Real Life Halloween

Our own church's Halloween event was Saturday, and it was pretty much a daylong affair. We helped set up our Life Group's booth in the morning, and returned in the afternoon to help run our games.

Many hands made for light work at setup. We have a great group of people and it's fun to hang out together.

Stace and the girls loved helping with the game, a bean bag tic-tac-toe.

Stace changed costumes, since he wasn't near his car. He came as an old-fashioned newspaper boy.

Violet enjoyed the hay maze and the petting zoo, with chickens, goats, sheep, and bunnies.

Fun photo props abounded.

It was a great (if tiring!) day and night, and nice to come together as a larger church family to put on something fun for the community. More than 20,000 people showed up!

School Trunk or Treat

On Thursday evening, the girls went to Magic Mountain for an employee family trick-or-treating party, but we weren't there very long so we didn't get any photos.

On Friday afternoon, we were back at it, with the MG taking part in the school's first ever Trunk or Treat event.

In past years, the PTSA has held a Fall Festival in October, and the students can dress up there. This year, the festival (with carnival games, food and a DJ) will move to the spring, but we still wanted a chance for the children to get together dressed up.

Hence, a trunk or treat event.

More sword play

Our friends Tommy, Emily and Charlie - Emily won first place in the costume contest with her creative portrayal of spaghetti and meatballs!

Pioneer Club Trunk or Treat

Now, we come to the Most Busiest Time, of the Year...
No, not Christmas, though that is also gloriously full of fun.

I'm talking about Halloween, which is super crammed with events because we have kids the right age, AND we're involved in a school and two churches, AND who doesn't like to celebrate dressing up and collecting candy?

First on our list this week was Pioneer Clubs at Valencia Methodist on Wednesday.

For the second year, Stace brought his MG over and decorated it as part of the Trunk or Treat fun. He dressed as an old-time racing driver.
His trusty helper, Darth Vaderette, helped pass out candy for a bit.

Violet found Liana and they took Clifford around trunk or treating.






















I later went into the craft area to help out, and Violet came in and made a few of the crafts.





















Cora caught up with Sophia, channeling her inner Kylo Ren, and another friend dressed up as Rey, for a Star Wars light saber battle.

I swear, Violet had a good time!

She didn't have as good a time the morning after. My oh my, we've never had such a tough, tear-filled morning! It was early to bed for her Thursday night!

Week in Review

Here's a favorite photo from our San Diego trip - the girls were climbing the rope net at Legoland and looking so sweet while doing it.

Another great Legoland memory - I've always wanted to get caricatures drawn of the girls, partly because I have one of myself as a little girl. Legoland and Sea World both have several sketch artists stationed in the parks, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I love the finished result!

 Violet's class this week had a pumpkin book report project, where the kids had to write a report and turn a pumpkin into the main character of their chosen book.

Violet picked the black cat from "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" book, and had fun making a black plastic pumpkin into a kitty.

 This week was "Red Ribbon Week" at schools across America, which promotes steering clear of bad drugs. Cora showed me the handprint she added to the handprint mural of the children pledging to stay drug-free.

Violet got to take home Clifford the Big Red Dog, the classroom pet, for a few days during the week.

He participated in the homeschool lesson for the day. Yes, the girls are doing homeschool again, a favorite activity they return to again and again.

Cora loves being the teacher, and Violet, overall, is a very willing and eager pupil.

Old Town, Mines and Apple Pie

We woke up Saturday in San Diego, prepared to end our little family vacation with a full day of sight-seeing.

After breakfast and packing up the car, we went to the Old Town area, a deceptively large complex of historic buildings. It's a state park, with docents and museum displays in the old hotel, schoolhouse, adobe hacienda and storefronts.

We spent a couple of hours here, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Violet loved the shopping part - they each picked out some tiny Mexican crockery for their Calico Critters.

 San Diego is where Stace and I met nearly 16 years ago, and he recalls having dinner at this Mexican restaurant with me, Jim and JT.

 Dia de los Muertos is coming soon, so much of the area was appropriately decorated.

 We said farewell to San Diego and headed about east into the foothills, to the sweet town of Julian. The town got going in the late 1800s and became a place on the map because of gold mining. We visited one of those mines, which is no longer operational but open for tours.

 We all learned a lot about gold mining - and it's not what I had thought!

Gold flecks existed in a vein of quartz running through the hard rocky ground. The vein was blasted out, crushed and processed, an intense production that petered out because the price of gold wasn't justifying the cost of extraction.

 Fourth-graders here learn about California history, and Cora is looking forward to Gold Rush days in the spring. She took special interest in her mining education.

 Here's the huge machine used to crush the rock in the gold extraction process.

 We went back into Julian, which after the gold boom became known as an apple-growing region. Apple pie shops abound, and we couldn't leave without sampling one for ourselves.

It passed muster.

The town has been voted one of the best main streets in California, and I had always wanted to check it out. But, being a three-hour drive from home, it hadn't made sense to do so until this trip.

We got back on the road around 5, and with a stop for dinner on the way, were back home to our kitties and fish by 9.

A lovely time had by all!

San Diego Trip: Sea World!

 On Friday, we enjoyed a fantastic day out at Sea World. We watched all the shows - the orca show, dolphins, and comedic Clyde and Seamore sea lion show.

We saw sharks, polar bears, walruses, loads of fish, even piranhas feeding off less fortunate fish dropped in on a fishing line.

We all enjoyed the touch tanks, where you could touch bat rays, bamboo sharks and feeder fish.

And we also rode several rides - the Manta and Atlantis roller coasters, and an Arctic-themed motion simulator ride.

After Sea World, we had Subway for dinner overlooking a waterfront park, and then went into the cool Gaslamp district of San Diego's downtown. We stopped into Ghiradelli for dessert - a banana split, big enough to be shared among the four of us.

San Diego Trip: Legoland Hotel!

We had heard from friends about how awesome the Legoland Hotel was, with the exorbitant price tag to match.

Everything is geared toward the kids - a huge castle Lego play area takes center stage, with the surrounding moat full of bricks to build with. Lego characters greet you at dinner and put on an evening show. The elevators feature disco balls and dance music, but only when the doors are shut and the elevator is in motion.

As a very special treat, we thought it would be an awesome surprise to walk around the stunningly kid-focused lobby and then show them a room key. (And the mid-week October pricing was just doable for us - forget the weekends!)

The surprise went off beautifully, and the girls loved their own section of the hotel room with bunks and a television.

A welcome packet included a scavenger hunt for the girls to fill out. The answers formed the combination for a safe that included a Lego magazine and tiny building set for each girl.

We chose a "Lego Adventure"-themed room, which was very much like Indiana Jones, with characters made out of Legos all over the place.

In the evening, we watched a bit of the Dodgers playoff game, and then went to check out the pool.

Then we had dinner at a hotel restaurant, and watched a children's show with pirate characters. (You can see one behind Cora in the photo where she's showing off her Lego creation.)

Then, we just had fun building!

The breakfast buffet Thursday was incredible, the best I've ever seen, with so many tasty options. We filled up on yumminess and protein that kept us going through our Legoland adventure.
After saying goodbye to another Lego character, we packed up and went next door to the park for our day of fun there.

Here is the elevator fun!