Friday Fantasies (4th of July Edition)

TGIF Readers! I feel like this is Friday #2 this week, with the holiday on Wednesday. Speaking of the 4th of July, since I am still coming down from my post-fireworks euphoria, I have decided to theme today’s Fantasy in honor of our recently passed holiday. As you may know (or may not, as I do have some foreign readers), Independence Day (often better-known as the 4th of July, for the date the holiday falls on) is an American Holiday in which the citizenry celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, by which the Founding Fathers of our nation stated that America was its own country and should be free of British rule. This act of treason led to war between Britain and the American colonies, which eventually led to the creation of the country we know today… and it all began on July 4, 1776 (granted, that’s the thumbnail sketch of the founding of the United States, as there were many acts of rebellion that led up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War, not to mention some confusion among when the Declaration was actually signed, but to avoid writing a book that’s been written several times over, I’ll leave us with the understanding that the holiday is on July 4th and we’re celebrating America).

Today, the 4th of July represents patriotism and love of country, both of which I can wholeheartedly support.  In honor of those sentiments, today’s Fantasy is tied to one of America’s most beloved Presidents: Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was America’s 16th President, responsible for leading the Union through the Civil War, writing the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation, and he was also assassinated.  What many people don’t know about President Lincoln is that, although he loved the White House, he actually dearly loved another house in Washington, DC, more. This other  house was a seasonal retreat for Presidents.  It was (and still is) a cottage on the grounds of what was known as the Soldiers Home (Now known as the armed forces retirement home).

(Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) Photo, by way of wikipedia)

The Cottage was built in 1842 for George Washington Riggs (who later went on to found Riggs National Bank… Yeah, I’ve never heard of that bank either, but the guy had enough money to found a bank, so there you go….) in the fashionable Gothic Revival style. However, it did not remain a private home for very long, as President Lincoln had taken up residence there by the summer of 1862. It is even said he wrote preliminary drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation in the cottage. (Photo from lincolncottage.org and Armed Forces Retirement Home)

The cottage underwent a major restoration beginning in 2005, and opened to the public for the first time in 2008.  The site was declared a National Monument by President Clinton in 2000, as well as a being included in the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark.   Today is is maintained and run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. (Photo from National Geographic)

Hope you enjoyed this look at President Lincoln’s Cottage. If you are in Washington, D.C., you should check it out. If you won’t be in the D.C. area anytime soon, you can visit the Cottage Website here.

Have a great weekend!

-Etta

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Friday Fantasies (Fantastic Fenway Edition)

Happy Friday readers!  This week’s Fantasy will be especially poignant for all New England residents, people who love New England, people who love baseball, and people who love cheering for the underdog (mostly when the underdog wins in the end).  I’ll leave you to Ash’s tender care, because he begged me for the opportunity to write this particular post.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of Historic Fenway Park in Boston.  This afternoon, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of our ballpark, doing the thing that we love to watch them do, playing out a rivalry as old as Fenway itself.  This year is even more auspicious, as it will be the first season we’ll watch a game played out in a bonafide historic ballpark that’s listed in the National Register of Historic Places!  Yes, you read that right.  Fenway was listed in the National Register just last month, thanks to the efforts of Fenway Sports Group and their associates, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission.  But what makes it so special?

Construction of Fenway Park began in September, 1911, and the 24,400-seat stadium opened seven months later.  On April 20, 1912, the Boston Red Sox and the New York Highlanders (a team you might recognize better by the name they were given a year later: the Yankees) faced off in a brand-new stadium in Boston’s Kenmore-Fenway neighborhood.  The Sox won that momentous very first home opener, and went on to win the 1912 World Series.  Fenway’s long and storied history has been played out by countless baseball legends, with seasons that brought both joy and heartache, triumph and trials.  From the Green Monster to the Red Seat, the manual scoreboard to Pesky’s Pole, Fenway has become an icon to Sox fans, the holy ground where they go to commune with the heart and soul of America’s pastime, to feel the presence of heroes past and present and maybe walk in their footsteps.  The park has seen its share of renovations over the years, but has remained largely unchanged, even the seating numbers haven’t changed much, with a capacity a little over 37,000.  It’s likely that the parks various quirks, such as its asymmetrical field (like many of the ballparks built during the ‘Golden Age’, Fenway was built on an asymmetrical lot, resulting in an asymmetrical field, measuring only 302 feet along the right field line to the foul pole) and “outdated” systems and features, prompted the former owners to announce a plan for the demolition and replacement of Fenway with a new, modern ballpark.  Due to public outcry, stalled negotiations with the City of Boston and the sale of the Red Sox to more sympathetic owners in 2001, that dreadful plan was dropped, to be replaced with ten years of preservation and renovation projects intending to keep Fenway running for at least 50 more years.

