Spooky Night at Lake Compounce

David and I took Abby (along with Auntie Karen and cousins Mariah and Bailey) to the Spookfest at Lake Compounce Park last night. Abby has never been to a full-on Haunted evening festivity before mostly due to the 'I-had-a-nightmare-can-I-sleep-with-you-tonight' disorder. We talked about it and it went like this:
"This is a really scary big-girl haunted walk. Can you handle it?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm a 1st grader now, you know"
So we packed up the kids and settled Evie down for the night with Grandma to watch over her, and we left at 5:30 last night.
David and I were soooooo excited to go because we LOVE the haunted houses and graveyard walk at the park, and the best thing was that this year we could include Abby in the trip. She is fiiiiiiiiiinally old enough!
We got to the park and bought tickets for all the rides and the Halloween festivities, grabbed some fair-food, and hopped on a couple of rides before the haunted walk.
Abby, Mariah and Bailey were set to go on those big swings that twirl 30 feet up in the air.... you know, the classic swing fair ride. Now what bothers me about this ride is that there is only one small chain separating my precious baby from being flung 60 feet through the air to death. I just about had an anxiety attack as Abby got her seat and Mariah closed the chain for her. Apparently I'm not the only worry-wort because there was another father telling his kid frantically to "hold on, hold on, don't move and jiggle the swing." Abby survived the ride and got off white as a ghost. She didn't like the swings. ****insert parental happy dance here.****
The Haunted Graveyard walk was spook-tacular, as promised. It took almost an hour to get through the whole walk, with ghouls and goblins and vampires jumping out and yelling and screaming (one guy did this freaky clicky-growl in my ear and wigged me RIGHT out)
Abby clung to David the whole time and screeched and screamed her way through, but honestly she was unbelievably brave. The problem child was my 12 year niece, Mariah, who is almost as tall as I am. She clung to me so hard that she pulled some of my hair out, she almost strangled me with my own coat, and pulled my fingers out of socket more than once. Abby finally turned and said "Riah, you don't have to be so scared, it's all pretend and makeup."
Now THAT was funny.
We got home at 11:00 at night and Abby B-lined for bed, not to get up until after 9:00 this morning.
It was a GREAT night!