Wolves' Shadow Cemetery 2010.

[Cottoinc]

The witch in the wheel chair just looks too cool, it's amazing.

[Deslock]

Thank you for that, we appreciate it.

What's really made it hard this year is that everything is so damned overpriced.
The life sized skelly we bought last year for $30.00, is now selling for damn near $70.00. No joke.

I understand retailers wanting to make a profit, but when they're putting out all the X-Mas stuff even before Halloween, that's just wrong. They used to wait to after Thanksgiving day, and now the retailers have even taken that away from us.

Now we only have Christmas day off, and they're literally foaming at the mouth to take that away from us also. And we know it's just a matter of time before they take that day away from us also.

I said the same thing on Halloweenforum.com, and the national retail federation, "Please look down and zip up your fly. Your greed is poking out."

So now on Thanksgiving day, a time meant to be spent with friends and family, to truly thank God and everyone else for your blessings, will be just another day when everyone chokes down their food as fast as possible, and then jump in their SUV's, chatting on their cell phones, to get the jump on the latest "deals" handed down from our Wall Street corporate masters. They buy it for $5.00, overprice it at $20.00 dollars, and tell you they'll sell it to you for $15.00, and you think your "saving" money.

And nothing of matter was truly lost.

Oh well.

We can't see the forest, because all these God damned trees are in the way.

Please stay home on "Gray Thursday".

Give out your candy on Halloween for your neighbors. Look at those smiles and kindness. And be glad for it. Stay home for Thanksgiving, and thank God for your blessings, and for your friends and family.

And know you are loved for it. :D

[Stryker0022]

I agree, Des. A few years back I decided to go shopping on Black Friday. I wanted to buy a laptop for my niece for Christmas and I saw a great deal. So I woke up at 3am, stood in line for a couple of hours in the cold, only to be told they were all sold out. I told myself never again.

Given our busy lives and all the corporate greed, it easy to forget to enjoy the holidays. But that's what we need to do. Slow down and enjoy the moment. Enjoy and be thankful for the people around you.

Thank you for the reminder. And great job on giving back to your community. I'm sure they'll appreciate all the hard work you guys put in for Halloween.

[Deslock]

Thank you for the reminder. And great job on giving back to your community. I'm sure they'll appreciate all the hard work you guys put in for Halloween.

Thank you for that. That's why we do it. Halloween truly is the only holiday when you can really reach out and share yourself with your community.
Almost all the other holidays folks spend time with some of their family and friends, and a lot don't even do that. Thay just go shopping at all the sales. I know this because we work retail. We are forced to work, most of us against our will, to spend time away from our families, to wait on those that don't want to spend time with their friends and family.

Like yourself, Daz and myself did black friday once, because they had a sale on computers, and we needed a new one badly.

NEVER AGAIN.

The cold and misery just isn't worth it. All the rushing, pushing, and shoving.....
Hell, at one store I worked at, one of the stockmen handing stuff to the customers was actually bitten by an old woman. That's right. BITTEN. I'm NOT joking you, I was there. I told him straight out, I would've punched her right in the face. He came over to me, holding his bleeding arm saying; "Dude ! She bit me."

I can honestly say I've never heard of anyone getting trampled to death, or getting bitten; by everyone rushing in to get Halloween candy and costumes.

I find it highly ironic as a Christian, just how much I truly hate everything this modern version of "Christmas" has become., but LOVE everything about Halloween. Because we get to share it with our friends and neighbors, and we get so much love back in return. :D

My boss told me that in the last 26 years she's worked retail, she's never gone to a black friday, and never will. She told that back in the day when she started in retail, one of the main reasons she went into retail, is because the stores were closed on all the holidays. Heh, go figure that one out.

Heck, I remember when all the stores were closed on Sundays, and they arrested the Kmart manager for his store being open on Sunday.

Both Daz and myself bleed black and orange. Once you become a haunter, it's a hard thing to shake. It is indeed a lot of hard work and money, but once you see all those faces light up with smiles, it truly makes it all truly worth it.

Like when we troop the childrens hospitals with the 501st.
It's hard, but I wouldn't trade those memories for the world.



Be a beacon of light. Go buy that pumpkin, carve up that baby, and put it on your porch, and go out and meet your neighbors and give out that candy. :D
Share your love. :)

And most, and best of all.......:

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE HALLOWEEN !!!!.

We love you guys, take care and God bless !!!

Hopefully we'll have many new and fun piccys to share with you all this year.

P.S., Thanks again Yentis for all your help and support with our haunt. You mean so much to the both of us. :D

[Deslock]

I hate to say this guys, but once again it seems like We're not going to be able to get any videos done this year, as we just cannot find an affordable camera that can take good night vision shots.

We've tried four different video cameras, and none of them will take good night video without lights. Either it comes out too dark, or the people "ghost" or blur out as they're walking. And what aggravates me the most, is that we all have very expensive cameras.. Even setting mine on Night Mode, and it still comes out waaay too dark to actually really see anything.

I dunno, maybe we'll get lucky. But I'm not counting on it.

[Deslock]

We've put our lights up, and our banner has been up for days, and our church has even said that they've been directing people to our yard haunt, since they cannot have their celebration due to a lack of volunteers. How sad is that.

But the big day is coming, and we're working hard for it, more than ever. The weather hopefully will give us a break.

