The All Hallows Pursuit of Grim

So at the beginning of October Andrew and I decided to host a Halloween party. We have always gone to family get togethers for Halloween but since most of my family up here has left the country I thought it would be fun to get together with friends from Ashton and we could invite some cousins of Andrew's since they live in Rexburg or Idaho Falls. Anyways so I found out when everyone could come and we planned it for Oct. 30th which was last night. Anyways, it turned into a month of planning and decorating. I loved it! I've decided I love Halloween and I love fall, plus Leah's birthday is the 23rd so it gives me a better excuse to have fun. So I knew that in the past my mom and dad had hosted an annual Halloween party for their friends and in previous years they had done a scavenger hunt type thing. We're talking like 15 years ago so things have changed since then as far as scavenger hunting goes. I took some of her ideas but then changed it into more of an Amazing Race type thing but with a Halloween flair. I knew that my guests would be able to use cell phones and maybe GPS so I took a little more liberty in the clues and such. I've decided to post the whole scavenger hunt on here, more for my benefit than anyone else's but I thought you would like to see if you could figure out the clues and "find" your way around Ashton as though you had been to our party. So here it goes. I gave this following paper to them along with a trick or treat bucket with a crayon, piece of paper, card, pencil, and tea candle. Okay so here's the introduction letter thing. Click on the pictures to make them larger so you can read them, then hold down the control key while you scroll on your mouse to make it larger, or zoom in. I hope that makes sense.

So I put them in groups of four and then told them that clue #1 was hidden about the room under pumpkins. So it was chaos for a couple of seconds and then a mad rush out the door. Meanwhile I ran to my car and rushed to the first barricade. Here is their clue#1. See if you can figure out the two deviation items they were to gather.


They found me at the Latter Day Sanctuary. It was so funny because I was standing there at the front door waiting for a few minutes then I saw down the road this mass of cars turning into the parking lot. One car just stopped and instantly all four doors open and out popped SpiderMan (woman) Bat Man, Ron and Hermione. They spread out and started counting. So funny! Once they gave me the correct number (which we thought was 168 but was actually 166, long story) and showed me their two deviation items I gave them clue #2.

Andrew, the Death Eater,was waiting at 874 Pine Street with a table set for four. On the menu were the following dishes and beverages.

The eyeballs I made were from this recipe. The mummified fingers were breakfast sausages wrapped in crecent roll dough, plus I refrigerated them all day. The blood was tomato juice with red and blue food coloring. Andrew served the blood by syringing it from a nice crystal bowl and then squirting it into small test tubes. Each person was supposed to eat two eyeballs, 1 finger and 1 test tube of blood. Surprisingly it was quite difficult for most of them. I think it must have been the whole ambiance of the room and Andrew, the Death Eater trying to force them to eat cold sausages that REALLY resembled mummified fingers. I don't know but it turned out perfect, just the way I wanted! After they completely ate their meal they recieved clue #3.

So I was at the shed in back and waited while they came in with their pumpkins. I had had pumpkins at my house but one team had grabbed one of their pumpkins from their own house and just turned it around and made a face on the other side. Then they were to light their pumpkins. There was some hexing going on at this point because "mysteriously" the flame kept going out when the #1 team was trying to light their candle. I think it must have been the team just behind them. :) So on to Clue #4, my personal favorite.

No one was waiting at the grain elevator, or was there? Knowing that that place is extremely creepy in the middle of the day let alone the nighttime, we knew it had to be part of our race. It was perfect, the teams were terrified and suddenly those heroes (batman and Spiderman) were cowering in fear. It was AWESOME! Not that I was there but I definitely heard several stories about it later. Andrew and I had made a "Scarecrow" and I say it that way because it didn't have any straw, just rolled up towels. We used Andrew's clothes and let's just say that Lee, our hired hand, who had been working there earlier that day saw the "body" and thought Andrew had fallen from the rafters and was about to call 911, it was so real. Plus, Andrew placed a CD player down in the pit playing really creepy noises. Most said they had never been so scared in all their life, mainly because of the anticipation of someone jumping out at them. No one ever did, we just wanted them to think there was. It worked just the way we had hoped.

So all along the way there had been the following pictures around at each place they HAD to go. They were just supposed to put them in order. One team was smart enough to go and retrace their steps. They ended up winning. Andrew and I were waiting back by the house. Andrew had started a big bon fire and we all ended there and rehashed the whole race for probably a half an hour outside by the fire. Then we went inside and rehashed it for another hour. It was so fun hearing all of the stories. I will post pictures and rehash stories in the next post, along with cute pictures of the girls on Halloween so look forward to that in the next couple of days as I gather pictures from our guests! All I can say is that it was sooo stinkin fun, but I'm glad it is over.