The Murder Mystery Birthday Party and Hocus Pokus 5k:

This recap has been long overdue! Let’s rewind to the Friday before Halloween which was homecoming for the school that I teach at. In the elementary grades we have our annual Story Book Parade where students and teachers dress up like a character from a story book and march in a parade around the school.
We also had a HUGE storm and everything was flooded this weekend as well. Here are some pictures of a road right by the school.
Needless to say the football game that night was a muddy one, so in an effort to save my boots I went the whole plastic bag route. I know I’m so fashionable 😉
That evening after the football game, my friend Liz (the birthday girl) came over and we busted out tons of goodies for her birthday. We made carmel apples, toffee apples, hundreds of chocolate covered strawberries, whitches brooms, googly eyed cookies, white chocolate pretzle bones, and chocolate covered pretzles. It took us until 3:30 am that morning, but we had tones of fun listening to music and talking while working.

I had a 5k to run the next morning and everyone was convinced I would sleep in due to the late night, but I proved them wrong and bounced out of bed ready to go Saturday morning. The Hocus Pocus 5k was a race that I planned to run with my friend magen but she had a family emergency come up so I ran solo. We had outfits planned to be Workout Barbies and I was not going to dress up as that by myself so I opted for an”80’s” look. It was kind of a half hearted attempt, I was pretty tired and just focused on getting in a good run.
  Nathan snapped these pictures because he’s seriously the best husband ever and supports me in all my endeavors without complaining a bit. Thanks Nathan ❤

I felt good throughout the run and decided to really move it towards the end when I realized I was out in front of the pack. I finished in 24 minutes and 56 seconds, not my best time but considering how little sleep I got I was happy with it.

I looked at the roster before leaving and realized that I finished first in my age group and was going to get a medal, so we decided to hang around a bit until the awards began.
I got some fruit while we waited becuse my stomach was starting to growl.

We had a good time looking at all the costumes and dogs that people had dressed up to run with them, as it was a pet friendly race sponsored by the humane society where we adopted Brandy from. We did not bring Brandy with us for the run because we were nervous about how she would do around so many other dogs. She still acts very much like a puppy and loves to harass other dogs and can be difficult to deal with at times, but maybe next year she will have settled down a bit and be able to participate.

Upon arriving home we still have a lot of work to do to get ready for Liz’s party that evening.    We made all the sweets the night before but we still had to make the pumpkin quesadillas, the mini mummy pizzas, and the hotdog mummies for the main courses. We decided to go with finger foods for her party since it was later at night and it would be easier for all the guests.
Everything is baked and ready to go and then we started moving all of the food over to the pavilion where we would be hosting the party. The boys who were in charge of the murder Mystery had already been hard at work prepping the “murder scenes” .   I begin setting up the pavilion with white ights,candles, candies,name tags, fake spiderwebs and all the food. Due to all the rain that we had the pavilion floor had puddles on it so we tried our best to squeegee it off but there were still puddles when the guest started to arrive so we made the best of it!
Dry ice can make any drink look spooky.   The cheesy pumpkin quesadillas.
The mini mummy pizzas.   The witches broomsticks.
Delicious caramel apples with toppings .
White chocolate skeleton bones a.k.a. pretzels and marshmallows dipped in chocolate.   Pinterest inspired googly eyed cookies.
I was thrilled to see that all the guests had dressed up according to their character assignment per the birthday girl. Liz assigned each person who RSVPed a different character to come dressed as for her murder mystery party. We had around 30 guests and each one decked themselves out wonderfully.

If you couldn’t tell I was assigned Snooki for the party. Here I am taking a picture with the lumberjack and a zombie.

And here is the vampire birthday girl with the ghost Jessica!

I had to snap a picture with the old man from UP.
And the mime was dressed to kill 😉 Flavor Flave the rapper also made an appearance at the party.


And my date for the night was the infamous Dwight Schrute from the show the Office. (with Jessica the ghost creeping in the background ) we also had some lovely cupcakes made by Jessica the ghost, they were delicious!

Overall the party was a huge success and the Murder Mystery led us all around campus in the dark. The murderer was Aladdin and everyone was surprised. Once we finished with the mystery part we headed back to the pavilion for some dancing and dessert. We dance the night away and then cleaned up and head home to crash. It was a lovely weekend and I’m so glad that I got to help my friend Liz celebrate her 20th birthday.