I wasn’t around much at all last week. This is why:

I went to Las Vegas for Halloween with my sister, my mom, and one of my best friends, Lindsey. There was much gambling, drinking, and walking around on sore feet to be had, and it was a great time.

We also went to Fright Dome at Circus Circus, which was kind of the main draw for the trip in the first place. To be honest, though, I found Fright Dome a tiny bit disappointing. The whole arena itself is pretty cool — it’s an indoor amusement park turned all dark and creepy, and the scare zones were fairly impressive. There was so much fog in some sections that you literally couldn’t see a foot in front of you, and that kind of thing is genuinely unsettling. Overall, the atmosphere was great . . . even if I was ready to knock out the guys who were running around with chainsaws. (Honestly, that sound just gets obnoxious after a while.)

But the haunted houses themselves . . . they just weren’t as scary as I wanted them to be. The best haunted houses I’ve ever been to are a little more interactive and make interesting use of light and space. (I’m mild-to-moderately claustrophobic, so I definitely get creeped out by diminishing amounts of space.) The ones at Fright Dome were obviously detailed and put together well, but for the most part, I was just walking through them, you know? I might have jumped once or twice when a monster popped up, but there was no big rush of adrenaline, no sense of ohmygod this is creepy; why do I do this to myself every year — which is kind of the whole point.

Still, Vegas itself was a lot of fun. I didn’t come home a billionaire — clearly, because that’s the kind of thing you lead with — but I actually did come home with some money, not to mention a dapper new hat and a ton of awesome Halloween pictures.

I wanted something fun but low-key, a costume that would be easy to walk around in all day. (That is to say, I didn’t want heels.) Thus Ferris Bueller was born.

Mekaela dressed up as a ringmaster.

Lindsey rocks it as Batgirl.

Mama went as Frenchy from Grease. (This “Beauty School Dropout” moment was unplanned but kind of awesome.)

Here I’m sitting in a giant shoe because, you know. That’s apparently something you do in Vegas.

Finally, here’s a picture of all of us on the casino floor, ready to make some money. (Or lose some money, as the case may be. My winnings mostly happened the day before.)

Sadly, Halloween is over, but that just means I have another year to figure out what I’ll dress up as, not to mention where I’ll go and what I’ll do. Any suggestions?