r.o.w.d.i.e. that's the way we spell rowdy ... rowdy! let's get rowdy!

Anyone remember that cheer? I must have performed it a dozen times at our costume party on Saturday night, complete with a dance routine and jumps. And the longer the party went on, the louder I cheered. It was so. much. fun. Dare I say ... legendary. The weather was with us, the guests were excited to run with the SNL theme, and the kegs were flowing freely ... it was the perfect recipe for a fun night filled with more than a few laughs. We had about 80 people at the height of the party, which went on until about 1 a.m. for the last handful of stragglers ... but of course the best part of the night was having laugh-out-loud Saturday Night Live themed costumes of all kinds. As you know, Manbug and I were the Spartan cheerleaders, along with 4 other couples ...

(3 of the 5 Spartan teams)

Gabe will be happy to learn that there was not just one, but two sets of Hans and Franz weightlifters ...

Didn't get a photo with both Hans/Franz sets together and unfortunately, I didn't do a great job of making sure that the camera in my hands at all times, so I have only a few photos to share ... probably better that way, right? I'll try my best to recap ...

For the first hour of the party, the little ladybugs joined in the fun ...

You'll notice that just behind my little hula-hooping Twister bug, there's a sheet on the wall ... for the SNL video clips that were running throughout the whole party. An old childhood friend of Manbug's was in charge as our dj/vj ... what a great job he did, 2 hours of pre-party a/v setup in his own little nook of the garage ...

Yes, swooper, you do know who that is - looking so handsome in his fur vest at his dj/vj post! As is typical of this particular person, he initially thought the theme was Saturday Night Fever and not Saturday Night Live ... he realized his error with just days to go and was (mercifully) able to change the party playlist he had initially created, but kept his disco costume figuring that it had to match with someone in an early season of SNL. Phew - disaster averted! So back to the costumes ... as I said, we had 5 Spartan cheerleading teams, 2 Hans and Franz, 6 Wayne's World teams, 2 Mary Katherine Gallaghers, a church lady ...

Behind our church lady you can see one of our synchronized swimmers (a character played by Martin Short in the early 90's) complete with USA swimcap, nose plug, and orange life vest. Behind the swimmer you can see a shiny shirt and hat - it's the back of one of our two "wild-n-crazy guys". We also had these characters ...

From left to right this is Christopher Walken from the infamous "gotta have more cowbell" skit (I got a fever - and the only prescription is more cowbell), the 2 in the middle are Team MacGruber, and the guy on the right? Well, isn't that obvious? We even gave him an award for Best Costume ...

Honestly, it still makes me laugh out loud when I see this costume - I absolutely loved having a Mr. Bill come to the party! Our other winner for Best Costume went to the guy in the middle of this photo ...

Do you recognize who he was? He's Patrick Swayze from the Chippendale dancer skit that he did with Chris Farley years ago ... you can't see it in this photo, but he was complete with the sleeveless tux shirt and the lycra dance pants- and I mean just look at the work that went into that Swayze wig. Please. He's surrounded by musical guest Avril Lavigne on the left and by the Belushi bumblebee on the right.

Clear to see it was a night filled from end to end with laugh-out-loud fun ... well worth every bit of work to make it happen. And even worth the painful day-long cleanup on Sunday after just a tiny bit of sleep ... made for some very groggy and unfocused trick-or-treating with the ladybugs last night, but we went to bed still giggling about party stories 24 hours later ... zzzzz ... tee hee hee ... zzzzz ...

Happy Halloween!!!