HALLOWEEN EVENTS

GIANT PUMPKIN PATCH AT BATES NUT FARM

Pumpkins weigh between 75-200 lbs.

September 27- October 31 9am-5pm Every Day

It’s harvest time and pumpkins are appearing in supermarkets and on street corners, but if it’s pumpkins you want to see, there is no place better than nearby Bates Nut Farm.

Families can grab a wheel barrel and go right out into their 15 acre pumpkin patch to choose their own Big Mac – sometimes weighing anywhere from 50 – 200 pounds!

The pumpkins in the fields at Bates Nut Farm are getting bigger every day. “Our crop of Big Macs are doing very well this year,” said Tom Ness, General Manager. “We will have plenty of choices for early visitors.”

For more than forty years, Bates Nut Farm’s 100-acre farm has been providing a breathtaking setting for visitors of all ages. Jack ‘o lantern pumpkins in a variety of sizes and shapes, mini pumpkins, decorative gourds, corn stalks and hay bales are also available in The Pumpkin Patch. You’ll also find family-oriented activities including a straw maze, tractor hay rides, a petting zoo, and on weekends there are pony rides, face painting, and live musical entertainment.

Pumpkins date back 5,000 years to our Native Americans who used the fruit for food and medicine. Early American settlers actually came up with a sort of pumpkin pie by removing all the seeds, and adding milk, honey and spices then baking it over a hot low lit fire.

People from all over the world grow and compete in the harvesting of Giant Pumpkins. One man by the name of Bruce Whitter, from New Hampshire, grew the largest ever weighing 1,458 pounds. The Annual Pumpkin Festival in Port Elgin Canada attracts more than 50,000 visitors that watch growers compete in the world’s title for largest vegetables/fruits grown. For some great photos of Giant Pumpkins, log onto www.giantpumpkins.com.

Bates Nut farm is located nearby in Valley Center and is easy to find. The address is 15954 Woods Valley Road, Valley Center, CA 92082. Call (760) 749-3333. Go east on Hwy 78 to the end and turn right on Broadway and then left on Washington. Then left on East Valley Parkway towards Valley Center and turn right on Woods Valley Road. Bates Nut Farm is on the left side. Website is www.batesnutfarm.biz.

Brick-or Treat at LEGOLAND®

October 4-5, 11-12, 18-19, 25-26 10am-5pm

Wear your best costumes to the tenth annual Brick-or-Treat celebration at LEGOLAND® California.

The park is looking forward to this year’s Halloween lineup. Held during the last two weeks of October kids and parents alike will include costume contests, safe trick-or-treating, and good old-fashioned ghoulish entertainment with the Boo Crew.

Children 12 and under can trick-or-treat with a LEGOLAND souvenir bag on the park’s exclusive Brick-or-Treat Trail. Trick-or-treaters can gather goodies including Wonka© candy, trading cards, and other surprises. This kid-sized cul-de-sac features LEGO® themed treat stations and offers a safe and entertaining trick-or-treating door to door with fun features and creatures along the way.

Creeping their way back to LEGOLAND this year: A stilt-walking balloon artist named “Count Brick-u-la” and “Howlin’ Howlie” who will lead a Best Howler contest twice daily. Visit the LEGO witch, “Hubble Bubble,” for a chance to look inside her bubbling cauldron. Brave adventurers will walk away with a Halloween treat! “Jester Funny Bones” will also return as the jokester of the Knights’ Kingdom and host the daily costume contest.

The much-anticipated costume contest returns giving children an opportunity to show off their imaginative and creative Halloween costumes each day of Brick-or-Treat. Children can enter one of four categories to show off their Boo-tiful costumes on the Courtyard Theatre stage. The categories include Most LEGO-themed, Spookiest, Most Imaginative and Funniest with a fifth award for the “Best of the Best.” Five winners are selected each day by a special panel of judges and will receive special prizes.

Guests can pose with a spooktacular six-foot wide LEGO pumpkin that stands four-foot high and weighs 350 pounds at the entrance of the theme park. This impressive model was designed and created by park Master Model Builders in 240 hours and includes more than 77,000 LEGO bricks. A scavenger hunt gives families a chance to search together for mini LEGO ghosts “buried” throughout several haunted scenes in Miniland USA.

For more information, visit www.LEGOLAND.com or call (760) 918-LEGO.

Carlsbad Home Becomes House of Horror Halloween Night

Oct. 31, 7-11pm

If you seek a good scare this Halloween, you need go no further than our lovely coastal town. For within our city limits, residents have reported stories of a house in south Carlsbad where spirits of the dead engage the living, and fearsome things of all sorts can be observed by those citizens brave enough to venture inside. On October 31 for the past two years, the deranged inhabitants of this house of horror have chilled the air and curdled the blood in Carlsbad.

There are tales of a quiet, normal-looking home that is transformed into a demon's den by diabolical Uncle Jeepers and his fiendish family. In this pestilent and lachrymose abode, with hidden passages, tunnels and a bottomless pit, evil flourishes and the heads of the living-dead scream their outrage as they float through the dank, fearsome, barren hallways.

