The Mom Crowd

Far too many people miss out on having an excellent Halloween experience merely because they think pulling off a great costume will cost too much in time, money, or effort. Thankfully, this is not at all true. A well-planned costume will not only magnify your Halloween experience but will also be fairly easy to do if you follow these simple steps.

The first trick to a great Halloween costume is to start early. Planning ahead is the number one way of easing yourself into an awesome Halloween. If you can manage it, try to plan at least a year in advance; you’ll never get a better deal when buying a great costume than just after Halloween the previous year. If you wait too long before you begin planning your Halloween costume, you risk not being able to find what you need without paying way too much, or worse: not being able to find what you want at all. Getting started the year before will reduce much of the stress inherent in last minute costume shopping and dramatically reduce the number of problems you’ll encounter throughout the experience.

The next thing you need to do is decide on a theme. While it’s true that singleton costumes can perform well if you get lucky, the best way to ensure that your costume will be a hit is to plan together alongside your friends or family. Consider a costume that pairs well with your spouse, child, or best friend. Not only will it be more fun to go as a couple or group, but it will make your costume stand out that much more at whatever party you attend.

Once you know what it is that you want, it’s time to go shopping. Finding adult women costumes or men costumes is fairly easy to do online, if you know exactly what you want. Pick out the perfect thematic costume and get it well in advance.

Now it’s time to customize. Don’t just wear the standard costume as it comes in a box; make the costume yours. Add jewelry, a cane, umbrella, or any other props that fit in character. Just make sure that everything can be carried with only one hand; costumes that require both hands tend to make for far more uncomfortable parties.

As it gets closer to Halloween, consider doing a test run to make sure everything is how you want it to look. Pick a day a month in advance or so to fully dress up as a group and do an activity at home, like board game night, poker or video games. This way you and your thematic costume group can be fully ready for the big day while not outing the surprise to everyone else who’ll be at the party.

Finally, when Halloween eventually does arrive, be sure to have fun! The whole point of planning in advance is to make your Halloween party experience thoroughly awesome, and that can’t happen unless you commit yourself to having a great time. If anything goes wrong with your costume at the last minute, don’t worry! Just consider it part of the fun.

Last summer, I took one of the most interesting vacation trips I could ever go on. I took an RV trip with the kids from Phoenix to San Francisco. . As a full-time writer, I have the distinct advantage of being able to work from any location. So one day in late May, I called my parents up and asked to borrow one of their two used class B motorhomes. I explained my idea, “Yes, Mom, I plan on taking my two kids on the road for the summer, stopping here and there and getting to know the country.”

At first, they thought I was a little crazy, a single mother with a somewhat limited income, on a road trip in a large RV with two kids. Was I crazy? Well, I admit, at first I was a little scared, after all the biggest vehicle I had ever driven was a van. However, I was determined to spend some quality time with my kids, and do it in an inexpensive way.

The Trip

We started off at about 5 a.m. at the beginning of June. Our destination? The Grand Canyon of course! It was only three hours away, but the kids had only been to Phoenix, so it was a great opportunity to see the Grand Canyon. We stayed at Trailer Village, an RV campground located on the South Rim of the canyon. We had planned to only stay overnight but ended up staying a few days. We spent a day rafting down the river, another walking along the trails in the early morning and evening. Other than that we just spent some time being together, playing in the pool and talking.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas was our next destination. While I knew the kids couldn’t spend time at the casinos, I also knew there were many other things available there. I planned out our trip so that we could stay at the Circus Circus RV park. The kids enjoyed the lights, the action, street vendors and shows. During the day, we toured some of the most fabulous hotels along the strip including, the Venice, the Eiffel Tower hotel, and the Excalibur. I had only planned on spending a night here, but we ended up spending the better part of a week. We took in a cirque du Soleil Show, went to the Ethel M Chocolate factory and to the Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas.

What Trip Would Be Complete Without a Visit to Disneyland?

Our next destination was Los Angeles. We stayed at several locations in this wonderful city. There is just so much to see. Our first stop was Hollywood Blvd. and then Universal Studios, but we also visited Venice beach, Santa Monica and Long Beach before heading over to Anaheim, Disneyland and then down to the San Diego Zoo.

Along the California Coast

Our trip continued up the California coastline driving along scenic highway 1. When we saw something that interested us; we would stop, play, eat out or fix something in our temporary home and enjoy our time together. We saw interesting state parks, theme parks, towns and communities. We met other RV’ers, just out having a good time like us, some actually adopting the lifestyle full time, then we made our final destination of San Francisco.

San Francisco Area

While in San Francisco, we visited family and stayed in the California Delta, an area full of waterways; meaning there were lots of RV parks, camping, skiing, rafting and boating. San Francisco is only about an hour from the Delta, so we made several day trips to the city by taking the Bart train. Needless to say, the rest of our vacation was spent languishing about, relaxing in our RV and enjoying ourselves. It was truly the best family vacation we have ever been on (inexpensive too).