Halloweentime 2012 at Disneyland

Hiya boils and ghouls! Apologies for the absence after Halloween, but my family was in town so I was busy hanging out with them and taking some well-deserved vacation time to boot! And what do you do when your family visits SoCal during Halloween? Take them to the Happiest Place on Earth, of course!

It has become an annual tradition to visit Disneyland around Halloween with my family and it is my favorite time of year to visit the park (obviously!)! All their Halloween decorations are so cute, they really showcase their villains and both Disneyland and California Adventure are made to look spooky for the holiday. This year we went on Halloween Eve (October 30th), so it felt even more special to go on the day before Halloween. The park was surprisingly empty, the weather was gorgeous and we took our time enjoying both Disneyland and California Adventure.

Below you'll find photos from my day at Disneyland featuring lots of their Halloween decorations!

Yay! Halloweentime!

The Great Mickey Pumpkin welcomes everyone on 

Main Street

 Festive display on Main Street

Scream Team sweatshirt

So many amazing-looking treats! (of course none

of them were vegan, though...boo!)

Walt, Mickey, the Castle and Pumpkins!

 The Halloween Tree in Frontierland

The Halloween Tree plaque honoring Ray Bradbury

More Halloween Tree!

Halloween carriage in Frontierland

More spooky cute (but non-vegan) noms!

 Frontierland was set up with all kinds of cute Halloween

decor and activities, like this pumpkinhead

Just look at those adorable Halloween banners!

 Vinylmation Halloween 2012 Mickey

 Maleficent (my fave Disney villain) in 

Sleeping Beauty's Castle

Ghost Micky lanterns, gummi candy corn, pumpkin ears!

California Adventure had a great Frankenweenie 

exhibit up...hopefully I'll do a separate post on it soon!

 Trick or Treat Minnie

 A pumpkin carver in Frontierland

Festive signs leading the way to Halloween goodies

 Favorite place! Haunted Mansion, all decked out

for The Nightmare Before Christmas

 More Mansion madness

 Rawr

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere!

Such adorable hats, all featuring a Disney villain!

 Halloweentime at night

 Love the Haunted Mansion at night! We were the

last ones they let on for the final ride at closing time!

It was so cool to ride without a crowd!

 The Halloween Tree at night

 Jack Skellington pumpkin

 Love, love, love the Disney balloons! They had a 

spiderweb design on them, too!

This store had ravens in the chandeliers and tons

of Halloween decorations along their top shelves

Witchy Minnie

Another display in Frontierland

 Sleeping Beauty's Castle all lit up at night

Until next time, pumpkin Mickey!

It was a great day and even though I didn't take pics of their vegan offerings, their veggie gumbo in New Orleans Square is vegan and there are tons of other noms you can find throughout the park that are vegan too! Mainly, though, I wanted to feature all the cool Halloween decorations the parks had out. 

Hope you enjoyed and I certainly can't wait to go back next October!

31 Days of Halloween: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Our day is finally here! Happy Halloween everybody!

Whew, it has definitely been a jam-packed October! Halloween is always bittersweet when it finally arrives...I mean, it's Halloween, so YAY! At the same time, though, it is also signifies the end of October and the end of Halloween activities. Boo!

Speaking of Halloween activities, at the beginning of the month I shared with you my bucket list for the season. Like most years, I didn't get to do everything I wanted, but I put a decent dent in the list and, more importantly, thoroughly enjoyed this October's activities!

So, here again is my bucket list with all the items I accomplished!

• Drink apple cider
• Eat Candy Corn Oreos
• Crunch through dry leaves - Not many fall leaves here in SoCal, but my parking lot at work has tons I stomped through!
• Visit the pumpkin patch - Yay for Tanaka Farms! Read about my visit here!

• Have friends over to carve pumpkins - We hosted a fun horror movie night and also went over to a friend's place to carve pumpkins
• Throw an awesome Zombie Prom Halloween party  - Success!
• Pick out a zombie Halloween costume - Prom Queens, I'll eat your hearts out!
• Listen to Halloween music
• Watch Halloween-themed movies

• Watch the classic Universal Monster movies - I actually watched some new ones I had never seen before, like Son of Frankenstein!
• Wear flannel, scarves and boots - The weather finally cooled down enough so I was able to do this!
• Visit the Halloween store - Visited multiple ones this year!
• Bake pumpkin everything! - It was mostly too hot to do this, so I didn't get to bake as much as I wanted to
• Snuggle up in Halloween blankets - I even bought a new one from Target to add to my collection
• Try as many pumpkin beers as possible - I stuck with Blue Moon's Harvest Pumpkin Spice this month, so I didn't quite succeed with this one.
• Make icky-looking Halloween food - Zombie brains and fingers, anyone?
• Drink pumpkin tea and/or shakes - I made pumpkin pie shakes and lived on Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice tea!

