Our worst Frightmare came true

Toward the end of September Casey won six free passes to Utah's illustrious amusement park Lagoon. During October the park puts on "Frightmares" where they have some haunted house type stuff, people walking around in costumes and general spookiness. During Frightmares Lagoon is only open on the weekends and we weren't able to make it up until yesterday. But first, let's run down what we did the rest of the month.

The first weekend in October was LDS General Conference, of course. We received free entries to a run with your dog 5k at the University on Oct. 3. We've never walked Neville much farther than 2 miles let alone run with him. But he handled it like a champ and had we had a really fun time. He sniffed a lot of dogs' butts and since Casey was registered with him we came in third place and Neville one a giant red food bowl.

Here's Casey and Neville before the race:


Neville checking out the snacks at the end of the race:


Neville eating out of his prize bowl:


And Sarah with a very tired and grumpy looking Neville, he'd had enough excitement by the end:


And here's a photo of the three of us running together near the end of the course:


On the second weekend we went to see the Odyssey Dance Theatre's annual Halloween production "Thriller." The dance troupe does a variety of spooktacular dances from mummies to vampires to teenagers and evil scarecrows to of course the dance from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video. Casey's favorite was a tap dance number with glow-in-the-dark skeletons with removable heads. Sarah enjoyed the number with Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride of Frankenstein the most. That one features some really impressive dancing by the Bride as she accidentally gets "killed" part way through the number.

On Oct. 17 we had planned to go to Lagoon but our friends Stevie and Jesse went on a camping trip from hell to Moab and Katie's husband Brad was on a hunting trip in Wyoming. So what did we go do? We went shopping of course!

The next week Sarah successfully defended her prospectus to write her thesis (she built a moat, a wall loaded with archers and boiling oil to keep it safe from her evil advisement committee) and then her parents came into town. On Saturday, Oct. 24, Sarah, her dad and her sister Meghan ran the BYU homecoming 5k while Casey rocked the GRE. That night we rode the Haunted Canyon event on the Heber Creeper. It was fun and slightly scary. But it was our first ride on a real train! We think our nephew Nate would have had the time of his life as he loves both trains and Halloween.

You can read below what we did this past Friday night, and finally we come to Lagoon. We agreed to pick up Stevie and Jesse in American Fork and stop in Salt Lake City on the way up to pick up an illustration that Jesse's work is going to auction at a fundraiser. As we all know, Google Maps is pretty much worthless when it comes to navigating university campuses (at University of Texas in Austin, for example) and while we could see the building we wanted to get to, we had no clue how to actually reach it. Stevie and Jesse figured they would have better luck hoping out of the car than risking Casey's crazy driving which involved driving the wrong way on one-way streets and "sweet bootlegger turns."

We made it to Lagoon despite I-15's mysterious closure (a Halloween prank?) and met up with Katie and Brad. The lines were short and we were able to hit most of all the major rides (at least the ones we brave enough to go on). Some worth mentioning where the Spider which has a car that seats four facing opposite directions. We sat in the back of one car while Katie and Brad faced the front. It was crazy riding backwards and got even crazier when the car started flipping around so we rode sideways, backwards and forwards. It was definitely a unique little coaster.

Another signature at Lagoon is Wicked. This wicked coaster launches you straight up (really, we're talking 90 degrees here) across a peak and then straight back down (again at 90 degrees people) and then around some corkscrew turns. Casey volunteered the men set in the front row of the eight-person car and the girls sit in back. And guess who sits next to Casey? A girl about 7- or 8-years-old. Casey definitely screamed louder and in a higher pitch than the little girl.

Other rides of note were Colossus the Fire Dragon sporting double loops, the Wild Mouse, the Roller Coaster (seriously, that's what it's called, but it's an old-time wooden coaster) and the Celestial Screamer which is like the Enterprise at Kennywood in Pitsburgh. The Enterprise is our favorite ride at Kennywood and it is totally mellow and relaxing. It looks scary because you're in a little cart with no lap bar or seat belt and it spins you round and round and then tilts up so it is spinning you upside down. But the centrifugal force just pushes you back in your seat and if you just relax and close your eyes it is bliss.

Eventually it got too cold to ride any more rides so we went through a haunted house that Casey nobly lead us through. Then we headed into SLC to stuff ourselves with the wonderful pizza at The Pie. Pizza just doesn't get any better. Or root beer. Or cheesy pull-a-parts which are the most delicious thing there. Somebody hand me a napkin because I'm drooling just remembering it.

When we got home we watched the 1968 version of "The Night of the Living Dead" which was a first for Sarah. Well, that is if you don't include Dan Krauss' version staring Chris and Shad Kunkle. We didn't find time to carve pumpkins this year, but overall it was a pretty terroriffic October.