Now, the architecture!  Fenway was built in the Tapestry Brick style, which utilizes a combination of red brick and cast stone laid in decorative patterns to give the building visual interest.  Designed by Boston architect, James E. McLaughlin, the Yawkey Way facade, which you can see below, is an excellent example of the style, and shows how the brick is tilted, pushed and pulled on the facade surface, and woven into an aesthetic tapestry.

In 1933-34, the engineering firm responsible for designing the stands in 1912, Osborne Engineering of Cleveland, designed the expansion that extends toward Brookline Avenue.  Though more Gothic in its styling, the use of red brick, stone and arched windows blends it well with the older portions of the ballpark.

Before I wrap up, I’ll leave you with a view of the field.  After all, what’s a visit to a ballpark without seeing the place where the magic happens!?  There’s the Green Monster, the massive 37-foot left field wall that not only holds the scoreboard, but dashes many a home run hopeful’s hopes and dreams.

In closing, there’s Pesky’s Pole, the right field foul pole named after Red Sox legend, Johnny Pesky.  You can also pick out the Red Seat in the center field bleachers among a sea of blue.  That seat marks the longest recorded home run, a bomber that Ted Williams launched back in 1946 that went a distance of 502 feet! I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour of Fenway, but I highly recommend making a trip sometime, especially if you’re a baseball fan.  It’s awe-inspiring to step into a place where so much baseball history has taken place.  Have a great weekend!  Go Sox!

-Ash and Etta

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An Ode to Thomas Jefferson, okay, only kinda

I think it is pretty well established that I love Thomas Jefferson. I have written plenty of posts on his architecture (if you want a recap you can find them here, here and here ), so imagine my surprise when I found out that Thomas Jefferson is alive and well in Chicago, along with some of his founding father friends.

For those of you who might not know what I’m talking about, let me introduce you to my new favorite thing (I have a lot of favorite things. It’s something I have in common with Oprah… well, that and we have the same birthday). That thing is the website I Made America. “I Made America” is a website dedicated to the modern-day exploits of George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton,Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (who isn’t well after his trip to the here and now) and how these paragons of America are dealing with life in 2012 after being transported forward in time. Who could ever have imagined that paying an electric bill would be a task beyond the grasp of the Father of modern banking, or that Pop Tarts would hold such allure to a former French ambassador?

Here is a taste by way of the first episode.

I Made America Ep. 1

Though it’s more comedy than history, I hope you enjoy this as much as I do!

-Etta

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Friday Fantasy (Robie Edition)

Hey Readers. TGIF! Today’s Fantasy is one of the most famous homes in the country ( in the fields of Architecture, Architectural History and Historic Preservation), so I thought it might be a change of pace to share a relatively well-known house with you. Let’s take a look at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House.

The Robie House is the quintessential example of the Prairie Style, and probably the best representative of the style that Frank Lloyd Wright created in the early 1900s. The Prairie Style is characterized by an open, spacious interior layout, long horizontal lines like the landscape of the prairie, low pitched hipped roofs and long banks of windows. The goal of a Prairie building (like any FLW building) is to add to its natural setting rather than dominating it, with an emphasis on craftsmanship.

