This is a true story...

Since I talked about it all last week, I have to give you a bonfire update! First, I'll say that it was a lot of fun. About fifty people came, and we all had a really good time. The only problem was that it was insanely hot outside and the bonfire only made things worse as far as the heat factor was concerned! So, we roasted hot dogs but had to stay as far away from the bonfire as humanly possible while doing it. This involved finding long sticks and using duct tape to attach the roasting sticks to, as seen below:

I shared a roasting stick with Jonathan and Amy, roasting three hot dogs at once, and we took shifts cooking both ourselves and the hot dogs. Once we started to melt, we handed the stick to someone else and cooled off 'til it was our turn again. Lemme just say though, the hot dogs were worth it. What's tastier than a hot dog cooked over an open flame?

Later, people started gathering around the fire for ghost stories. To motivate the story tellers, Katherine and I made some real life "flair" awards for the event:

It's hard to see, but there are two buttons: Best Ghost Story, Bonfire 2008, and #1 Scaredy Cat. I won't keep you in suspense. The Best Ghost Story button went to a girl named Susanne (I think...I've never actually met her before). She mainly got the award because her story was really long and we were all impressed that she remembered the whole thing. It involved a samurai, a ghost, and a monk. At the end of the stories, we voted and hers won. It was between her and Leo, and I voted for Leo's story. I'll probably get it a little wrong, but here's his story as I remember it:

A person (Leo's friend?) was working in an old folks home late at night. He heard a strange sound and went to inspect what it was. At the end of the hallway, he saw a door ajar, so he decided to peek in and see if that's where the sound was coming from. When he did, he saw AN EYE looking back at him - it was the old lady who lived in that room. She grabbed his arm and said, "Don't let them get me!!" He freaked out and ran down the hallway. After calming down a bit, he figured he should go back and see what was wrong with her. When he got back to her room, she was in bed sound asleep. He had no idea what to think! The next morning, he was told by other staff that the lady had died in her sleep the night before!!

There's a chance that I messed up some of the details because I think I blacked out somewhere in the middle of the story.

But even though I was a chicken, the Scaredy Cat award went to Janice, who went up to the pavilion during Joe's story because she was so scared. She was pretty proud of it:

As you can see, it was a fun night. AND, I got to hold someones hand. So, yeah. The night was a success.