Halloween is here. As always, Anna had plenty of opportunity to celebrate. This year there were some changes from the recent past. After all, Anna is now 10 so there were some new activities.....but still some traditions.
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| Anna preparing for the Halloween Parade |
One of the new activities was performing in the Vienna Halloween parade on October 26. The Vienna parade is the largest Halloween parade in the area and the biggest event of the year in Vienna. This year, Anna got to perform with her percussion group, the Vienna Jammers. She was very excited, to say the least. The group gets to ride on a flatbed semi-truck to perform. (for those of you on Facebook, check out the video at https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.m.saunders.58/videos/10154249314013371/). They are always a popular group in the parade and Anna had an awesome time hearing the crowd cheer for them and having her friends shouting at her along the parade route. She had the extra cool factor going thanks to the LED gloves she wore, courtesy of Uncle Rod and Aunt Courtney.
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| Anna, Petra, Bryn & Ruby at Cox Farms |
One of the Halloween traditions is the annual trip to Cox farms for the fall festival. This includes lots of big slides, a hayride, and a corn maze. Anna always is off school the Friday before Halloween, so meeting up with all of her friends at Cox farms is the annual tradition. This year was no exception. Her neighborhood friend, Ruby, joined in the fun. The day usually concludes with "Trunk or Treat" in the school parking lot. As one parent described it to a local foreign exchange, this is a tradition in which Americans are now too lazy to walk door to door in the neighborhood for candy, but rather drive their cars to a parking lot, eat pizza, and race from car to car collecting twice as much candy as they would have for traditional trick or treating. Anna decided to forgo this tradition and opted to attend her friend Sarah's birthday slumber party. Mom and Dad got to go out to dinner and a movie. A win-win for all involved!
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| Pumpkin Carving |
Sunday Anna opted to skip the neighborhood Halloween parade (Theresa was very sad about this....the dog was not as he did not want to wear his Halloween costume) to go to basketball practice instead. She did make it back in time for another tradition: decorating pumpkin cookies and carving pumpkins. Part of the tradition is neighbors Aidan and Zoe come over to join in. Zoe was quite enthusiastic about decorating cookies. She tasted most decorations before putting them on the cookies (we sent her home with her own cookies). Joe, Anna, and Sue carved pumpkins, along with Aidan's friend Esha. Aidan declared that the smell of pumpkin made him sick to his stomach and he promptly went outside....that is until one of the girls cleaned out his pumpkin for him. We decided Aidan will need a personal assistant when he is an adult.
Meanwhile, Anna still did not have a costume for actual trick-or-treating. She started a few different costumes, ranging from an Arctic Wolf to a Pokemon trainer to a Starbucks coffee cup. This was the first year Grandma was not involved with making her costume, so chaos ensued. As of Sunday night, it was not clear what she would be.
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| Anna & friends trick-or-treating |
By Monday, Anna was able to finish her costume: a Starbucks cup. She went with her friends Ruby and Jillian to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. After finishing up, the opted to hide in the bushes and scare teenagers trick-or-treating at Ruby's house. Anna got a lot of candy. Mom and Dad gave out a lot of candy (Dad took it upon himself to test the supply first). Theresa put the hammer down on any kids that a) grabbed for candy, b) asked for more candy or c) asked to trade candy they already received for something else (don't mess with Theresa after a long day at the office). Meanwhile, the dog barked more tonight than the entire year combined as the doorbell kept ringing. The next step will be Anna separating out her candy so that Theresa can take it to work to resupply the office.
Happy Halloween!
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| Zoe and her pumpkin |
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