Built between 1908 and 1910, the Robie house was built for Frederick C. Robie, the 28-year-old Manager of an excelsior  supply company. Shortly after Robie and his family moved in, they had to sell the house due to financial trouble. The house was sold and re-sold several times in the following years, but Wright furnishings stayed with the house when it was sold, fortunately.  Eventually, the Chicago Theological Seminary bought the house with plans to expand their campus.  It narrowly escaped demolition twice at the hands of the Seminary, the final time in 1957, when several vocal advocates for the home, including Wright himself who was 90 years old by then, turned out to protest the demolition. The building was ultimately purchased by a friend of Wright in 1958, who donated it to the University of Chicago.  The University eventually turned over operation of the Robie House to the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust (FLWPT).  The FLWPT undertook a massive restoration that costs over 10 million dollars to bring the home back to its original understated grace and beauty.  They continue to give tours of the house and grounds weekly, Thursday-Monday.

Now for some pictures of the Robie House. (Pictures from Wikipedia)

I hope you enjoyed your architectural history lesson for the day. Have a great weekend.

-Etta

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Friday Fantasy (New Beginning Edition)

Happy New Year Readers! Today’s Fantasy is about The Winchester Mystery House and new beginnings. It’s also kinda creepy, but that’s the way I roll so I hope you enjoy it.

The Winchester Mystery House (a huge Queen Anne Mansion in San Jose, California) is actually not as much of a mystery as it is the sad story of a grieving woman driven insane by an unscrupulous “spiritualist”, who preyed upon her pain and fears. It still makes for an interesting little architectural oddity, as well as presenting a great muse for Stephen King as the basis for the story of Rose Red ( a vampiric house that kept building itself even after its owner died by feeding on psychic energy). Being a Mainer, I love me my Master of Horror! Now onto some background!

Sarah Winchester was the wife of William W. Winchester (ya know, the one that made all the guns). In the early years of her life, Sarah was known as the “Belle of Hartford”, but after she married her life took a sad turn. Sarah gave birth to a daughter who died shortly after she was born, then her husband died of tuberculosis. Both deaths took a significant toll on Sarah, so her friends encouraged her to seek guidance from a medium and spiritualist (spiritualism was all the rage in the late 1800s, after all). So, Sarah went to a medium in Boston and was told that all of the misfortunes in her life were caused by spirits of the people who had died at the hands of men who wielded Winchester guns (naturally, instead of the easily explained high infant mortality rate of the time and the fact the there wasn’t a cure for tuberculosis yet). The medium told Sarah that the Winchester curse might be after her next!  However, there was an alternative to her demise…. If she went west to the setting sun and built a house for the vengeful spirits, then she would live a long life in peace. That’s exactly what she did without delay. Sarah moved to the Santa Clara Valley and purchased an unfinished farm house and began to make additions.  And more and more and more additions.  She continued building for the next 38 years without ceasing (that’s what a 20 million dollar inheritance would get you in the Victorian era), and she left behind what is know as the Winchester Mystery House today.

Why is it called the “Mystery House” you might ask? Well, other than the vast size of the mansion… which the New Englander in me cringes at, but it’s in California so heating it can’t be THAT bad right? The house also has some peculiar spirit confounding features such as staircases that end in walls and doors and windows that lead to nothing (except possibly to your death, if you weren’t careful). And if all those crazy architectural features weren’t enough, it is also said that Sarah slept in a different room every night just to further confound the spirits, lest one try to off her in her sleep.

Now for some pictures!There are some great photos of the quirkiness that is the Winchester Mystery House mine came from(from top to bottom): Wikipedia, Prairieghosts.com, Petticoatsandpistols.com and The Poison Forest.com,

This first photo gives you a good idea of what the house looks like today.

This next image gives you a sense of the overall scale of the house.

This next photo I call the “stairs to no-wheres”

Watch that first step, it’s a killer!

Hope you enjoyed Mrs. Winchesters “new beginning” and this bizarre tour of the Mystery house! For more information check out the Mystery House website. Have a good weekend!

-Etta

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Friday Fantasy (Hanukkah Edition… a little late)

Happy Friday, Readers. Today’s fantasy isn’t a house but a house of Worship. It’s Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and it is the oldest synagogue in America (building wise, anyway). I know, I am a bit late for Hanukkah, so please forgive me.  I had intended to post this last week,  but Ash and I had a change of plans for the holidays so this post got a bit delayed.

