Normally I enjoy decorating for Halloween on October 1st, or at least the first weekend of the month. But like everything else this year it wasn't done in the normal way at the normal time due to juggling many life circumstances. I decided that I didn't want the house all Halloweened out for the celebration of Chase's homecoming.
And now that I'm looking through the photos, I believe I will now be blogging about the entire second half of the month of October in one post because all the exciting stuff happened in the first half. Also I didn't take that many photos.
So yes, Emma and I relished setting up our beloved Halloween decorations. It actually felt a little weird this year - we had the warmest October on record. We had many days in the 80s - just unseasonably warm. A lot of people really loved that but I was ready for a chill in the air and a chance to wear a sweater now and then. Plus I was scared that the soaring temps would plummet suddenly into snow, which it actually kind of did early in November. But that didn't last long either. So it was ok. Anyway, it felt a little weird to celebrate Halloween when the plants on the porch were still happily flowering and I was in flip-flops all the time. We tried, though.
One fun event was attending Becca's now-annual coven dinner. She's so cute. Here's the text she sent to invite a few friends and neighbors to a witchy dinner:
"Hello my favorite witches! What say you we convene in my hovel on the Saturday before the hallowed eve? If there are any provisions you fend off or detest, please send word. The only items required are your fantastical spirits! I plan to don some sort of gothic and/or witchy apparel, but be not compelled to dress for spells!"
I love Becca. And she throws a fantastic witch party. I chose to don witchy apparel:
And here is some of her fantastic decor:
After dinner we had fun reading palms and choosing word tickets for one another to make up spells. My spell was for Becca, and I decided that it's time for her to debut a new pie.
Working at Primary Children's Hospital is always fun during holidays - here is my favorite display from the pumpkin decorating contest. Our family continues to adore Over the Garden Wall, and it was delightful to find another fan:
Here's one thing that had nothing to do with spooky season, and something I have NO photos of (shame on me) - my son's BIRTHDAY. Looking through my pictures, I'm dying that I have one random photo from our back porch.
And it's not even of the birthday boy. I failed in my mom-duties. Although...if you look closely at the photo you'll see that I caught Troy as he lit Chase's birthday candles with a map gas torch. So, I guess of all the moments to capture, that was a pretty good one.
It's somewhat understandable that I didn't get many photos. (Or really any at all.) Chase is now 22 and spent his birthday with friends in Provo - I barely even saw the man on his actual birthday, aside from making biscuits and gravy for him before he even woke up, and then poking my head in his room to wish him a happy birthday.We celebrated the evening before by inviting the Moores to the back porch for cake and ice cream. Chase requested a tres leches cake, which I had never made before. It was fun! And really delicious. Also I had leftover chocolate pie from an earlier event and also I tried a sugar-free pumpkin bread. So we basically had a large buffet of desserts.
It was so completely pleasant to hang out on the porch - we hadn't been able to do that all year due to the fact that our porch had been a construction zone since January. So sitting out there, laughing with friends and celebrating Chase, was extra delightful. Happy birthday, Chase!
Ok back to Halloween.
Our big event was our ward's 4th annual Spooks-n-Beans, the chili cook-off & costume party. I loved our costumes so much this year. We will definitely have to reuse them. My favorite part was Troy wearing my dad's old-man golfer hat - my dad wore those hats everywhere, and each of his kids now has one. I thought Troy looked so cute.
For Halloween night itself, I actually bought a bag of candy just in case we got any trick-or-treaters. All three of our kids had other plans so Troy and I were just home alone. We decided to watch Ghostbusters (while I was knitting Christmas ornaments). The evening was quiet but we finally got a knock on the door. Exciting!!
Except that...it was not children. It was two married couples from our neighborhood who like to go for walks together and decided to come say hello. We made them take a lot of candy because....no children came to our house. Okay, some friends of Romney's also stopped by and brought their little brother who is like 15, but I'm not sure if they count. We loved getting the visitors we did.
So there you go. Spooky Season came and went in a flash.
And on a totally unrelated tangent, I have to show you my favorite shoes that Troy encouraged me to get. I finally started being able to wear them with cozy socks and I know I'm silly but they just make me so happy.
While the kids were in California glutting themselves on Disney treats, Troy and I had this amazing amount of time in which we could get work done with no one bugging us and asking us to do stuff for them. It was amazing. We should send them on vacation together more often.
Not only did Troy make great progress on the bedroom shelves and desk, but I jumped farther ahead in my school work than I had in weeks.
I think I've mentioned already that it was slightly hard to finish this beautiful little room just in time for it to be immediately filled with someone's stuff. That feeling has continued a little for me each time Troy has installed another shelf, and especially with the desk. The wood is so beautiful, and I love the light warmth of it. It's a little sad to cover it up.
Then again, it's delightful to see Chase enjoy so much the process of setting up his displays of all of his favorite things, and arranging it all. I know for sure he really loves his room. It's a cozy little cave back there. When Troy actually got the desk in I insisted on a celebratory group photo.
