Halloween 2010

I can't believe that it is our second Halloween here - where has the year gone?

This year Halloween was a lot colder than last, in fact it snowed early in the day and I was worried about Jesse and his friends going trick or treating in the cold.  Needless to say, there weren't and nothing would have stopped them which is just as well as they had a great time.

We started celebrating Halloween on Saturday with family pumpkin carving at Jesse's school.  The children got dressed up in their Halloween costumes and spent a couple of hours making all kinds of wonderful pumpkin carvings in the school parking lot.  It was absolutely freezing (I like Halloween in NZ way better as it's much warmer, but not so dark and spooky).  There were some fabulous creations, obviously some parents have had lots of practice.

After the carving the 9-12 year olds had put on a haunted house and movie.  I didn't attend this, I camped out at Starbucks across the road for a couple of hours and listened to my book, but Andy and Jesse enjoyed the movie "the Haunted House".  I joined them close to the end.  A good time was had by all.

We got home about 7pm, just in time for dinner and then Andy and Jenna to get dressed up and head out for the night.  I was the delegated sitter which suited me fine.  They stumbled home at around 2.30am.

On Sunday, Jesse had planned to go out trick or treating with his friend Jakob who lives about 20 minutes drive from us.  He got dressed up in his Demi-God (Percy Jackson) outfit - note the Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt, shield and sword.  The four boys were allowed to go out by themselves this year, first time for all of them.  Jakob lives in a very safe, family oriented neighbourhood so we felt fine with this.  They left around 6pm and got home around 9pm freezing cold, with two large shoppings bags filled with candy.  I couldn't believe how much they had collected.

In the meantime, Andy and I had spent the evening enjoying Sandra and Chris (Jakob's parents) company.  It was a lovely "adult" evening where we enjoyed good conversation with the frequent interruption of children appearing at the door collecting their own share of the candy on offer.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend, very child orientated and very much fun.