• Send Halloween cards to friends and family
• Wear as much orange, black, purple and green (Halloween colors!) as possible
• Check out fall foliage (even if it is just lusting through pictures) - Thanks to Tumblr and Pinterest for this!
• Watch Halloween cartoons
• Buy new Halloween pajamas - Finally found some at Walmart (read my post) of all places!
• Eat vegan Halloween candy
• Buy Sweet n Sara Halloween s’mores - I didn't order these in time...argh!
• Get pumpkin trees from Whole Foods or Trader Joe's 
• Visit the Halloween display at Roger’s Gardens - Beautiful as always! Read about it here!
• Go to a haunted house, haunt or hayride - Darn, totally missed out on these this year.

• Read The Halloween Tree and other Halloween-themed stories
• Go to Disneyland for Halloweentime
• Put up Halloween lights and decorations
• Paint my nails with Halloween colors / get a Halloween manicure
• Go see ParaNorman / Hotel Transylvania / Frankenweenie in theaters - I didn't get to see any of these! :(
• See V/H/S / Paranormal Activity 4 / Sinister and other horror movies in theaters - I only need to see PA4
• See the original Halloween in theaters - Missed it 
• See Night of the Living Dead play - Missed it
• Go to Universal Horror Nights or Knott’s Scary Farm - couldn't find the time to go this year

• Take advantage of any Halloween DVD sales of horror movies
• Visit Julian, CA to pick apples - Sigh...it was just too hot to make the trek, plus I don't think the crop was all that great this year. 
• Roast pumpkin seeds
• Check out as many stores with Halloween decor/items as possible (Target, Walmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Home Goods, etc.) - I did them all and spend FAR too much!
• Wear Halloween tights
• Try new autumn recipes - It was just too hot to cook or bake anything autumn-y this month. Hopefully in November I'll be able to try some new recipes.
• Eat as many pumpkin-based foods as possible

• Wear Halloween jewelry - I got a new bat necklace and Halloween bracelets
• Visit cemeteries - Didn't get to any this year
• Complete the 31 Days of Halloween challenge! - WHEW! I posted at least 1 post every day this whole month! For the third year in a row! Yay!

31 Days of Halloween: A Night to Dismember Zombie Prom Halloween Party

This past weekend Mister Spooky and I hosted our Zombie Prom Halloween party and it was a great success! It was such fun planning it all out and making a bunch of decorations and recipes for the party! I am really glad we chose this theme because it gave our guests the opportunity to be creative with their costumes and it gave us the freedom to do some neat decorating!

I made a bunch of cool signs for the party and tons of yummy (and vegan) party noms! We transformed our apartment with streamers, balloons, room wrap, fringe curtains and lots of twinkly lights - and then made sure everything had a bit of blood splatter on it, tee hee!

Mister Spooky and I dressed as the Zombie Prom King and Queen. We got our duds from the thrift store and ripped/bloodied them up. I bought some cheap crowns from the costume store and I made our sashes. Our guests came up with some super-cool costumes and almost everyone stuck to the zombie theme! We had zombie Marilyn Monroe, teacher, janitor, coach, football player, cheerleader, schoolgirl and various zombies, plus a Doctor Doom and a warlock.

We dined on icky-looking but delicious tasting food, listened to groovy Halloween music, drank our infamous bloody punch (it is so yummy but so deadly!) and played games like horror character charades, zombie trivia and zombie darts! At the end of the night we handed out some awesome zombie-themed prizes.

Everyone had lots of fun and I am really pleased how everything turned out! You can take a looksie at the party pics below:

Hosts and Zombie Prom Queen and King (me and Mister Spooky)

I love how the "A Night to Dismember" banner looks

 Entrance with a sign that reads "Welcome to 

Romero High's Zombie Prom 2012"

 Beware!

I want your brains!

 Zombie Buffet (pre-party during set-up)

Zombie Buffet all set up! I really dug the Zombie Prom 

sign I made.

Zombified plates and blood splatter napkins

Zombie Buffet Menu, including Bloody Brains (cream cheese and salsa), 

Lady Fingers aka Bloody Zombie Fingers, Brain Balls (aka popcorn balls), 

Mini Mummies (aka pigs-in-blankets), Zombie Puke (guacamole and salsa), 

Bone Shards (aka chips), Tooth Rot (kettle corn) - everything was vegan!

Some goodies on the Zombie Buffet, including Brain (Popcorn) Balls

and various body parts

Bloody Zombie Fingers were a huge hit!

Mini mummies (I like to think of mummies as old school zombies)

 My sister and I in the handmade photo booth

 Welcome your undead class of Romero High 2012!

I took people's Polaroids when they arrived and they 

picked randomly from a bowl to see what they were 

voted as "Most Likely to..." just like in high school! 

Here is a close-up

Zombie restrooms

 We're coming to get ya!

 Undead prom queen and cheerleader

We want brains!

 Signs I made for the photo booth

 Awwww Mister Spooky and I have a prom pic together!

I am definitely framing this one!

Happy Zombie Prom! 

 Go Team Z! Zombie cheerleader, football coach and football player

 Ok, she couldn't eat, drink or talk, but her makeup

turned out amazing!

 Cute zombie couple 

 Zombie Marilyn Monroe and undead prom-goer

 The Prom King and Doctor Doom

Undead teacher and janitor ... clever costumes!

I think I only have one zombie pose LOL!