Halloween

Halloween was a little funky this year. At 3am on Halloween we drove down to LAX to get on an airplane to Cancun Mexico for a wonderful week long family vacation. I was not really sad because honestly I really dislike Halloween, which is strange since I love all Holidays. I love fall, it is my favorite season. I developed my love for fall while living in the most magical fall place in the world: Vermont. So I love pumpkins, fall leaves, apple picking, cold nights, and warm days. It is just actual Halloween I don't like.  I love the dressing up, but don't like candy and all the spookiness that goes along with the holiday. So I was not very sad about missing the actual day. I still did not want to be a scrooge with the kids, so we managed to get all the traditional Halloween activities in. 

We went to the Pumpkin patch and picked out pumpkins. Abigail picked out a bright green pumpkin and Joshua got the biggest one he could lift. We told him it had to be a $5 pumpkin. So he lugged it all the way to the check out lady and asked her how much it cost. The sweet wonderful woman asked him in return "well how much does it need to cost?" he said "$5" and she said "well then it is a $5 pumpkin." Well it was at least twice the size of the $5 pumpkins (look at the picture below). I just have to say I absolutely love living amongst all the wonderful people in this Santa Ynez Valley. I honestly have never lived in a town with more genuinely, kind, friendly people! Everywhere you go they smile, say hi and treat you kindly. It really is amazing and I hope it never changes. 

We went through the junior corn maze at least five times. 

We also got to go to one of the local farms and pumpkin patches for Joshua's school field trip. They got to pick a pumpkin and a gourd. They also learned about farming. 

Luckily the Ward had a trunk or treat the Saturday before Halloween. We carved our pumpkins to use as decoration for our car. We knew they would rot before Halloween, but we wouldn't be here so we didn't care!

The kids got to dress up in their costumes and go trick or treating all around the Church parking lot. They had lots of cars, and booths with games set up. The kids had a great time and got a ton of candy. 

We had Cinderella and Luke Skywalker with us... and a little green dragon cousin :)

So despite missing actual Halloween we were able to experience all the highlights of Halloween that I actually like.