Costume Party

We had such a full day at school and work, but tonight was super fun so we'll start there.  It was our KidPak Costume Party, which was a chance for kids to dress up in their costumes, play games, and of course get a bag of candy on the way out.  

The plan this year was to cut back on the Fall Festival we'd been doing the past fifteen years or more, not do the inflatables and cut back on the candy a little, so we could invest more in Christmas and Easter.  And of course, you could imagine there would be some resistance to that, as tradition is a pretty strong argument against any changes being made.  But in came the weather, and that just cancelled out any questions about not having a Fall Festival to begin with.  

The weather today was miserable.  We had rain, and not just a little.  Our dry and thirsty land was deluged with water all day long and all night long.  There were warnings of flash floods, and our numbers tonight were a bit lower:  nobody anywhere was going to do a Fall Festival outside.  At least, not a dry one.  It turned out, the decision to not do a Fall Festival - made weeks ago - was a good one.  

And so we had a "Costume Party" instead, and I must note here before moving on that Madison's last year at KidPak - in 2018 - was the last Fall Festival.  So she got to go out with a bang.  

Still, this year was a lot of fun.  We had things planned out, with games and videos and a mad-lib that featured lots of costumes kids having a great time on stage.  One thing that I loved to see was the apple bobbing game.  It is so traditional, and I haven't seen it in a long time.  

You can see Daddy in his David S Pumpkins suit, looking down upon the competitors as they're about to get started.  Each had their own tub, so it made it a bit healthier.  Also, the competition was to see who could get the most apples in a certain time.  On your mark... get set... GO!

Super fun!  I love this, and so did the crowd.  The audience was cheering for their competitor, and throughout the night it was boys versus girls versus volunteers.  In the end, it wound up being a three-way tie!

Daddy raced home to get Madison, who wanted to come in and help - and have fun.  She was dressed up as Wednesday... on Wednesday.  She's seen here with Camille, who dressed up as Barbie, the one featured in "Toy Story 3."

The volunteers and kids had a wonderful night, although it was a bit shorter than others.  It was still a lot of noise and a lot of fun, and yes, everyone got a bag of candy - including Madison.

We got home tonight, and we changed gears on our reading, at least for the next two nights.  We're about to finish the Thrawn Trilogy, but we'll have some seasonal reading the next two nights.  Tonight's reading was "The Nightmare Before Christmas," the original Tim Burton poem with his original artwork.  Daddy read this with his best impersonation of Christopher Lee or something, and it was just a fun thing to do before bedtime.  

We said our prayers before bedtime, praying for Ba-Ba, and soon after that, we were off to sleep, ready to wake up on October 31st!

But this was all the evening stuff.  I didn't get to say much about the day itself.  Madison had a math quiz today, and actually went to school an hour earlier to go to a special help session.  She's done this a lot this year, as math has been more of a challenge for her.  She's doing good in the class, sitting on a 91 average.  But she's really had to work for that, and again, we're very proud of her.  

And along those lines, she did really well on her audition last night.  It was an interesting moment auditioning and being somewhere in the forties of about seventy-two separate people auditioning.  Daddy was coaching a lot of the people in the lobby as they waited to go in for auditions.  But the group that Madison went in with happened to be good friends with each other (with a few extras), and they were all very comfortable with each other.  And it made for such a great audition moment, because they just looked great together.  That added some extra fuel to a decision, as we were had some very solid performances earlier on.  In any event, we did some casting today, and while I can't say anything yet, there was as surprising shift or two that I'll explain later.  Our cast has been decided.  We're moving forward pretty soon, diving straight into this Christmas season!