Grand Finale

What a wonderful weekend it has been! And what a birthday celebration too! Today, of course, was Halloween. But it is also Daddy's birthday, which made for a wonderful day. Mommy prepared a great feast for everyone with orange cupcakes, pumpkin cookies, green punch, and mummy wrap hot dogs. After church, the family came over - it was their first official visit to our new home. After a bit of touring, we put on the television for a while and of course watched "Alice in Wonderland" again. Soon it was time to eat though, and eat we did! It was all very nice - Daddy got some more presents: gift cards to Home Depot. Those will come handy here at the new house.

Everyone was so anxious to go out and do some trick-or-treating. The big question is: when is it time to go out? Is 5:00 too early? The sun is up, but everyone was so ready to go out there and fill their bags with candy! We decided to stall a bit, by taking a family photo showing everyone in their costumes.

You can see everyone here: Madison is in her Mulan costume, David is a pirate and Jonathan is a Spartan. Or a Roman. Hannah is a kitten, while Aunt Shain and Nana are cowgirls. Daddy decided to be a Viking this year, and Ye-Ye is a beekeeper!

At 6:00, we decided it was time to head out. We started across the street and went from house to house, all the kids running from house to house. Look at her running from one house back towards Daddy!

Oh yes: she's got the hang of it. She would say "trick or treat" as best she could, and she would always mind her manners. Now, about our new neighborhood. This one is apparently the one everyone comes to for trick-or-treating. These houses were all decked out, one after the other. Take a look at just one of the houses:

Many, many houses had inflatables like this, or pumpkins, or orange lights like in the photo below:

You can see Madison at that house above, doing her thing. It was a huge adventure, and all the kids came back with bags weighted down by all the candy. It was like the neighborhood was a huge block party - bonfires dotted the landscape with people everywhere, playing fun music and giving out candy to all the children.

There were even free hay rides for the kids! We walked up and down the street for about two and a half hours, until our feet were sore. The kids were actually tired, defeated by our neighborhood - because there was simply no way to visit all the houses. You should have seen all the candy, too!

One house was giving out orange Bibles: copies of the New Testament. A few houses were giving out full-sized candy bars! There were toys and there was enough candy to keep any child happy for a few months - at least until Christmas comes along.

When we returned, we had a nice, big fire in the fireplace and rested for a bit, talking of all the houses and experiences we had. Madison had a wonderful time, and never really got tired. She only had one lollipop the whole night - the thrill for her was being with family and running from place to place to get free candy. Daddy was thrilled too!