Well gearing up for Halloween 2013 our costumes were coming along pretty slow but I new they were going to be awesome....last minute this past year we decided to be crazy again and drive all night to get there for their Halloween Contest with our 4 children and all of our costumes in a minivan. The one downside to this trip was that in order to make it in time we had to miss our churches Trunk or Treat. We luckily went to my parents the week before in Richmond but I really was sad having to miss ours.
Here is a front shot of Vanellope's car that we had made the night before leaving.
The evening of the 30th we packed up our car and got on the road around 6pm. It was incredibly crazy leading up to that time doing A LOT of last minute revisions to costumes and finishing costumes. This past Halloween we dressed up as characters from Wreck-it Ralph. 3 of our children had cars that we built around their costumes which were incredibly labor intensive. Rodney said that he was trying to calculate things out and figured he probably spent around 100 hrs working on costumes! Let's just say we used LOTS and LOTS of foam and hot glue for costumes....and paint.
After driving towards NY for a couple of hours we realized that Rodney forgot to pack the front wheels for Bentley's car costume. We were devastated! Rodney had spent so much time working on that car and we knew that Bentley couldn't wear it without the front wheels and we were worried about how she would deal when we told her about it. We also knew that we didn't have time to turn around and go get them. Her car took up a huge amount of space in our van and that was another annoying thing. The fact we had to pack it around and couldn't even use it. Boo!
We drove straight through the night with only stopping to get gas. The kids did really well, we found that the easiest way to get through a long road trip is to do it at night while they are sleeping.
We entered into the city around 5:30 in the morning and it only took a couple tries this trip to get to where we wanted to go. In 2011 we couldn't figure out what route and bridge to take and kept going in circles. It was awful.
One thing that we forgot about was the fact that parking garages inside the city close to the show do not allow you to park your own car. The workers have you jump out with whatever stuff you want at the front of the garage and they drive your car inside and park it super close to other cars...they are basically the only ones who drive your car inside the garage.
The hard thing about his fact is that our car was full to the brim with different pieces to each of our costumes so we thought we would park the car and stand next to it and assemble our costumes. Instead, Rodney dropped me off with 4 children on the side of some random street a couple blocks from where we needed to be with bags and boxes of our costumes. I knew we were under a time constraint because you HAVE to be standing in line for the judging at 7 and then they start getting people into the audience shortly after. We were crazily dressing up everyone and gluing together certain parts of the cars that couldn't be pieced together until last minute because they wouldn't fit into our minivan if they were fully assembled. Our hearts were racing, and the kids were going a little crazy as well.
Finally we were dressed and started walking over to the line. It was nuts having to help the kids with their costumes and carry our bags of clothing we changed out of (we couldn't put it into the car because our car was parked for us and we couldn't get to our car until hours later)...we had so much stuff! One thing I realized at that point that we also forgot was the hair candy that Paisley was supposed to have. I had left it on the counter at home.
When we were standing in line we started seeing people with clipboards and coffee cups walk up and down the line that we recognized the last time we had been there which means they work for the show and were basically picking out the people that would make it into the contest. Everyone else would be part of the audience. Sadly they walked right past us without even doing a double take. It was so utterly depressing.... it really crushed our spirits. I knew that they weren't interested in our costumes which seems like a huge bunch of bologna because it's a family show and we had a costume of 6 people with totally cute kids, who wouldn't like our costumes right?! Ugh, anyways... The Kelly and Michael show didn't so we packed things up and went to tour the city for the day.
This is a pretty good shot of the feet that Rodney sculpted out of exercise foam (camping pad). Isn't he so crafty?! For his hands we just spray painted hulk hands which can be seen in pictures below
We had this sign to get some attention, however it was a battle getting any of our girls to hold it...they didn't want anything to do with it!
some people waiting in line ahead of us....I wish I would have gotten better pictures of other peoples costumes, I was just too overwhelmed keeping our kids in the line I guess.
elf on a shelf!
The garage you see that is opened in the middle of this picture is where they took the people dressed in the costumes that would appear on the show and would make it into the contest. So close but yet so far!
Aven looks so dang cute in this picture I can't stand it! His crown was tough to keep in place but really made the King Candy outfit stand out. My mom made his satin bloomers, and I made his little purple tuxedo tail coat. He also has a nude colored pilot cap with white hair glued to the sides to look like a balding head.
Here is everyone except Copper, she wasn't feeling photogenic at the time
As we were walking around we saw NYC temple. So neat!
walking the streets of new york
Inside Toys R'Us there is a huge carosel that was a lot of fun riding. Unfortunately you don't get to choose which car you sit in. The girls really wanted the My Little Pony car but we ended up with the 2nd best one which was the Barbie Car. We were in the store for probably around 2 hrs after looking at all the toys and riding the rides. We let each girl pick out a small toy also. Bentley picked out this fuzzy worm thing that was attached to some fishline that looks like it moves by itself. Copper got a bouncy ball and Paisley got this Ariel kitty that has a furry purple tail that you can brush.
We ate lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. All of the workers had on costumes, it was really fun!
Dylans Candy Bar
We also road the metro a couple times with the kids to get from one place to another. The girls enjoyed seeing the rats on the tracks.
If you are a fan of the show you will recognize this little table in the nook of the bakery. It is where they would have their consultations with costumers on the type of cake they were going to make.
On the drive to our hotel which was in Princeton New Jersey I started getting an awful migraine. At the hotel Rodney purchased me some headache meds and I took a short nap while Bentley watched Aven as my little helper angel and Rodney got the rest of the kids ready for bed.
Next stop on our trip, Washington DC!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment