Special Awards

We gave out a few special awards at the party this year.


The sketch artist award (Etch-a-Sketch 60's packaging).
















Best Assistant award. (dirt devil vacum)














Messiest Creator Ward (just a bunch of paint and mess on plywood)

The Damn that was close award for standing right next to Andy when he fell.

Party Dedication

At the party we dedicated the struture in front of the shop the Westerman Abby in honor of Andy and his sacrafice of his foot to the display.

The Party

The annual party was a big hit. We think everyone had a good time.

Sexiest Costume.

Scariest Costume (Jesus)
















Most Elaborate Costume. (hand made holster and replica gun)





















Peoples Choice Award.




















Best Couple.

Best Costume (Jack)

artMOB makes tombstones

The Milwaukie Art Commitee came over on Sunday and carved 12 tombstones and painted them black. We cut them out, shapped them, and applied the epitaphs Saturday morning. Made for a busy weekend. On top of the full crowds that showed up for the display.

Big Friday night turnout

We had a lot of people show up last night. The weather was nice. No wind and a bit warm. The fog looked good. Everything was running pretty well with only a few minor hiccups. We kept things running after 11pm so we could take some pictures and video.

Haunt Tour 2009

We went on a mini haunt tour of Portland last night with our friends from Union that own the Darklore Manor in eastern Oregon.

Every year we turn the offer down from haunt owners to visit their haunts because we are so busy. But we figured if they could drive 8 hours (4 each way) to visit haunts, we really had no excuse.

We saw, in this order:

Fright Town - First time we had seen this and well worth the trip!! I know Dave by name only in the haunt circles and friends of friends, really want to meet him sometime to tell him how great his stuff is.

Scream at the Beach - Carnival and everything, wow! PDX was out there filming...be sure to watch for them on TV!!

13th Door - thanks Raymond for the personal tour and being an overall great guy!! Favorite of the night......and I am not just saying that cause he let us in for free :D

They were all great haunts! We had a great time.

Still have not seen the haunted Maze at Sauvie Island (and we have made props for Craig, another really nice guy. . . . so we really should go out there), but since Craig's haunt only runs on weekends....I don't know if we can make it happen :(

These are great haunts and some generous and gracious haunters that deserve our support. If you are in the area, be sure to check out PortlandHaunts.com for more details!

2009 Davis Graveyard Open House

Everyone had a great time at the open house. The weather was great (which in the NW means that it did not rain - cold, but no rain) and we made over $600 for the Milwaukie High School Dance Team.

It is a great community event and we estimate that we had over 800 people attend throughout the day! Thanks to all the volunteers who helped throughout the day answering questions and giving tours. And special thanks to the Portland Coffin Cruisers for bringing by your rides!! You guys rock!!

Here are pictures of the event. Thanks to everyone who came and helped support the dance team. If you were not able to make it and still want to donate to the dance team (who danced their as...behinds off! :) Contact hosts@davisgraveyard.com.

Photos by the cute and funny Marci B.

A word from our local fan club

Here is a link to our friend Brian Dorr's blog, he is part of the neighborhood association with us and a good friend. Here is his take on the Davis Graveyard open house. He makes us sound so cool!!!

I am glad he got his pictures up...we are still working on ours. Open house wrap up is on the way!

Great photos and words Brian, thanks! http://www.bjdorr.com/200910112152

Photo courtesy of Brian Dorr

Thanks for the makeup

A big thanks goes out to Matt Huntley, who, for the third year in a row has volunteered his time to come do the makeup for the dancers on the day of the open house.

Great guy, the girls enjoy the attention and he is very generous with his time and is happy to show anyone who is interested how to do it.

Thanks again Matt, the dancers looked great!

Davis Graveyard Dancers - 2009

Sorry to miss a day on the countdown...but yesterday was our Open House and we were busy!!

Pictures to follow, but here is a video of the new dance routine from the Milwaukie High School Pony Prancers. This year they got one of their coaches to dance the Micheal Jackson part. It was a show stopper!! You cannot hear it this edit....but the applause at the end was deafening :D



We had great weather and a great turn out. Thanks again to the Milwaukie Dance Team. They will be back Halloween night!

