Monday, November 1st, 2004 - Halloween Hullaballoo

Halloween as always was a fun day, even though I didn't throw one of my trademark parties this year (I thought I would be too tired and busy after the trip and boy, was I right). We went to church in the morning - there was no avoiding it because I was singing a solo. I go to drop Rascal off at his classroom and surprise, surprise - the kids were all supposed to have dressed up as a biblical figure this week (for an All Saints' Day parade around the chapel during the service). Nice of my mother-in-law to tell me about this; she brought the boys to church the last two Sundays in my absence. The teachers stuck a pair of bunny ears on his and called him one of the animals from Noah's ark. Fine. There were other kids in the same boat and worse - there were kids dressed as Spiderman and Batman, neither of whom I believe ever made a biblical appearance. :-)

After church we headed as usual to the church's coffee hour, also known as "the donut room" by my boys. The chess club has a few chessboards set up. Rascal settled in watching the game for over half an hour before a board freed up and I invited him to play with me. We had a good time, and we actually reached a stalemate (a little to my embarrassment), and Rascal caught the eye of the chess guy who was running the whole thing. He was impressed by Rascal's good start in the fundamentals of the game (considering his age and the fact that he has me for a teacher) and suggested a few drills to help him along. It was really cool (except that he got to see just how badly I play chess).

Rascal dressed as Harry Potter for trick-or-treating (he was exceedingly cute, too bad I don't have any pictures), and I put Zipper into a little "traditional" China boy outfit that I purchased for him in HK (none of the kids wear anything like that there btw).

After a couple hours at home it was off to Nana's (great-grandma's) house for a brief visit, then a not-so-quick quick dinner at BK, then a quick spot at Grandma M.'s house before setting off on our trick-or-treating. One of Grandma M.'s neighbors had a spooky sound effects CD playing really loud outside there house, and it scared my kids so much that they were crying. If you are making little kids cry and they aren't even at your place yet, it's too much.

Let me tell you, when you have a 2-year-old in tow while trick-or-treating, you don't end up hitting a lot of houses because it takes so long to get anywhere! Rascal was getting tired and cold after only an hour so we cut it short. That's ok though - it means we kept it to the immediate neighbors and they still got lots of loot.

I made caramel apples for the boys. Rascal turned up his nose at them, but Zipper demolished one - I think he may have consumed a few apple seeds. Anyone want a caramel apple? I made a bunch and I don't know how we are going to get through them all.

I usually stay up late watching bad horror movies on Halloween, but I was so tired that I conked out early again. *sigh* Oh, well - I've already watched so many bad horror movies in my life that I've filled my quota several times over. Hooray for Halloween!