Welcome back to my series covering my family’s annual Halloween trip to Orlando.  We are covering the second year we went, which was 2011.  Go back to Part 1 if you don’t love me and aren’t refreshing your web browser every 15 minutes, hoping I’ve posted something new.  Go on.  Look at Part 1.  I’ll wait.

First, a little housekeeping.  I’m a sucky blogger and forgot to include footage from the very first Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) we attended, which happened to be the 20th Anniversary.  Universal welcomed back HHN icons from the previous 19 years and it was amazing.  I think this sums up the event pretty well.

I should also note that Gracie was 10 years old when we attended our first HHN.  We truly didn’t know what we were getting into but she survived the first one and there was no turning back after that.  We tried to avoid the most populated Scare Actor areas.  She mostly hated the chainsaws and still hates the sound of them today.   The chainsaws are music to my ears and let me know that I’m at HHN.

Moving on, here’s a peek at our second HHN in 2011.  Check out the cool projections about the 4:30 mark.  It looked like the buildings were crumbling.  Gracie and I really enjoyed watching this as we were hiding from the Scare Actors.

I don’t do haunted houses and did not go through any at our first HHN but then Universal announced that 2011 would offer a house based on Edgar Allan Poe’s works.  I could not resist.  I’m a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan and had to see it, debilitating fear be damned.  I paid Landon $5 to go in with me and I hid behind him, my fingers through his belt loops and screamed like a little girl.  But I loved every minute of it.  I wish we could have just stopped and taken in the beautiful house scenery because it was like walking into Poe’s works.  It was amazing.

Here are some pictures from our second HHN, 2011.

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2011’s costumes for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) were all about the kids.  Okay, and a bit about us.  Both of them love Harry Potter because E and I read the books long before our kids could read.  We could not wait to introduce them to the HP series via book or movies as soon as we possibly could.  They loved it, and still do, as much as we do.

This is the first year E had to shave his beard off because Snape the character dictated it.  Just a tip, if you want full grown ladies to yell “Snape” at you all night long and ask if they can get a picture with you, go as Snape for Halloween in Orlando.  All we heard the entire night was “Snape!”  It was awesome.  Check out the last photo below where you can see the shadows on the sidewalk.  Perfect Snape silhouette.  I normally don’t kiss and tell but I totally made out with Snape on the Haunted Mansion ride.  Don’t tell Professor Lupin.

Landon was Harry Potter himself, Gracie was Hermione and I was Tonks.

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I’m going to try to finish this series within the next week because 2014 Halloween preparations here are stepping up and my time is increasingly valuable.  We leave for Orlando in two weeks! Two weeks, that’s crazy!  I am taking pictures of the process and can’t wait to post those pictures after the big reveal of this year’s costumes on October 30th.  It is going to be crazy epic.  I did a full dress rehearsal with Gracie last night and it turned out so much better than even I expected.  I absolutely cannot wait to unveil these to y’all.

In the meantime, I hope you’re having a great week!  If you’re dressing up for Halloween this year, tell me what you’re going to be in the comments.