Edgefest 2023

 

Tonight was Edgefest, a great tradition at Edge Martial arts where Bart and Christine throw a big celebration where kids can come in costumes and visit different decorated cars for a night of trunk-or-treating.  As you can see from my pumpkin above, there was a pirate theme this year.  Arrrr!  Maddie was there in her pirate garb, as were many others - including a lot of the black belts who were all there to help make the night a big success.  

And it was a big success!  It was super fun for the kids.  We had committed to helping this night, so we missed out on one night of the revival, but get this:  Perry Stone actually signed those new Bibles I picked up earlier this week.  Pretty cool, huh?  Anyway, back to piracy:

Maddie spent a lot of her time at this station, putting on temporary tattoos.  The funny thing was that they weren't entirely sure how to put on temporary tattoos at first, but they figured it out.  Kids that were visiting were given little treasure maps which led to different points and different challenges, like walking the plank or sword fighting or breaking boards of course.  And there was plenty of candy along the way.

I was taking a lot of group shots at the beginning and end, but my big job was taking pictures of kids and families together having a good time.  And they had a great time.  The weather was perfect outside, and in fact a little warm to start out with.  But zero chance of rain.

I love this - they had the Edge bus dressed up as a pirate ship, complete with a mast, cannons, and a skeleton at the wheel.

Yes, I was dressed as a pirate too!  We were having fun throughout the night, laughing at costumes and just enjoying the time together.  One kid was dressed as Rex Kwondo, handing out cards advertising for his six-week program.  There were the usual oversized inflatable costumes, and of course plenty of pirates.

Oh, and this pumpkin.  I always try to carve a pumpkin to match the theme.  Or, at least I have been lately.  Anyway, I was sitting there this afternoon while watching "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" while carving this out.  I had great success with the linoleum cutters, but my initial drawing was a little rushed.  Still, it came out okay, especially after painting the black flag around it.  Looks pretty good with a candle in it, and as it wasn't cut all the way through, it should hopefully last until Halloween.

Anyway, it was a fun night for Maddie.  On a completely unrelated note, I did my first big run this morning, jogging for a solid 25 minutes or so in a Jackson Hole Marathon.  It's a slower paced jog, but it's a start.  Hopefully I can build up the speed and length of time even, and we'll see how that goes as time goes on.  The important thing, of course, is the blood pressure, which was down quite a bit today.  Good to see.

Tonight we watched that latest episode of "Loki," and it was quite a cliffhanger.  We read for a bit, and then we said our prayers.  We've got another busy day tomorrow - it's quite the season!