Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everybody! Make sure you eat a lot of candy! And be on the look out for anything spooky going on. Here's my costume pictures:

 Me as an FBI agent. Jess as a princess. Jocelyn as a hippie.

Molly (my cousin) as a pirate, Kit (my sister) as a hunter, Nellie (my sister) in Halloween garb.

Spooky Fun

Today is Halloween! Yay!

Lanie and Paige and I trick or treated together. Lanie had to go home early, but Paige stayed and we sorted our Halloween loot. We got candy, and toys, and even some of those cool rubber band bracelets. Here is a picture of us:

What did you dress as for Halloween?

The Haunted History of Halloween

Halloween has some pretty cool folklore and history. I will share some of it here!

- Jack-o' lanterns were not always pumpkins! They were first carved gourds and turnips. They were used as protections against spirits. It went like this until settlers from Europe discovered that pumpkins are much easier to carve.

Here is a neat website about Jack o' lanterns: http://www.albee.org/halloween/jackolantern.htm

Here is another neat website about Halloween itself:http://www.life123.com/holidays/halloween/halloween-history-traditions/halloween-history.shtml





Now I will share a Halloween picture:

Lanie and Paige came over yesterday for a Halloween practice run. Here we are: Paige is a Grecian Princess, I am an angel (what else? :)), and Lanie is a cowgirl.

Happy Halloween!

Discussion Four: Why do Ghosts Stick Around?

Okay, everyone! It's my turn to do a discussion today.

Why do you think ghosts haunt? It's what ghosts do, of course. But why? Here is the link to a website that may help you come up with a theory or two: http://www.paralumun.com/ghosts.htm

Here are some reasons I could think of:

-They have unfinished business on earth. This is a very common belief, portrayed in all kinds of ghost stories and movies.

-They don't know they are dead. This is a huge element in the "phantom hitchhiker" stories.
* Find out all about phantom hitchhikers here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_hitchhiker

- They are so attached to a place on earth that they just can't leave

I hope you guys liked my first discussion. Please post your comments and ghost stories, and add to this week's topic!

-Frankie

Halloween Treats

My friends and I had to get creative in making some goodies for Halloween since there wasn't much to work with in the house. But what we came up with was very yummy: chocolate covered marshmallows. We used flavored marshmallows since that was all we could find, but regular ones will work better. We used orange colored candy chips (white chocolate) and the biggest jar of Halloween sprinkles we could find (see Jocelyn in the background).


First coat the marshmallows in chocolate. That's Jess carefully stirring. Jocelyn or I would have made a mess.

 Next put some sprinkles on a plate and roll the marshmallow in them. This turned out to be quite messy, so make sure you mom doesn't mind chocolate getting everywhere.

 And that's it. Let the chocolate harden and eat!

We're still not sure what Jocelyn was attempting to make. To me it just looks like a blog of marshmallows covered in chocolate, but she said it was art.
Bonus: you can do pretzels the same way or even cookies if you're so inclined.

Discussion Three: Paranormal Activity and Halloween

Alrighty, everyone up for another discussion? This week it's going to be a bit more of debate. The topic is: Does paranormal activity increase around Halloween? If you google that sentence you can get a ton of different articles.

A few things I picked out to spur this along:

• more paranormal activity occurs because of the colder weather?
• because more people are expecting creepy things to happen and see it everywhere?
• because ghouls and such are celebrating too?

Time to get searching and debating!

Telling ghost stories

Yesterday, Paige came over after school to play. We shut the curtains in my room, got out our flashlights, and told ghost stories, to get excited about Halloween. Paige's story was spooky.

"Once," began Paige, " a girl named Mary moved into a spooky old house. Just like this one. The floors creaked at night, and whenever Mary was in her room, she heard footsteps walking above her head, where there was nothing, but an empty attic."

"One night, Mary was curious about what the noise was, pacing back and forth over the old floorboards. She told her dad about the noise, but he said it was probably just squirrels. Mary wasn't so sure. After a week of the frantic pacing, Mary decided to investigate the noise she heard. One night, she got her flashlight, and climbed the stairs to the dark attic. The pacing stopped. She knocked on the door. No sound. She unlocked the door, and went in. She gasped, dropping her flashlight.

Staring at her, was a giant mutant squirrel, with green goo dripping from it's mouth.

'It was a squirrel,' thought Mary. 'Dad was right!' But before she could move, the squirrel swallowed her whole, because her house was not haunted. It was built on a toxic waste dump.

There. paige set the mood for creepiness, then, surprised us. I like scary stories that are also funny.