The Picture below is the exterior of Touro from the website Panaramio (by Dana Jensen)

Touro has a great website  and you can find it here. It also has a fascinating history.  In 1658, a group of 15 Jewish families came to Newport (from Spain) after they heard about the religious freedoms that Roger Williams proposed for the new colony of Rhode Island. They started a community there that grew for over 100 years, and in 1758, they colony adopted a spiritual leader named Isaac Touro, who was a Dutch Jew. The following year, they the congregation purchased land and hired well-known architect Peter Harrison to design their synagogue, which was finished in 1763. When the British occupied Newport in 1776, they commandeered Touro Synagogue for use as a hospital, which essentially saved the building from being burned or ransacked like so many others in the city.

After the British were defeated, the synagogue was used as a meeting place for the Rhode Island General Assembly and the Supreme Court. In 1790, Touro was mentioned by Washington in a letter telling the Newport Congregation that this new Nation would  “give to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Touro survives to this day as an active house of worship.

The amazing interior shot of Touro below comes from Stevens.edu, The older image is from Offbeat Travel and the last image is an historic postcard view from the National Museum of American Jewish History’s Jewish postcard exhibition.

You all know how much I encourage you to visit Newport, so I won’t beat a dead horse, but when you do go MAKE SURE you go to Touro. It’s breathtaking!

Have a Safe and Happy New Year!

-Etta.

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Friday Fantasy (Victorian Christmas Edition)

Happy Friday Readers! I continue to be in the Christmas Spirit, so this week’s fantasy will again be a festive one filled with Yuletide cheer. But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my Jewish friends! I have a special Hanukkah treat coming sometime next week!

Today’s Fantasy is the Victoria Mansion, also known as the Morse-Libby House, in Portland, Maine.  I got my pictures from a blog called Cindy’s Photo Quest  and her work is AMAZING, so you should all go check it out right after you finish reading this! She is a professional photographer and her site offers a lot of images for sale so you just might find a Christmas gift for someone special while you are there, like say the picture of the stairs  at Portland Head Light (hint hint, Ash). I really can’t say enough about her work!

The construction of the Morse-Libby house began in 1858 and continued for two years. It was built for Ruggles Sylvester Morse, a Maine native who made a fortune operating hotels in New Orleans. Morse died in 1898 and his wife then sold the home to J.R. Libby. Luckily, the Libby family maintained the house in much the same state they found it in, which is what makes Victoria Mansion so special… its interior is truly breath-taking, so unaltered that you feel that women in bustled skirts and men in morning suits and top hats are waiting to greet you in the drawing room, much that same way that reading the Great Gatsby takes you to the Roaring Twenties.

The house suffered some damage in the Hurricane of 1938, which led to the decision  to demolish the house to make way for a gas station (Such a Preservation cliche but the truth in this case). Fortunately for everyone who loves history and communities with some character, Dr. William H. Homes stepped in and bought the home, which he proceeded to open to the public as a museum to honor Queen Victoria. Later, the Society of Maine Women of Achievement took over operation of the museum, and they continue to run things to this day, under the auspices of the Victoria Mansion, Inc., a non-profit group. The museum’s website is VERY detailed and it can be found here.

Now, without further ado: The Victoria Mansion!

Edit:  The Victoria Mansion graciously alerted me to some pictures of this years Christmas displays so I am am adding them here. The photos are from the mansions facebook page and are by Gregory P. Sundik

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse of Victorian Christmas Splendor! I think I know where Ash and I will head this weekend while we visit my family! Have a great weekend!

-Etta

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Ruined!

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to share another bit of our Virginia trip with you: our stop at Barboursville.

For those who might not know, Barboursville is a ruin. The house was designed for Virginia Governor James Barbour by Thomas Jefferson. Many architecture buffs will be able to guess that this means it has an octagonal feature to it. Indeed, Barboursville had an octagonal drawing room.

Tragedy struck Barboursville on Christmas day in 1884.  The house was consumed by fire, leaving only the masonry walls, chimneys, columns and foundations.  The ruins remain today as a point of interest for Jeffersonians, architectural historians and folks who visit the vineyard established on the rolling hills surrounding the house. You can enjoy a nice wine tasting and take a small stroll around the ruins when you are done (Ash recommends their barrel-fermented Chardonnay).