Last night was the first night

the yard was up and running....almost everything worked and we got hundreds of visitors!!

BTW - that night vision security camera is the coolest thing.....we can see what you are doing at the front gate, so mind your manners when you visit....I mean don't mess with the props!

Tomorrow is the open house. We have a lot to do!!

Another great Hauntcast

If you have not heard it already, go right now and check out the latest Hauntcast. Lots of stuff happening in the Halloween world, you would not want to miss any of it.

I mean who does not want to hear from the guy that made "toliet monster!" :D

Hauntcast 11: K'Octoberfest

Great show as usual guys, oh and gal! Keep up the great work.

Okay, say it with me

Wow! Marci takes amazing photos.

Here are photos of the Angel/Skeleton (nuangel) prop. She is just beautiful.

photo courtesy of Marci Brandt

Website update

We updated the Davis Graveyard site with information on where to park for the open house this weekend and the schedule of events.

We also added some more bios of our fabulous crew. Welcome Daniel and Elyssa (they have been here for years...we are just slow at getting the website updated) - who have been at the graveyard almost as much as we have...I am thinking we need to set they up a guest room! :)

Anyway, thanks guys, your work on the yard this year is amazing....I mean you have all seen that spider right?

We are featured in the Milwaukie Newsletter

We were also featured in our local Milwaukie newsletter called "The Pilot" - and mention in our local neighborhood association section!

Yeah! We are hoping for a big turn out for the dance team this Sunday!

We are featured in the Oregonian

Wow, we were in the main section of the paper, four pages in, top of the page above the fold.

I used to work in a newspaper, trust me that is a prime spot!!! :)

We are trying to get as much press as we can for the dancers this Sunday so we can raise lots of $$ for them. They do a great job each year, they so deserve it!!!

The yard is mostly working

We had a few extra problems last night - first being the sound system that we got working by mid afternoon, did not work when we started it at dusk....no sound, nothing! Jeff got it working, but it still bothers us that it is having problems.

We heard from the crew that the replacement of the music soundtrack with just whispering is very creepy...:)

The "help me" directly ripped from the original fly is off working nicely....along with an occasional skittering sound, makes your skin crawl :)

Fog machine is giving us grief, we have two controllers and neither of them seems to be working.

The bush rattling effect is cool, in the daylight....at night you really cannot see anything and we are now thinking that it really needs to sync up with the glowing eyes in the bushes. I believe we will be ordering more EFX-TK controllers this Hauntcon :)

We will be working on replacing the way that some of the projectors and controllers are plugged in to be safer and easier to set up.

More testing the next few nights. Getting ready for our opening night, Friday, October 9th.

Thanks again to all our fabulous helpers!!!

Techincal weekend

We have been testing the technical side of the haunt for the last two nights. Good thing too. We found some problems that we forgot about from Halloween night last year :)

We have tested:

The opening coffin

The spider spinning the cocoon

The church ghost

The crypt ghosts (she had some issues - but she is all better now :)

The children ghost

The preacher coming out of the door ghost

As of today we are down a projector and an amp. We are using our back ups...but now we need new backups!!! Back to Ebay we go! :D

Tomorrow it is the talking head, spider and gravedigger.....and the big headache....the sound system.

Husband is sitting at his computer right now installing the operating system for the new computer to control the sound....cause the one we were going to use did not work when we plugged it in this afternoon. :)

That is why we have a test weekend :)

Happy Halloween

From the Davis Graveyard.

The pictures are starting to come in . . . we both love this one.

The Angel/Skeleton

This is one of the new props for 2009. We recycled the old angel into another prop and built the new angel inspired by the Angel and Demons movie poster.

She is a collaborative effort, starting with our Mike our new helper that did the wings for her. She is up in the yard now and we are working on getting her lighted correctly.

It has been a challenge to get lighting on all the details (including the base), we have attached lights on the ground and on the back of a few tombstones in front of her.

Watch for evening pictures of her in the coming weeks.