We want to especially thank Yentis, and all our volunteers and actors, for giving up their time and money to help us out. You all mean sooo much to us.

Daz and myself really want to wish you all a happy and safe Halloween.

God bless you all, your families, have a safe and happy time.

And God bless RaTix, and the entire DSA.

Lord knows we love you all. :D

[Deslock]

Well.

Tonight was a giant big epic fail.

We had rain, and 30-50 mph wind, which would break everything we had.

Animitronics, styrofoam tombstones, and it would've literally rip apart our inflatables.

So no, we're not happy.

Tonight was just a giant bust.

We did get a lot of repeat ToT's, but nowhere as much as we would've liked.

But we did get more than we would've considered; due the weather conditions. They just remembered us due years past.

Hopefully next year will be better, but overall, yeah, we're pretty pissed off.

Mother Nature, yeah, we pretty much hate you now.

But overall, we do consider us lucky over all these years.

Ya just gotta roll the dice, and hope you come up lucky.

Life's just like that at times.

[Light496]

Damn that has to suck.but hey there's always next year

[Deslock]

Yeah, we really weren't that angry, but more just hurt and dissappointed that we didn't get to set up our haunt this year.
The day before, and the day after, the weather was wonderful, and just right.

Go figure. *shrugs* :-?

But as I said before, that's just how life goes sometimes.

We had the weather reports that said we were going to get some really bad thunderstorms and possible heavy rain, but truth be told, it really didn't rain that much. It was the wind. I was really worried and scared that the rain would've been our demise this year. I would've never thought that the wind would shut us down. But it was bad.

All of us were just really saddened by that. It's the only Holiday that we really get to enjoy for all the entire year. All of the other Holidays except Easter are ruined by retail sales.

Oh well, such is life. Ya can't win them all. Halloween and July 4th are both major Holidays that really depend on the weather. You really can't have a good one if it's pouring rain, windy as Hell, and miserable.

But like you said Light, we just have to keep our chins up, and plan for a bigger and better one next year, God willing. :)

This year may have been a bust, but we are happy that we got way more ToT's than we would've expected due the weather conditions, and because we had so much, the ToT's that we did get scored some awesome amounts of candy. :D So in an ironic way, at least it was a win for those kids brave enough to ToT. And they deserved it. :)

There's always next year.

God bless you all, and God bless the DSA ! :D

[Deslock]

This year should be awesome. Little chance for rain, and we should get hundreds of kids, like we usually get. And we have even lots more of volunteers to help. I just wish we could get more police help directing everyone, but the deputy sheriff I know has to work that night, and can't help.

Just keep us in your prayers to keep everyone safe.

[Deslock]

Well, starting to get ready for the big day ! There is a good chance for rain, but it's supposed to hit later on during the night. Last year it actually snowed, and also had freezing rain, but I'll be darned, we still had some ToT's.

Hope for us guys ! :D

We've been warned that if the weather does hold out, to expect up to 800 ToT's, as all the local churches shut down their festivities, and then they all come here. Which is cool, don't get me wrong, but there has been years when we were literally afraid that we were going to run out of candy. And mind you, we buy a lot of candy. We go to Sam's club and bulk out. We spend about $100-$200 dollars worth a year. One year we ended the Haunt, and we only had three pieces left over.

My wonderful Mother bough us a fantastic new entrance way Inflatable, I can't wait for you guys to see it ! :D And she bought us a great new signpost !.

It's sooo hard putting all this up and break it all down the same day, I'd love to put it up waaaay sooner, but we can't trust people. I just read on Halloween forum, that some teenagers came through and slashed all their inflatables late at night, and vandalised their yardhaunt, breaking and smashing their decorations. As much as we love all of this holiday, we just can't risk it. So yeah, it is all day hard work, but it's beyond worth it to see all the smiles, and hear all the screams ! *Evil laugh*

[Deslock]

Well, so much for all that. Another crappy Halloween night.

We did put up a few decorations, but the wind was too strong, and cold rain started about 5pm. We still got a lot of kids, but no where as much we would've gotten, had the weather been nice. That now makes three Halloweens ruined in a row. And the thing that pissed us off the most, yesterday was beautiful, and would've been perfect.

Oh well, maybe next year....

[Deslock]

Good holiday this year. Not as many kids as we usually get. We estimate we got about 200. But we had volunteers, and it was nice not having to do all the work like I usually do. I would like to do a complete overhaul to the haunt. It kinda bugs me that everyone wants to help run the concession stand, but not dress up and scare the kiddies. But we did get a new cool zombie animitronic, so that was nice. All the kids were taking their pictures with him.

[RaTix]

What no pics?!?! How dare you make me use my imagination.

[Deslock]

I need to get a new camera very badly. I was looking at one that interested me, but it's like $254.00, And that's kinda steep for me now. But it's a nice camera that's even capable of taking night pictures, The one I have now doesn't do well at all at night, as you could see in the previous pictures. I didn't take any new pictures as we pretty much set it up the same as before. Which is why I said I want to overhaul the entire haunt, maybe even add a full size crypt. The camera I have is a really nice one, but it's almost 10 years old. It can't even use the new SD cards, which means for my toy projects, I have to keep using the old SD card that I have. Load the pics into the 'puter, then wipe the SD card.