Alyssa Bingle
Girls get new do’s
by Ashley on Jun.04, 2016, under Alyssa Bingle, Amber Bingle, Ashley Bingle, Karen Bingle
Most people who know our family know how we tend to eschew haircuts and grow our hair long. I cut my hair for the first time when I was 14, Amber waited until just before she went off to college at 17 and so it made sense for Alyssa to want to cut her hair too. After all, she has the thickest hair in the family and it was getting to the point she kept it up in a bun (a bun almost as big as her head) for most of the time.
Because her first haircut is somewhat of a special event she made sure that we would all be home for the excitement, and cut it off between Christmas and New Years. Mom wanted to shorten her hair up too, and with them both getting their hair cut I decided that 9 years was long enough between trims that maybe I was due to shorten mine up as well.
Shorten for me turned out to be whacking 19 inches off, which was nowhere near Alyssa’s 29 inch donation. Mom shortened her hair by 16 inches and after all of that Amber ended up joining the trend and was able to take off 13 inches to donate as well.
We sent all of our hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, which makes free wigs for cancer patients.
I am still getting used to my shorter hair, it has taken different people a while to notice the change, but I mostly notice how much shorter it takes to dry. Alyssa really enjoys swishing her hair around her shoulders, and how she can brush it back from her face and not have to reach to put it behind her back. She says it’s much nicer not to worry about it getting caught on a doorknob. Amber managed to surprise some of her friends at school with her new ‘do, and I got comments from the little girls at my church, but Alyssa got the best surprised reaction of all. (Makes sense since hers was the most drastic change.) We went to visit our cousins and one of them was admiring her new hair, had Alyssa turn around so she could see the back, and her mother thought she was reading the back of Alyssa’s shirt, until she suddenly realized, “Your hair! It’s gone!” And it is gone, an entire 6 ounces of hair is missing from her head, but everybody agrees that her short hair is adorable. She has even been able to replicate the pigtails she used to wear all the time when she was little.
Halloween 2014
by Bingle on Jan.31, 2015, under Alyssa Bingle, Amber Bingle, Ashley Peters, Karen Bingle, Richard Bingle, Richard Bingle Family
Years ago we figured out that a certain number of days after Halloween Target would have their 90% off sale and we would go and pick up some costumes for “dress-up” clothes to play with at home. This was helpful as the kids got older as we used them to supplement their ideas for costumes (which were needed to be out of the house somewhere else if people decided to ring our doorbell).
As time progressed, and Target changed their sale policies, the family has still been able to be creative with their costumes, involving various amounts of time in preparation and thrifty use of materials in their construction. This fascination my family has nurtured these many years has amused me, as it has now expanded to include dressing like a pirate (rewarded by Krispy Kreme’s free dozen “golden rings” for doing so) on Talk Like A Pirate Day (as mentioned in a previous post), and I get to maintain my support, encouragement and “only dress up if I have to” position. So I am pleased to share the efforts of my family for Halloween 2014.
Rich has now established a reputation for wearing Halloween costumes to work and tries to encourage others to participate by figuring out what exactly he is even if they are not willing to dress up themselves. Can you guess what he is?
Ashley, now that she has graduated and entered the employment world, crafted a costume that required less guessing than her father’s.
Amber acquired a wonderful stick early in the semester, which inspired her creation. She found out later it only made sense to certain age groups who were familiar with the Lion King, but she enjoyed spouting off movie quotes which may have been relevant even if they didn’t know who she was.
Alyssa and Kirsten (her cousin) attended our church’s youth group’s party as ninja’s!
Gypsy only likes dressing up for a moment at a time. In other words, she likes to figure out the appropriate way to remove her costume as quickly as possible!
And finally, Alyssa, Rich and I continued the tradition of avoiding being home (and my other favorite tradition of receiving discounts) by dressing up for Booritos at Chipotle.
~Karen
Halloween 2013
by Alyssa on Nov.24, 2013, under Alyssa Bingle, Karen Bingle, Richard Bingle, Richard Bingle Family
This Halloween was my first as an only child! This year, instead of putting on an ordinary costume at the last minute because my whole family has been so busy helping my sisters make theirs, I spent four or five hours on my own costume. For Halloween this year I went to a party at my church for the kids who go to the youth group weekly. The idea was to dress up as a character from your favorite movie or TV show. So after finding out about it at the last minute I decided on dressing as Indiana Jones.
I already had the hat, shirt, boots and satchel. So I went shopping and bought brown pants, but I couldn’t find a good whip so I decided to make one. Problem is we couldn’t find anything to make a whip out of. Monday morning (the day of the party) I began work on a Gaffer’s tape whip.
It took about five hours to finish and you could argue that I wasted the whole day on it but I am proud of my first hand made Halloween costume. Sadly my bull whip was too realistic because everyone I talked to at the party thought it was real and were therefore less impressed than I was hoping they would be. I lost the contest to Snow White’s evil stepmother but the prize wasn’t that important.
Then on Halloween night we went out to Chipotle and had three dollar burrito bowls because we were in costume (dad had gone to work as the Farmer in the Dell so mom dressed as the farmer’s wife).
All in all it was a very interesting Halloween.
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Ahoy, Ahoy!
Welcome to Bingle.org! This is the place to go for what the extended Bingle Clan is up to. Take some time to look around and browse the gallery. -- Rich
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