Happy Halloween

Well, the big day has finally arrived - and will now soon depart. It seems silly to do all this work for just a couple hours of enjoyment, but it's worth it. So here's a brief summary of the festive day's events:

The day started out bright and early - no, wait, that doesn't sound right. Oh yes - that's because I never went to sleep last night! As I may have mentioned before, I had a HUGE presentation due today in my Teaching Science Methods class. While I did have a partner, and we have been working on this pretty steadily for the last 4-5 weeks, there was still a LOT to get done last night. Turns out my partner was up all night, too. But we got everything done that we needed to, so that's good. ...Now back to the day.

Got the kids up a little early to get ready for school. Abby and Isaac were dressed in costume for the Halloween parade at school this morning. Danielle didn't wear hers because her class went on a fieldtrip to the Honolulu Zoo. It was nice to have a little extra time to get everything just perfect and still get Danielle to school on time so she wouldn't miss the fieldtrip bus. Needless to say all the kids were excited to get to school.

After dropping them off in their classroom, and making sure that everyone had all the things they needed (treats for parties, costumes all in place, know where to meet Daddy after school, etc) I headed back home to tie up a few loose ends for my presentation, pack it all up for transport to class, and most importantly to feed Miss Juliana - she's not a happy camper when she misses her morning meal. But the again, who would be.

Class started at 10am, and basically my partner, U'i (that's pronounced oo-ee for those non-Hawaiian speakers out there), and I had 3 hours to demonstrate different methods of teaching elementary school children about plants. It was really a lot of fun and everyone seemed to have a great time. We actually ran out of time and missed out on a few of the more fun activities, but it's all good. I think that it went well, but then again, we were both pretty sleep deprived at the moment, so we could have totally bombed and I might not have noticed (though I doubt that's what happened).

After class I came home and put most of the stuff away that I used for our presentation and then started to attempt to make Cameron's costume, the one I hadn't even started yet. But then I had to feed Miss J again and of course I totally dropped into a delirious coma as soon as I was sitting still. Well, I ran out of time for the costume, so poor Cameron wore his devil costume from a couple of years back - not that that was bad, but the rest of us had our Wizard of Oz theme going on. But he was really sweet about it, knowing that I've just had too much going on lately. He told everyone that he was the husband of the wicked witch who doesn't make an appearance in the movie.

Around 4pm we headed over to the party for our apartment complex - of course we won the costume contest (we won last year, too). $20 grocery gift card, not bad. Abby also won best costume in her age group - they really liked her red shoes. Oh, and as a side note, did I mention that we won "most creative" costumes at our ward trunk-or-treat on Wednesday? So cool. Needless to say - we looked good. (I know, I know, you want pictures! Well, if you're that impatient, just scroll down already. Otherwise, hang in there, we're almost done.)

After the party we went out for a little traditional door-to-door mayhem. Only for about 20 min, then we stopped by to say hello to a few friends and show them the costumes before heading home. We got back around 7:30. Then all the candy was poured into a huge bowl, a movie was turned on, and I just let the kids loose! No really, I did. They get 20 min to eat whatever they want and then the candy disappears (you all know it goes in the freezer). This method has worked out really well for us over the years and since we just dump in all in the bowl, that cuts down on the squabbling over whose is whose and what is better. They've actually lucked out tonight - they've had 35 min of candy time since I'm writing this. I'd better go put a stop to that soon:)

Well, that's about it. It was a fun day - and a tiring one. I'm hoping to get everyone in bed before I either collapse from exhaustion or hit my 4th (or is it 5th) wind and become an adrenaline junkie.

Ok, enough prattling on and on - here's the pics. Enjoy!

Well, the chiclets are in bed now and despite the copious amounts of sugar they inhaled all day, they seem to have passed out already. Time for me to be headed in that direction myself. 'Night.