Halloween!

Despite the fact that I don't like scary things or unhealthy amounts of candy, we all ended up having a great Halloween.

There was quite a bit of conversation about how many trick or treaters would show up.  Apparently last year it was quite a mob scene, so as a neighborhood we decided to have the little ones trick or treat early and then brace for the crowds.  It ended up raining as the night went on, so I don't know if that curbed people's enthusiasm, but even so we went through over a thousand pieces of candy.

Some of our friends live in a subdivision that only has one street.  They didn't think they would get any trick or treaters, so we invited them to come celebrate with us.  I figured we would need to eat as the evening wore on, so I asked Young to make us some food to put on the dining room table, buffet style.  Then I parked the car on the street and set up a table and chairs in the covered driveway space (always plan for evening rain).

I got a nice surprise in the morning, since one of my friends was busy and couldn't make her mani/pedi appointment. She was looking for someone to take it, because she didn't want to just cancel and have the people not make money.  I haven't done any kind of nail maintenance since I got here, and I had seen some people with pretty cool Halloween nails, so I took her appointment.  The place was very nice, and I felt like a queen with one woman doing the nails on my hand and another working on my feet.  I picked a sparkly dark orange color for the polish.  They had tons of nail art designs to choose from, ghosts, spider webs, skeletons, but I kept it simple and just did monster faces on my big toe nails.

My nails were making me really happy, but then I realized that Vivian would come home from school and be sad that I had fancy nails and she didn't.  I mentioned this to Young, who nonchalantly said she had a friend who could come to the house and do nails.  It's not her style to go promoting people, so I really need to remember to ask if I need something.  She called her friend, and, happily, she was available.  I was excited because I figured she could paint Vivian's nails and her friend's nails, and that would buy us some time before trick or treating.

Sure enough, Vivian walked in the door from school and said, "I want to go trick or treating NOW."  I told her that her friend was coming over, and they were going to get their nails done.  She was super excited, and I had accomplished my distraction.

Young's friend had tons of colors.  When we asked Vivian what color she wanted, she couldn't decide, so she said she wanted each nail a different color.

When it came time to pick designs, she decided on lots of different pumpkins.

She and her friend were thrilled, and with all the painting, drying, giggling, and photo ops, we kept them busy until it was time to put on costumes and go trick or treating.  

Vivian was Elsa, of course.  Elena was a bumble bee, and Young really wanted to push her around in the stroller to get candy, so we said, go for it.

They just did a couple streets, and then came back home because Young wanted to finalize food prep.  I had asked her to make a few dishes that we could put out on the dining room table for people to eat as the evening went on.  This is what she produced.

Saying we are spoiled doesn't even begin to cover it.  In addition to making absolutely delicious food, she also has the presentation thing down.  I asked for fried rice for the kids, and she did this.

While Young was making magic in the kitchen, we left Jeff (in his Captain America shirt) in charge of candy distribution, and the moms and kids headed out for trick or treating.  The kids were moving so fast, it was almost impossible to get a picture that wasn't blurry.

Keep in mind, that even in October it was at least 90 degrees outside.  We did a couple streets, and then had to come home for a water break before tackling the rest of the neighborhood.  It had not occurred to me to bring a water bottle for trick or treating, but I will next year.  The nice part about the heat is that the kids were pretty wiped out after about half an hour, so we could bring them back home for dinner without any fussing.

We set up in the driveway.  We had a table for the adults and one for the kids.  We quickly realized that the kids should sit in front and be in charge of candy distribution.

They were pretty ruthless portion control enforcers, when they weren't spilling the bowls of candy of course.

Eventually the little ones got fussy, so our friends wanted to take their two home to put them to bed.  They took Vivian with them.  After they dropped off the little ones, Vivian, her friend, and her friend's mom and dad drove around Nichada to check out all the decorations and parties.  Vivian's friend's dad had been coming home from work downtown, had spent several hours in traffic, and had missed dinner and trick or treating, so we told him to come over and have some food.  By the time they came with the girls, it was about nine o'clock.  The girls were still bubbly, but they also said they were getting tired, so we set them up with blankets and pillows, and Vivian's first sleep over guest kind of happened by accident.  The parents stayed up talking until we were yawning more than talking, and we decided to call it a night, a very fun Halloween night.