A Belated Halloween Post

This was our first Halloween in New York City so we decided to just jump in and spent the holiday in the Village. Halloween in the Village is wild. On your average day you'll spot plenty of people in wacky outfits. On Halloween? God only knows what you'll see.

I started off my Halloween volunteering at the Village Children's Parade which was a lot of fun. So many kids in incredible outfits. They put a lot of work into it! My favorite costume was a parent dressed as a Jawa from Star Wars complete with light up eyes. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos.

The Children's Parade wound around Washington Square Park before ending at a festival near NYU. I was given the extremely important job of line control for the Twisted Twister Slide. Lots of fun!

After the carnival finished we headed out and spent the rest of the holiday with family, in our horse head masks (of course). 

Happy Halloween! Now on to the best holiday, THANKSGIVING!

My slide had some difficulties and deflated mid-Carnival

SWAT Dog

Stilt Walker Scarecrow. Kind of creeped me out.

Scarecrow and a bunny

Here is my station in its full inflated glory... The TWISTED TWISTER

New York Marathon

This past Sunday we crawled out of our nice warm bed, picked up some bagels and walked over to Lafayette Avenue to watch 50,000 runners compete in the ING New York Marathon. The runners had a perfect day for their race, it was crisp and cold and all of the gorgeous fall leaves were out.

We made it to Lafayette Avenue just in time to see the two female elite runners in first place pass by. We waited around for a while to watch the rest of the female elite pack followed by the males, and then all the "regular" runners. In this case, regular means sub 2.5 or 3 hour total race times which is nuts!! We saw a man running in a full suit, someone dressed as superman, and a runner in full Mayan regalia.

Watching the race inspired me to join the lottery for the New York 1/2 Marathon in March. I'll find out on December 12, wish me luck! The nighttime NYC skyline photo was from my run home from work last night. I can't say that I'm a fan of the time change. I hate leaving work in the dark! Oh well, at least there's sunshine in the morning for now.

Buzunesh Deba and Tigist Tufa - Deba went on to finish second

Female Elites - So fast!

Panorama of spectators on Lafayette

Geoffrey Mutai (orange top, blue shorts) went on to win the men's division

Male elites running down Lafayetter Avenue in Ft. Greene

NYPD keeping an eye on things

Helicopters and birds at the Queen of All Saints Church 

Runners by the Queen of All Saints Church

Looking back to Manhattan on my run home.