croppin' and costumes

I had a busy weekend with lots of fun and very little sleep! I drove to Aledo, IL on Friday morning (the 23rd) for a scrapbook retreat, hosted by my friend Mandi. We stayed at The Slammer once again, though we were only there for the sleeping part of our weekend, not the scrapping.

On Friday night, we had a photo scavenger hunt around Aledo. Here are a few pictures from that...

Bridgette, standing on the statue in front of the high school: Some boy from the opposing football team who stole our idea:
Bridgette was our team's driver:
One of our tasks was to go to our friend Mandi's parents' house and take a photo with her mom. This is our team... Lissette, Chris, Bridgette... and Mandi's mom, Dreana:
We had to find this pop machine that is available 24/7 (and bring a can back to Mandi). We got extra points for creative photos, so here is Lissette posing for the camera:
Chris at the phone booth:
Our team had a blast trying to find all the items on the list. (We missed a few. Of course, it would've helped if it hadn't been pitch black out, and if we'd known the area better!) We even won... by one point... and received heavenly chocolate covered strawberries and 20 extra chances to win the door prizes for our efforts! :)

This time, the scrapping portion of the retreat was held at the Aledo Depot:
We all had room to spread out! I was busy and scrapped 32 pages!:

It was a wonderful crop... yummy food, plenty of scrapping time, fun games. The best part, though, was just getting to spend time with my friends!

Here is Laura:

And Jeanne:
Dawn:
and our awesome hostess, Mandi:
Unfortunately, I had to leave the crop early, and head home on Saturday night instead of Sunday. I wish I could've stayed longer, but Nick's Drama Team was performing at church Sun. morning, and I had to get the car back in time to drive him (and the rest of us) there.

The skit (Who Will Be First?) was very cute and all the kids did a great job! Nick played the game show host: Later on Sunday, my sister Christine arrived. She brought the boys' Halloween bug costumes that she's been working on. Ben's was mostly finished, but only the head piece part of Nick's costume was done, so she completed the rest while she was here.

I'm always in awe of Christine's costume design and sewing talent, but this was the first time that I've actually watched her making a costume, and now I am even more impressed! She does it without any patterns at all, only her own creativity. She worked almost nonstop, from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning, with only a few hours of sleep each night. It made MY hands hurt to watch her sew that whole time...:
...especially when she had to sew through leather for the stag beetle legs!:
Here is Nick, modeling his stag beetle costume once it was all finished (there is also a black jumper that Nick wasn't wearing at the time). It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the material Christine used is SO cool (and, apparently, it's a pain to sew!)... it looks red in some light and green in others, just like on a real beetle:
Ben, a very tired Christine, and Nick:
Emm and Christine:
Here is Ben, modeling his tarantula costume. It is so creepy (yet cute) in real life!:
We will even be able to use the tarantula costume in years to come, as a Halloween prop, LOL! The whole reason why Ben wanted to be a tarantula was to freak out his big (spider-hating)sister... heheh... so before Christine left on Tuesday (and after Emmalie had gone to school), we arranged the costume on the floor of her room and closed the door: It definitely startled her when she came home from school that afternoon, LOL!