{"id":22064,"date":"2018-10-24T18:29:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22064"},"modified":"2018-10-24T18:29:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:29:17","slug":"wild-west-haunted-house-brings-spooky-thrills-close-to-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wild-west-haunted-house-brings-spooky-thrills-close-to-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild West Haunted House brings spooky thrills close to home"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, in a dark, dark house, lived two little kids who steered clear of their garage.
\nSpooky things were happening in there, and they wanted to avoid it at all costs.
\nNow that Sabrina and Jonathan Diana are a little bit older, however, they can\u2019t wait to get in the thick of it and spread the thrills and chills to anyone who dares enter.
\nThis year, the Diana family of 40 Carlyle Crescent, are pulling out all the stops for their Hallowe\u2019en Haunt, Gargalese Gates of Terror. Each year, the Hallowe\u2019en enthusiasts spend a month transforming their home into a haunted house, open to anyone in the community in exchange for a simple donation to the Aurora Food Pantry.
\nTypically run over the course of two days, this year is a little bit different on two fronts: the Wild West Theme, and a third night of communal creeps.
\n\u201cI have always been a big fan of the paranormal, Hallowe\u2019en, and [husband] Paul is so creative,\u201d says Su Diana. \u201cWe started this over 10 years ago when we lived in Richmond Hill. We started with a little tombstone on the front lawn, and every year it gets bigger and better.\u201d
\nAs the \u201chaunting\u201d grew, the Dianas incorporated their passion for giving back, choosing the Aurora Food Pantry as a beneficiary of their efforts.
\nSue might be the big Hallowe\u2019en enthusiast in the family, but Paul is the builder.
\nHe tells The Auroran that with each passing year, their collection of props grows, along with their arsenal of special effects, and he starts assembling the display in the middle of September. In those early days, it\u2019s an hour here and an hour there, but in the last two weeks leading up to October 31, they are in \u201cfull-blown build mode.\u201d
\n\u201cOur neighbours are used to it by now,\u201d says Su with a chuckle. \u201cThey walk by, they give us a lot of good feedback and say they are looking forward to it, and the kids start coming by in September because they know we do this and want to see where we\u2019re at. It\u2019s fantastic. Our neighbours do probably think we\u2019re a little crazy, but they come out and support us.\u201d
\nAlso helping to support the Haunting for the first time this year are area schools Light of Christ Catholic Elementary School, where the Diana children are students, as well as Highview Public School next door.
\n\u201cCome out and experience something fun and something super-scary,\u201d says Su. \u201cWe have something for all ages and something that is close to home. People don\u2019t have to venture too far out of their community to have some fun on Hallowe\u2019en night and on the night before. This is just a family thing that has grown over the years, and now our kids help out.\u201d
\n\u201cFor the first couple of years, they didn\u2019t even want to go through it, but now they just love it,\u201d adds Paul.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s all about the kids and having someplace closer to home to venture out,\u201d says Su. \u201cWe\u2019re here and we\u2019re doing something good for the Food Pantry as well, which is really near and dear to my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Haunted Wild West house is open nightly starting October 29, 30, and 31 from 6.30 \u2013 9 p.m. at 40 Carlyle Court.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time, in a dark, dark house, lived two little kids who steered clear of their garage.
\nSpooky things were happening in there, and they wanted to avoid it at all costs.
\nNow that Sabrina and Jonathan Diana are a little bit older, however, they can\u2019t wait to get in the thick of it and spread the thrills and chills to anyone who dares enter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2018-10-25-10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5JS","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 11:04:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}