern -- we grew affection for him -- that we wanted to photograph him lit with the lights off, which looked pretty cool in real life. The problem is that with a flash, it got lit up; without a flash, the exposure became at least 4 seconds and I tried my best to hold the camera without moving. Here are the flash/no flash results:


So Happy Halloween to all the ghouls and ghosties!