Visitors claim that they have been chased by the mad Uncle Jeepers clutching his blood-drenched chainsaw, and have felt the icy grasp of flesh-starved zombies as they reach out between the walls and from under the stairs. The floors are covered in a thick amalgam of candy and blood - remnants of those poor souls not agile enough to navigate the maze of corridors while being pursued by blade-wielding demons.

Many may find these accounts difficult to accept; so Uncle Jeepers and the household challenge the skeptics to come experience Carlsbad’s house of horror and visit Uncle Jeepers’ miscreant souls this Halloween at 6994 Blue Orchid Lane (Aviara Pkwy., north on Mimosa to Blue Orchid Lane) from 7:00PM to 11:00PM. (For more information visit www.carlsbadhouseofhorror.com.)

WARNING: A word of caution to those intrepid fools who cross into this netherworld – beware of the small dark room at the end of the hall!

Breakfast with the Littlest Pumpkin

October 18, Saturday, 7:30-11am

The City of San Marcos presents its annual Breakfast with the Littlest Pumpkin on Saturday, October 18, from 7:30 AM - 11 AM at the San Marcos Community Center, 3 Civic Center Drive. Bring the family to have a pancake breakfast with the “Littlest Pumpkin”. Bring quarters for fun carnival games. Halloween costumes are encouraged. (Geared toward preschool/elementary ages.) Tickets priced $5 for adults and $4 for ages 10 & under can be purchased at the Community Center in advance or at the door. For further information call (760) 744-9000 or go to www.san-marcos.net.

7th ANNUAL DIA DE DOS MUERTOS

November 2, Sunday 10am – 4pm

MainStreet Oceanside invites you to join us in Downtown Oceanside on Sunday, November 2, for this year’s celebration of Dia de los Muertos!

Downtown streets will be transformed into a flower-filled Mexican plaza using over 30,000 marigolds grown especially for the day by Mellano & Company. Marigolds are used to create the heart of the festival—the ofrendas, or altars, created by artists, students, and local Oaxacan families as memorials.

Guests will enjoy music, dancing, good food, and an expanded retail Mercado featuring fun and unusual items. The area that gets the most attention and most favorable compliments year after year is the Chalk Cemetery. This is an interactive area where people use flowers, candles, and chalk to create a memorial for loved ones resulting in a beautiful, heartwarming garden that stretches for an entire block by the end of the day.

There is also a family hands-on craft area, street entertainers, and opportunities to learn more about the history of this uplifting celebration.

For more information, call (760) 967-2005 or visit www.MSOceanside.com.

PUMPKIN PLUNGE AT CARLSBAD SWIM COMPLEX

OCT. 11, Saturday, 12 -3 pm

The City of Carlsbad Recreation Department celebrates Halloween with a monster-splash, spooky swim party on Saturday, October 11 from 12 pm – 3 pm at the Community Swim Complex, 3401 Monroe Street. The highlight each year is the hundreds of pumpkins that splash down in the pool to be snared by attendees. A Wicked Water Show, featuring San Diego Synchro, Pacific Diving Academy and Zombie Divers, will entertain the crowd with feats of diving daring, in addition to costume contests, trick-or-treat, and a Haunted House decorating contest. The entire family is welcome. Children 8 and younger must be accompanied by an adult when in the water.

Save $2 by ordering discount presale tickets at $6 for adults (18 and older) and $4 for children (5 to 17), based on availability. Pre-sale will be available until 5 pm October 10. Door sales, based on availability, begin at 10:30 am and are $8 for adults and $6 for children. Children 4 and under are free. Register online at www.CarlsbadConnect.org. Special Events hotline at (760) 434-2843.

City of Carlsbad Recreation Department

“Creating Community through People, Parks and Programs”

Scream Zone is Back and Scarier Than Ever
at the Del Mar Fairgrounds

Looking for a good scare? The witching hour is drawing nearer as preparations are under way for the largest and scariest haunted attraction to hit San Diego County at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Back for its 11th year, the Scream Zone will encompass more than five acres on the west side of the grounds. A 5,000-square-foot tent has been erected and will be open to the public starting September 26. The Scream Zone features the Haunted Hayride, House of Horror, and The Chamber.

The House of Horror’s dozens of chambers filled with fiends, apparitions and scares are guaranteed to frighten even the bravest of visitors (not recommended for children younger than 10). The Chamber is a twisting, turning labyrinth of scares, inhabited by terrifying ghouls, monsters and “the undead” that appear unexpectedly around every corner. The Haunted Hayride takes visitors on a journey through an apocalyptical end of the world in the back barns of the Fairgrounds. About 40 percent of the attraction’s experiences will be new this year, making the Scream Zone a “must see” that shrieks “Halloween!”

The Scream Zone will be open Friday and Saturday, Sept. 26 and 27; Friday through Sunday, Oct. 3-5; Thursday through Sunday, Oct. 9-12 and 16-19; and nightly, Thursday, Oct. 23 through Saturday, Nov. 1. Hours are 7 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays, and 7 to 11 p.m. other days, when open. Admission prices are:

$27.99 for a triple haunt: the House of Horror, Haunted Hayride and The Chamber

$17.99 for a double haunt: the Chamber and House of Horror or Haunted Hayride

$14.99 for a single haunt, House of Horror or Haunted Hayride.

For more information call (858) 755-1161 or visit www.thescreamzone.com.