Today was a big shopping day for the class as they went to Galeries Lafayette. Galeries Lafayetteis an upmarket French department store chain, the biggest in Europe. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. During Nazi occupation of France in 1940, Les Galeries Lafayette underwent a process of “Aryanization”, that is the removal of Jewish owners and their replacement by non-Jewish owners. Théophile Bader, Raoul Meyer, Max Heilbronn, the store’s administrators and 129 Jewish employees were forced to resign. The property of Bader, Meyer and Heilbronn families was taken.

James was surprised to see the Statue of Liberty in Paris, but then found out that France has no less than 6 reproductions of the Statue of Liberty in Paris (exhibited in the open air or in the museum).

Continue reading “2024 Day Eight of Paris Trip” →

Mom and Dad went to the annual Haunted Garage Sale in Dearborn Michigan. James had classwork and could not attend, but Mom and Dad represented the family well. We noticed that several people recognized us from past garage sales, both here and the ones we do in the summer to help raise money to buy more Halloween stuff.

Mom and Dad made several trips to the car with goodies and everything we bought was very reasonably priced (which is why we attend, its only $5 to get in).

There was a giant skeleton raffle going on for all attendees but unfortunately we did not win (we never won any of their raffles).

Continue reading “Haunted Garage Sale 2023” →

We started a little later than usual because most of the items that we wanted for the party we ordered online, but none the less it is a very special day when we get to go to the Halloween store and see the latest Halloween props on display with demonstrations and such. We did buy a couple items and we each used our 20 percent off discount coupon which has become a tradition for the family as each person picks out whatever they want.

Dad got a new clown for the kitchen which should be fun.

This was taken in Allen Park where the Best Buy used to be (it closed less than a year ago).

Continue reading “First Trip to the Halloween Store 2023” →

The halfway to Halloween vendor show took us 3 years to attend, but we finally made it this year. We actually never heard of it the prior two years and was hard to find anything about it on the internet. Despite that it was pretty well attended on a beautiful day in early May.

It is located on a farm on Ann Arbor/Saline road and it had 60 Halloween vendors. In addition their was a hearse car show and a Halloween art show. Plenty of concessions and even a couple “preview” haunts and escape rooms. The cost was only $5 per person and only Mom and Dad went to this event as James had to study for his final exam at Wayne County Community College on Monday.

We ended up buying several products including several t-shirts, a “Night of the Living Dead” gumball machine, and a used but full size animatronic. A fun time was had for both Mom and Dad but we missed James and thought he would have enjoyed it, however it was very mature of him to stay home and study, as he will have all of summer for fun and games.
Continue reading “2023 Halfway To Halloween Vendor Show” →

Another event which has become an annual tradition for us is the Halloween Garage Sale. While the venue changes every couple years the quality and fun remain constant. This year it was again held in Dearborn at the community center.

Once again we picked up some of the cartoon pictures for our small bathroom. We now have about a dozen of these pictures and while they are not really scary, they are funny in a Halloween way. For example the Charlie Brown gang sitting around a campfire at Camp Crystal Lake.

We also picked up some animatronic hangings for the hallway and several t-shirts. Continue reading “Haunted Garage Sale 2022” →

Our second trip to Mackinaw was a quick one, but we still had a blast. It was a one day visit and the weather was perfect. James got to spend a little time at the beach and Mary got to see a sunset. Our main purpose in this trip was to see the Northern Lights which were supposed to be very visible, but unfortunately we did not notice anything special in the night sky except the lights from the bridge.

The next day we visited the Deer ranch in St. Ignace (which was our reason to cross the bridge. James fed them carrots but kept his mask on as he wanted to make sure the upper peninsula was safe from any lower peninsula germs. Continue reading “Mackinaw Second Visit (August 2022)” →

Our friends at Screamers had a huge event today, a sort of dream cruise event. The creepy cars were parked in their parking lot (which was nearly full) and all their items were 10 percent off in the store. The line for the store was huge so we spent most of our time enjoying the outside events.

Lets recap this weekend. Seeing a spook show on Friday and then going to a Spirit Halloween opening on Saturday, followed by a Screamers event on Sunday – all in early August – we had to say that it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Or as Jim Harbaugh says, “who has it better than us? Nobody!! Continue reading “Screamers Dream Cruise 2022” →

After spending the night in Coldwater after watching the Spook Show at the Abbott Get Together we stopped off in Jackson on the way home and were shocked to see that the Spirit Halloween store in the indoor mall (just of 94 and 127) was opened. We went inside and bought a few items for our upcoming party in October. We are hoping to have 3 skeletons jumping out of bags and were happy to find 2 of those in stock at this store. Only 1 more to find and our Halloween needs will be complete, at least for now.

This was the first time we went to Past Tense since the pandemic, and had a pretty good time. First thing we noticed in the door was 20% off all garden items so Mom took advantage of this to purchase some spinning items for the yard. Past Tense also has year round Christmas and Halloween decorations so we bought a little of both. Some skulls with peeling skins for Dad, and some Christmas ornaments marked 95% off for James. Mom bought some garden items and after it was over and we were on our way home we made our traditional ice cream stop. Continue reading “Past Tense 2022” →

Memorial Day weekend continued with a trip to Bronners in Frankenmuth. The first thing we noticed when we drove into Frankenmuth was that there was a dog show called “The Dog Bowl” and the city of Frankenmuth was packed with visitors to see this show. However Bronners was not crowded at all and we took advantage of it to enjoy a nice visit to the largest Christmas shop in the land. Perhaps the most exciting new thing we saw was that Dept 56 was putting out a new Munster and Addams Family ceramic houses. We already had the Hawthorne version of the Munsters but we really had nothing on the Addams family so we bought a small Addams family gazebo to go into our ceramic display of haunted houses. Continue reading “Bronners Visit 2022” →