Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Double double toil and trouble

Halloween was fantastic! I was so excited in the lead up to experience my first Halloween, and all the kids were in disbelief that we didn't celebrate this back home!
The day before Halloween, I went with my host mom to watch the kids at their school parade. Each grade marched out in costume, and I would say about 50% had store bought and 50% home made. There were a dozen 'Dorothys' and what seemed like an infinity of superheros and starwars characters; but also some really unique costumes like an i-pod, a cupcake, dice. My favourite though was a girl dressed in purple, with a painted purple face, who was carrying a clear umbrella with purple streamers hanging from it. She was a jellyfish and she looked amazing! My kids kept changing their minds right up until the night before. My youngest boy, 5, went as a ninja. My oldest boy, 9 went as a gangster and my girl, 9, went as a crazed jungle woman. She looked the best! I leant her my leopard print dress and then we painted her face brown and green so it looked dirty and then teased her hair to the maximum and put leaves and twigs in it. After the parade, each class hads a party and I went between the twin's classrooms looking at their projects, meeting their teachers and friends. It was really interesting and lots of fun.

The night before, my host parents went to a halloween party so I told the kids we would have our own party, just the four of us. We carved pumpkins (well they just drew the faces, I carved them out) which was messy and fun and tiring all at once. Then we got some of the halloween candy they recieved in class and made halloween cupcakes. We danced to spooky music, ate party food and scared each other. It was a long night and we had so much fun.

The afternoon of Halloween I helped the kids get dressed. My oldest boy was now being a zombie soccor player and the youngest a zombie astronaught (?!?!) and my girl was still a jungle woman. We put fake cobwebs all over the already set up Halloween directions on the porch; then lit up our pumpkins. We started by going to a haunted house on our street, set up by one of my kid's friends. Then we all went trick or treating together, knocking on each house and seeing if the people inside were dressed up, and what kind of pumpkins they had carved. There wasn't just faces I saw other things carved like words or objects. I had a blast and it was really special to spend it with my host family.

After trick or treating, me, Emily, Christina and Danyale went into the city. We were suppose to watch the parade in the village but it was raining so instead we went to 'The Australian' bar and had a drink, danced for a bit, then came home.

It was a great night but I'm glad we don't have this holiday back home!

No comments:

Post a Comment