The shelves are all in, the desk is in, the beautiful lights in the shelves are in - it's all wonderful. Is the room done, you ask? Of course not! Next comes work on the closet. It needs two shelves and a clothing rod. And...then we are done? The bedframe we have in mind will happen someday, but I don't know when and I don't care when and we are just going to go ahead and call this finished. So excited for the closet.
Just so you know, this post is going to be short on words and long on photos, and it still won't be enough photos to make me happy. Nowhere near enough.
Way back in the spring, Romney started casually chatting with me about her daydreams about taking a siblings-only trip to Disneyland when Chase got home. It didn't take long for her light musings to spiral into deep obsessive planning and conniving. What can I say. She talked us into it. (Meaning we finally hollered Uncle when our arms were close to breaking.)
The most exciting part of Romney's scheme, which in my opinion paints her as the cutest big sister ever, was that she really wanted to surprise Emma with this whole thing. She wanted a full-on ambush - for us to pick Emma up from school and inform her, under video surveillance, that she was being taken to the airport right then and there and being taken to Disneyland! Like it or not!
How do I express the extent to which Romney coped with life by planning this trip? By mentally going to Disneyland multiple times a day? I'm not sure it's possible. She planned out the exact sequence of events of kidnapping Emma. She carefully outlined the trip including food and treats and the best days to travel and where to stay. (Some of this required long conversations with two of her Disney-expert Aunts, Sheri and Kathleen.) She even planned Disney-Bounding outfits for each of them. Don't know what that is? I'll tell you. It means dressing up, not as a character, but in clothes that pay homage to a character. Like colors and patterns but not actual costumes. She spent a great deal of time thinking about this. They did Brave, Princess and the Frog, Emperor's New Groove and Wall-E.
It was VERY hard to keep this trip a secret. There were many close calls. And a few times that I wondered if Emma suspected. I don't think she did.
Romney (and I confess, I too,) was pretty much levitating with ecstacy and excitement. And I wasn't even the one going. Truthfully, I wanted to go too so bad! But the fact that my children wanted to travel together as a celebration of Chase coming home and being together again meant that I absolutely was not allowed to go. There was one non-sibling person allowed to go....any guesses? That would of course be Nicholas. And he was as excited to plan this trip as Romney was.
And finally the day came. Romney spent the day on Tuesday packing. She had the whole week off from school and so could just revel in the packing process all day while I hid at work. We hid the suitcases upstairs and did our best to remain calm. The next morning Troy took Emma to school for her early morning seminary class, and Romney and I tried to act normal. We did an okay job. As soon as Emma was out the door, Romney and Chase and I finished grabbing all the last minute stuff and putting the suitcases in the car. We zipped off to go pick up Nicholas, and then finally made our way to the high school to wait with baited breath outside the seminary building.
What's funny is that while we were waiting for Emma to come out, we all made videos of ourselves predicting what Emma's reaction was going to be. I won, by the way. I was the only one who guessed that she was going to just keep saying, "What?.....WHAT?" Emma was definitely more in shock than freaking out with excitement. But still, so fun to surprise her. And then, off to the airport!
Here's my truth. I'm a very anxious traveller. I always freak out when I have to fly, and not because I'm scared of a plane crash. I'm scared that I'm going to screw up the tickets and accidentally buy them for the wrong day or spell someone's name wrong. So the thought of sending my kids off without me to be OCD about everything was a little challenging. Luckily they were very understanding and kept me updated. Mom, we made it through security! Mom, we made it onto the plane! Mom, we made it to the Uber! Maybe overkill but it helped my blood pressure a lot. I was most anxious about them getting into their hotel ok - they were landing hours before check-in time. But they were allowed to check in just fine. As soon as that happened, most of my fears were over. Most. The other bad part was that their flight home left at 7:00 am and they had to get up at like 3:30 to get an Uber to the airport in time. I was definitely anxious about that...but they did it!!
Here's how it went. They spent Wednesday evening getting delicious food and ice cream in Downtown Disney, and doing a little browsing through the shops.
Thursday was Disneyland day 1, Friday was a day in California Adventure, and Saturday was Disneyland day 2.
And now I'm just going to dump a bunch of photos. But first I will add two of the greatest videos of all time that Troy and I both watched about 100 times.
Oh my goodness. Watching these again just makes me smile, and also I want to go to there.
Okay, photo dump, here we come. They are not really in order, just so you know.
Okay, here are my kids' favorite parts of the trip:
Chase: Interacting with Chewbacca, Monsters After Dark
Romney: Eating dinner at sunset in SanFransokio with bread bowls and honey lemonade, Kebabs, eating all the food, being in charge, "being the Sheri of the trip," Incredicoaster at night
Emma: All the food, Main Street at night, talking with siblings and Nick in line
