Spooky fun at my first West Hollywood Halloween costume carnival parade...

Last night we enjoyed our first ever Halloween costume parade in our adopted home, West Hollywood.  

Lauded as the World's largest Halloween costume carnival, we didn't really know what to expect being not only WEHO, but also American Halloween virgins, but a fun-tastic time was had by all.

There was a great vibe and fun atmosphere along the whole of the pedestrianised Santa Monica Boulevard.  It was a real adult affair, with very few children, and with the majority of the crowd dressed up in a variety of weird and wonderful outfits.

As well as many off-the-rack costumes, you could also see the imagination that went into some of the costumed folk, combined with the people who had dressed in a group theme, like super-heroes, the U.S. Olympic team or in Halloween drag.

The packed street was hard to navigate in a mask at times, but we walked the length of cordoned off Santa Monica from La Cienega to Doheny taking in the sights and snapping the occasional photo.  

Music was pumping out, people were dancing and posing for photos and there really was a carnival spirit. 

As you can no doubt tell by now, I went as your friendly neighbourhood Spider-man and I soon discovered that everybody loves the webbed wonder.  

I'm not the biggest Spider-man fan in the world, but you have to admit it is a fairly iconic costume (Cooper seemed to like it anyway).  

Throughout the night I got to spray silly string streamers as my webbing and I was asked to pose with kids, other super-heroes and hordes of Japanese tourists alike.

In the spirit of the Halloween celebrations I even mixed with the likes of DC Comics characters like Bat-Girl, Flash, Supergirl and the Dark Knight, as well as hanging out with my favourite Marvel Comics characters like Wolverine and Captain America.

My one-size-fits-all costume wasn't the best fit ever and it did require some emergency repairs before I left the house, but it was such fun to walk outside in the balmy evening air dressed in bright red and blue.  I really didn't feel or look out of place at all.

I think everyone appreciated that Halloween had fallen on a Friday this year as there were lots of parties in our condo complex before and after people headed to the parade.  

As the crowds flowed and bars filled up I could tell that there were going to be some glitter related incidents into the early hours.  I think there'll be a lot of sore heads today.

When we met up with some friends we were headed for a drink when I remembered that I didn't have my I.D. with me (or money for that matter) and the bars were asking for it (the joy of not having any pockets in your costume - I bet Peter Parker never had these problems as Spider-man).  

So we left our friends in the comfort of a pitcher of margaritas and carried on walking amongst the costumed crowd.  

We were still merry from some pre-parade champagne anyway and honestly I needed to take off my all-in-one costume every time I needed a pee, so it really wouldn't have been wise to start drinking lots of cocktails.

After we'd had our fill of the frightful festivities (neither of us are that great in heaving crowds) we headed home to spend some quality time with our Halloween pup.

My arms still ached from carrying the pumpkin home a few blocks this afternoon - it was much heavier than it looked in the shop.

Once I carved the spooky face it certainly intrigued our pup, almost as much as the Halloween balloons did in the morning.

I couldn't resist dressing Cooper up in his caped Halloween costume for one last time (for this year at least). 

He loves it really.

With Halloween well and truly over (with just a few zombies sighted wandering the streets this morning), it's time to gear up for our first ever Thanksgiving in the U.S.A.  

Maybe I should have kept all that pumpkin for some soup or traditional pumpkin pie?

Hmm, I wonder if I can wear my Spidey costume to that too...