Kevin's 27!!! Also known as...

...Halloween in July!!! Yet another fabulous Halloween birthday party for Kevin has come and gone, and I have to say that the costumes from this year were the best we've seen! I tried to make sure and get a picture of everyone's costume who came, so enjoy!

*PREPARATIONS*

First of all, there's all the work that went in to the party beforehand...singlehandedly done by Rachel! That's not entirely true, Tyler did help hang streamers...

Rach putting some finishing touches up before the party...she made all of the decorations herself!

It was amazing the transformation our apartment went through for the party! I wish I had gotten pictures of all the food Rachel made also, but of course it was all eaten by the time I remembered to. There were carmel apples, chocolate covered pretzels, cake balls, cupcakes...and a cotton candy machine!!

*COSTUMES*

I can't even tell you how stressful our costumes were to make...but I'm so glad they worked out!!

I hope everyone read this book when they were little...

Ty's the main Wild Thing (his name's Moishe in the book) and I'm the little boy Max, dressed up as a Wild Thing...

I told Ty we have to wear these costumes to the Wild Things movie when it comes out in October...which if you haven't seen it it looks amazing! Check it out here...

Here's everyone else, pretty much in order of arrival...There are a bunch!

Neal (on the right) brought back shaving cream man from last years party, and Mike was a lotion covered toga wearing fella...

Nicole and Jason as Salt and Pepper

Brock and Kelsie as the milk man and his pregnant lady...his tag says "I want to be YOUR milkman" :)

Spencer and Staycee as Ken and Barbie

Adam and Megan as Hawaiin Luau dancers

L-R: Randy as a Booty Call, Jake as a hunter, Stuart as a bicyclist, Adam as a chick magnent, and Ben as a Soccer player...Randy and Adam definitely get the most points for creativity!!

Jared, Jess, and Jack as Indiana Jones characters from the Temple of Doom movie

The Birthday Boy and Party Planner themselves...as Beetlejuice and Lydia

Orrin and Andrew as a Russian Mafia guy and a happy tourist...Orrin's hat will return later...

The Wild Thing, Nick as a Cowboy, and a tourist

Matt, Ben, and Erin as Hannah Montana and her two tough bodyguards

Nathan and Brooke as Alice in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter...another movie that looks like it's going to be awesome!

Jake and Jeremy as UFC fighters

Brye and Michelle were two bags of trash :) Hefty and Glad

Omar and Jeff as Mario and Luigi

Nate as a rocker and Kade was a lucha libre fighter/Slipknot drummer...

Jen, Dylan, and Savannah as Hawaiins. I didn't get a picture of Carter, who was a walking Business Card!

Brock as another little Hawaiin...I don't have his little sis Ella who had on a cute little kimono

Chad, Vanessa, and Chloe as Bret Michaels and Daisy from Rock of Love...and Chloe as their would-be future child :) I wish you could see Chad's blonde ponytail!

Stephan as Skinny Dad...if that doesn't make sense to you watch this

Regan, Ashley and Cole as Alice in Wonderland, the Ace of Hearts, and the White Rabbit

And presenting...

CHASE!!! Who rode the bus up from New Jersey to surprise Kevin for his party. And not only did he do all that, he even wore Rach's body suit to the party...what a great friend! It was so fun having Chase with us for awhile...just like the good old days!

Winners of the Best Costumes...3 years running! The pressure is getting to be more than I can stand...

And of course...

The Cotton Candy Machine! It's not a party till there's Cotton Candy...Rach manned it most of the time...

But occasionally you could find maybe a tourist...

Or Beetlejuice making Cotton Candy...it was way fun

Everyone who was at the party!

All the boys

All the girlies

Here are some more fun pictures of some of the games we played, and more costumes!

And luckily even Misfit who'd had a horrible day, (he HATES wearing costumes, and was uncomfortable with everyone elses odd attire), was able to make a best friend at the party:

Orrin's hat! Misfit absolutely loved it, and wore himself out trying to cuddle with it

I think he thought it was his long lost mother...very funny but a little sad...

We had such a fun time at the party, thanks to the Radebaugh's for putting it all together!!!

A Week of 4th Festivities...

Happy late 4th of July! My 4th celebration started the Saturday before at the Braintree Carnival, where I had an absurd amount of fun:

The girls at the fair after watching the parade, I guess it would be called a parade but it mostly consisted of fire trucks honking their very loud horns. L-R Vanessa & Chloe, Erin & Ben, Rach, me.

All I had been thinking about all morning was eating a hot dog...and it was every bit as good as I'd hoped!

Rachel is going to hate me for putting this picture, but if you haven't ever had a fried Oreo they are divine!

Erin and Ben looking cute...

I was so excited to ride these swings! I was imagining they'd be just like the swings ride at Lagoon, which I love! Vanessa took our picture in line with all the little kids (the adults were simply helping their little kids get on, and glaring at Rach and I thinking we were going to ruin their children's experience)

As the ride was starting I told Rach it was the most fun I'd had in a long time, to which she replied that that was either great, or really sad. I tried not to think too much about what that said about my adventure level of late. And, sadly enough, the ride made us insanely sick, my head was spinning for the rest of the day. I wish I'd gotten more pictures, but we had tons of fun!

On the actual 4th, a week later, I didn't do much during the day, but went and picked up 70 burritos from Chipotle for the guys to eat after they got off work, and then headed out to the beach to meet them. I think I made best friends for life with the workers at Chipotle that day, so it was great :)

Me, Rach, and Ashley eating our Chipotle and waiting for the rest of the guys to get there. The weather was beautiful for a change, which was great!

This isn't all of the girls that were there, but the rest were too busy eating to get in the pic, so here's some of us! L-R Chelsea (who we're so glad is back out here from Utah!), Jessica, Kelsie, me, Rach, and Ashley

Neal had the coolest kite ever...

I love the ocean in the background of this pic, and Stephan looks like he's taking the kite flying very seriously

The weather was nice, and it was sunny, but the water was still absolutely freezing. Of course, the Radebaughs braved it and swam around forever...with their little nephew Cole. I think this is the most precious picture ever!

It is next to IMPOSSIBLE for me to get Ty to take a normal picture, so here are the best I got! In all fairness to Ty, they're really bad of me too...

It's funny because if you look closely you can see Rach and Kev playing in the water behind us...back to that adventure level thing. I was posing while they were frolicking in the surf...

A few of the girls had done really cute face painting for the 4th (which had been my dream the week before at the fair), so here are Michelle and Vanessa displaying their cute faces (and Vanessa's cute nails!)

Chloe's darling 4th of July shirt...she laughs so much, and I was trying to get a picture of her big smile but I just missed it! At least I finally got one from Ty...

We played some Ultimate Frisbee...I never touched the frisbee but it was still fun. This was taken on Jessica's nice camera, and it's crazy how much brighter and clearer it looks!

There was a crazy wrestling match between Chad (fully clothed) and some of the techs trying to pull him into the water, but of course I only managed to grab my camera after they'd soaked him...it was fun to watch though! :)

Some of the boys playing football in the freezing water...you can see Chad gave in and played fully clothed!

This isn't a good picture, but it shows how the beach kind of curves around up ahead--we

walked to the other end of it and got to see a bunch of huge firework shows up and down the

coast, it was really cool! I hope everyone else had a great 4th!!