I highly recommend visiting both the ruins and the vineyards for a destination which has broad appeal (not just for us architecture geeks).  You can find Barboursville Vineyards wines in many places near Barboursville, including Monticello!

Here are some photos that Ash took of the Ruins on his iPhone. Enjoy!

Have a good day.

-Etta

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The architecture that makes Halloween

Happy Halloween readers! What is it about this holiday that makes us think of haunted mansions and abandoned homes looming on darkened television screens in commercials for Halloween stores and in made for TV movies? Is it the fact that we LIKE to be scared? After all fear releases endorphins… Or is it that as Preservationists, we love how these big “creepy” mansions  are celebrated, if sometimes for their run-down appearance, because we always see the potential and history in these homes?

It is practically a fact that haunted houses must be Second Empire in style. If you want proof, look no further than the home of the Addams family, this inflatable haunted house for your front lawn, or one of my personal favorites (and way high up there in nostalgia and cheese factor) the house from the 1980s Disney TV movie, Mr. Boogedy, or for even more of a treat, check out the “Haunted Dollhouse” that the ever amusing Bloggess has been cooking up.    By the way, the Addams family photos came from a great little site called Hooked on Houses, which you should definitely check out.

Now, this isn’t to say every haunted, or creepy house has to be  Second Empire. Take the eclectic mix of Octagon, Gothic Revival and Second Empire that makes up the Munster’s abode , or the Institutional Gothic pile from American Horror Story.  (Is anyone else obsessed with that show like me?… I love it so much, but it’s so messed up that I feel I may have been born in the wrong era… if I lived back when Queen Victoria reigned I’d probably have taken photos of all my dead relatives and made their hair into wreaths, lockets and pins.) Photos below from tvclassichits.com and iamnostalker.com

So, aside from Hollywood’s choices for iconic ‘haunted’ houses, why is it that these (to use the real estate parlance) “Victorian” homes are what we think of when we think of the macabre, ghoulish and downright creepy, and not, say, a nice mid-century ranch or cape? Death can happen in a new house just as easily as an old one. Is it the scale and massing of these houses, making the visitor feel like a doll in some giant’s dollhouse? The possibility for secret passages and rooms behind book cases, where unspeakable horrors can hide? Is it the fact that they have seen more life and seem to hold onto memories of past occupants? If you want my opinion, I think that it is all of those things, plus the fact that grand old houses with spacious drawing rooms, upper stories that go on forever and vast basements make perfect funeral homes, and that whenever you see one of these funeral homes (and you know just by looking at one that it is a funeral home) the seed of fear of death and dying way down deep in your subconscious nags at you.  Just like holding your breath when you drive by a cemetery or being afraid that if you die in your dream, then you will die soon in real life.

So whatever your plans tonight, whether they involve a ghost hunt at a haunted mansion, or staying home to dole out candy to the little goblins at the door, if you have a fright-flick marathon (like the American Horror Story marathon on FX staring at 10), make sure to really examine those big, creepy old houses, because under the chipped paint and “beware” sign there is very often an architectural gem… and maybe a ghost or two as well.

Happy Halloween!

-Etta

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Friday Fantasies (Japan Edition)

Happy Friday everyone! Today’s post is from the Philadelphia leg of the recent trip Ash and I took.   While we were there, we visited West Fairmount Park, and Shofuso specifically.  Shofuso, which translates to “pine breeze villa”, is a 17th century style traditional shoin-zukuri home commissioned in 1953 for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, designed by the Japanese Modern architect (yes big M in Modern folks, as it was the style he worked in) Yoshimura Junzo (I put his name in Japanese order because I felt it was only right). The house design was based on two Buddhist guest houses in Kyoto.   The frame of the house was assembled in Nagoya in 1953, and was then disassembled and shipped to NYC, where it was reassembled in the courtyard at the MoMA.  The home was on display from 1954-1956 and was placed in storage in New Jersey until a permanent home could be found for it.  The house ended up in West Fairmount Park in 1958, on a site with connections to Japan stretching back to 1876, when there was a “Japanese bazaar” and gardens installed for the US centennial celebration.

