Halloween 2009

So this year was a bit more interactive with Juliana, since she had a better idea of what was going on... and the fact that she's developing quite the sweet tooth.

Since this is probably the last year that I'll get to pick her costume, I decided to go all out nerd-style. That's right... I gave in to the geek side. Given her propensity for saying "Bobba-doo" (Bibbity-bobbity-boo in toddler speak) and waving anything and everything like a wand, I'm sure there will be many opportunities for her to dress up as a princess or a magical faerie.

What I chose appalled Juliana's Sahm-Yi, since I decided to dress her up as a Star Fleet officer. Yes, as in Star Trek. And after a week of sewing little bits here and there each day, I finished a dress that would fit her for all of 15 minutes. Good thing Halloween was only two days away at that point. I should have planned to make it a little oversized if I wanted to get more life out of it, but the material was rather lightweight for any real use in the cold, wet autumns of the northwest. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So, anyhow, I based the design off of Uhura's uniform from this year's reboot of the original series. It's a redesign of the original series' miniskirt uniform, but still exhibiting some of that 1960's style. For those of you who haven't seen the new movie yet, and don't know what I'm talking about, you can do a web search for any/all of the following keywords: 2009 Star Trek Uhura dress Zoe Saldana. There's a lot of costume shop knock-offs, but I thought they didn't look enough like the movie costume, so I decided to make my own pattern.

The biggest thing was that all the ship uniforms on the movie were made with a custom printed spandex (where there were tons of tiny Enterprise emblems all over the material). Yep... no way was I getting a hold of that. And from looking at the ones posted on the web that were made from Spandex, I thought they looked a little too shiny/reflective. On top of that, I found a nice red fabric that had a fine tone on tone lattice texture... and that worked well enough for me. (It's not like she'll fit in this for years and years)

Here's how it turned out.

This was taken at Derek's office Halloween party. It was a rather small affair, especially compared to last year's festivities.. and particularly so when compared to the other office shindig we took her to that day.

Hey look! Alien life forms!

And, yes, I forgot to iron her dress. I couldn't do it while she was running around during the day, and kept forgetting in the evenings after she went to bed. Hey, I'm just being honest with you. I could have photoshopped it out, and you would have never known, but I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. (Ba HA HA HA HA!..... whew! that was a good one!)

I just love these boots on her.

Rather than fake the insignia on the uniform, I shaped one out of some layered balsa wood (alternating grain directions for strength), spray painted it silver, painted the detail on with ink and coated the whole thing with a clear glaze. And then I mounted it on a magnet, so that it couldn't poke my child or tear the dress. I used another magnet on the inside of her dress to hold it in place. It's now a fridge magnet.

After the visit to Daddy's office, Pau-Pau and I took Juliana to visit Sahm-Yi's work place. It's just a small office complex in Redmond. Apparently last year they had five thousand visitors (not sure if they were only counting children, or including the adult visitors, too) and were expecting over nine thousand this year. That's right.... thousands.

Here's a clue as to where we went:

Wait.. who has the employee badge and who is trick-or-treating?

We lucked out in that we got there at 3pm on the nose, so had no line to wait in and found a parking spot near the front of the building.

The first thing we saw when we got there was a short performance of some of the employees, dancing in unison with the Thriller video playing on the television and screens behind them:

Hey! Is that Gene Simmons in the background? I don't remember him being in the Thriller video...

They performed this at the top of every hour, I think. We only stayed until 4:30, so only knew of one other performance while we were there.

After this, we went and toured the hallways, which they decorated with various themes. They even had an internal competition for best room (I'll tell you which one won later) There was one done up in tribute to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Another was Studio 54 (complete with disco ball and a television screen playing the dancing scenes from Saturday Night Fever). We stuck to the family-friendly halls, since Juliana was with us, but there were some halls marked "Mature" for more frightening themes/people jumping out at you/etc. One of those halls was one with a Pirates of the Caribbean/ghost theme.

One of the halls was modeled after the movie A Night at the Museum:

There were even some people dressed up as Teddy Roosevelt, cavemen and more roaming the hall.

The cowboys and indian area:

A closer look at one of the displays:

Owen Wilson.. are you in there? *tap tap*

The cavemen area

I wonder if they had to sit there for the full time.

*Insert your own mummy/mommy related comment here*

This was (I thought) a rather well-done section. It was a foam mock-up of an Easter Island Moai with a booming speaker set up to talk with the kids. His name was Dum-Dum... and he liked to be fed (what else) Dum-Dum suckers (seen scattered on the floor around him).

If you tossed some in his mouth, he would "chew" them up and then...

blow up "bubbles" and release them to fly/deflate around the area.

Next up was the Under the Sea hallway.

Don't be scared, Sahm-Yi... we're not really going underwater!

Juliana insisted on holding both Pau-Pau's and Sahm-Yi's hands, which left me juggling the camera, her trick-or-treating container (a plastic pumpkin) and her day bag. No one ever tells you this, but once you have kids, from the time they are born until they get to intermediate grade levels, you are their pack animal. Because even after they are out of diapers, you still need to carry around snacks, water, an emergency change of clothes and some toys.

But I digress... where were we? Oh yes, Under the Sea...

One of the more innovative things we came across was Halo's Master Chief spear fishing. I bet you didn't know he did this in his spare time.

And there was pirate booty to be had:

Next up was one of two hallways dedicated to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We're talking the original Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder, not the Tim Burton remake. This first part was based around the beginning of the story where they announce that Willy Wonka is opening up his factory to a few select people lucky enough to obtain a Golden Ticket.

This room we were about to enter won the Best Room award for the festivities..

Every kid I know would've loved to hang out in this room.

Here's a closer look at the bar area to explain why:

Sugar overload!

Hey, buddy! Where's MY golden ticket???

The other side of the room:

Once you left the Candy Shoppe, you find yourself on the "street" with offices made up to look like other storefronts.

I wonder what they are trying to say here:

Before we got to the next Willy Wonka area, we walked past the entry area for the Pirates hallway (remember, it was rated Mature, so we didn't bring Juliana through, and I didn't have time to go through it solo):

Hey! What are you Oompa-Loompas doing outside the Chocolate Factory?
Get back to work!

Speaking of the Chocolate Factory, that was our next stop:

There were some people dressed up as various characters from the story... the VP was Willy Wonka and one lady was a plumped up, blue Violet Beauregarde. I would've taken her picture, but we were rushed past and she was sitting in a rather dimly lit area.

Juliana enjoyed this feature, never having experienced Scratch-n-Sniff before:

The shrinking room:

Look! We're on TV!

On to the Great Glass Elevator:

I don't remember a Free Candy dispenser being in the elevator in the story...

This was the view below when we finished touring all the family-friendly halls:

The line went out the door and a good 20 yards further (if not more) around the time we left. And it only got longer... The event was scheduled to run from 3pm to 7:30 pm, but ran to almost midnight. There were so many people still in line just waiting to get in when 7pm rolled around and they didn't want to send people away.

What a day!