Far more treats than tricks...

Well, the kids have now experienced full-on American Hallowe'en... And it was really fun, actually. It's much bigger than I remember from when I was a kid, although this may be partly just that this neighbourhood is particularly good for it. Also, it was really warm yesterday - got up to 23 or 24 yesterday during the day, so that the evening, while not particularly warm, was fine for sitting outside with a jacket. (more Halloween photos here)

This neighbourhood is really good for Halloween - lots of houses with kids and lots of people sit out either on their own or with friends or their neighbours. Lots of decorations, and a number of very nice hand-carved jack-o-lanterns. My mother's neighbour, Patty, carves really spectacular ones. But there were also a number which had obviously been carved by or with children, which is always fun.

A few houses had gone all out and set up scenes - one with a spooky campsite with dry ice and a severed head in a tent with a guy who jumped out at you with a chainsaw; one with cobwebs over the whole yard and a skeleton coming out of the ground and one which had lots of gravestones, and a flying bat (this one spooked Alex out a bit, but that was at the end of the evening, and he was really tired).

The kids got absolutely masses of "candy" [Alex was very cute - he learned all about Halloween in about 1 day and could tell you just what happens: "You dress up in a Hayoween cosyume and go to eddybody's house and say trick or treat." "And then what happens?" "Then, they gives you CANDY!!" - this from a child who hadn't heard the word candy a month ago (we say sweets or chocolate).] which I guess will have to be packed in the suitcase to go home as there's no way they will get through it all before we leave, even if I let them eat more than I really want them to.

We carved our own pumpkins on Monday morning; we didn't want to do it too early as the weather was due to be very nice, so we didn't want to risk them going bad too quickly. It was actually fairly hot in the sunshine when we were working on them. Sarah did hers entirely by herself, and Olivia did hers mostly alone, with only a little guidance with drawing the features. Grandma Kathy carved most of Alex's and all of her own and I tried my hand at an artisan pumpkin (above) for the first time - I'm pleased with the effort, I have to say, and I may well try it again next year.

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous - Sarah and Grandma went out yesterday afternoon after we went up to the local elementary school to watch the Halloween parade to take photos of the autumn foliage. This tree is a photo taken by Sarah - and there are more here. It's really lovely, and very warm.