Following a period of budget troubles for the City when the house was closed to the public, it was rehabilitated for the 1976 bicentennial and opened to the public once more. In 1982, the Friends of the Japanese House and Garden was founded to manage and maintain the site.  It is a non-profit group, set-up with a public/private funding structure between the city of Philadelphia and donations from the public dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the house and grounds.

The house itself is constructed in a traditional manner, built with a frame entirely made from wood with mortise and tenon joinery held together by bamboo pegs. It is built out of Japanese cypress, called Hinoki . Hinoki is a protected species of tree which makes up somewhere around 90-95% of the lumber within the house, including the verandas, support beams, and most interior ceilings. About 1 ton of hinoki bark makes up the roof, held together with bamboo pins and layered up to the terra nigra ridge tiles on top of queenpost-supported roof frame. This style of construction allows the roofs to act as an air-foil, reflecting the wind rather than providing resistance, which allows the house to weather storms better than most Western architecture. Interestingly, only about 100 craftsmen are alive in the world today who have learned how to build a layered hinoki bark roof, and many of them learned the skill while replacing roofs at buildings associated with temples in Japan. The photo below is a profile view of the finished roof, which  gives you an idea of exactly how thick it is.

Below is a photo of a boss that covers one of the bamboo pegs used in construction. Each peg set into a joint along the length of the wrap-around veranda is covered with a boss.  Normally this boss would have depicted the family crest of the family who lived in the home, or a flower with eight petals at a Buddhist temple.  Since this home wasn’t built for a family or a Buddhist temple, it is a flower blossom with six petals instead.

The floors in the house are covered with traditional tatami mats, woven of rush over a core of rice straw.  These mats are twice as long as they are wide, and each mat was traditionally considered to be the minimum space required for one person to live.

This guest room has a lot of interesting features. Notice the shoji screens that act as walls. Shoji screens are often thought to be made of rice paper, but that is in fact a common misconception. They are actually made of mulberry paper, and the term ‘rice paper’ in English either came from the fact that the paper was used to make containers to carry rice, or from its pale white color.  Shoji screens function much like pocket doors and act as both the interior and exterior walls of the house.  They are used to admit light and airflow without sacrificing privacy.  Sliding hinoki shutters can be closed in front of the shoji screens on the outside of the house, and these afford the house more protection from the elements. The low shelf boasting the flowers is actually one of the most important features of the room. It is a writing desk called a Shoin which is built into the wall. This desk is a very important status symbol for the owner of a house like this, as it serves as proof that the family are members of the educated elite.  It is so important that it actually lends its name to the room (shoin no ma) and the style of architecture (shoin-zukuri) of the house.

Another interesting feature of the rooms in Shofuso are the Fusuma, which are interior screens seen here. they too are made out of  the same mulberry paper as the shoji, only with many more layers, all layered over a central wooden frame. The layering allows the screen some moisture control, absorbing and releasing moisture depending on ambient humidity. These particular fusuma are not original to the house but instead date to Senju Hiroshi’s (again, named in traditional order) visit to the house in 1999. Senju is a famous contemporary artist, who came to the house looking for ideas for his next series of paintings.  His original thought was that his painting would be of trees in nature, but he came to feel that they were too static, instead taking inspiration from Shofuso’s waterfalls (seen below).  He painted 20 fusuma screens between 1999 and 2006 using acrylic paints.  The brown background color was made specifically for Shofuso, and the white was done on an incline to achieve the natural flowing effect of the waterfalls.  The screens were installed in 2007.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this insight into Japanese architecture and can visit Shofuso for yourself when it opens again in April. It truly is one of the most beautiful, tranquil places I have had the pleasure of visiting. A HUGE thanks is owed to our friends CJ and Brian. CJ for suggesting the visit and letting us use her camera and Brian for his invaluable knowledge on the house and Japanese culture, and for the great tour he gave us, as well as the vocabulary tutorial and timeline he provided me with. Any mistakes that appear are of my own lack of understanding and not his fault, as his knowledge of Japanese studies is staggering and has been an amazing asset. Also, thanks to Derek, Shofuso’s site and program manager for being so welcoming!

Make sure you come back next week for our special Halloween post! Have a great weekend!

-Etta

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