Halloween!!!

 So.....Halloween....during a pandemic.

I NAILED it!

All activities were canceled- no trunk or treat, no pumpkin patches (actually, the pumpkin patches were all open with Covid modifications, but we weren't comfortable going), no fun high school activities.

But, the EXCITEMENT of Halloween was greater than anything seen before.

Way back in August, I said to Ben, "I can't believe summer is over!" referring to starting school again. The girls somehow took it to mean that Halloween was the next day, and they immediately began planning their costumes. They spent HOURS researching costumes, and looking up what stores had them in stock, and then proceeded to beg us every day over and over and over again to go and buy their costumes. Their tenacity and laser focus was incredible, and so annoying.

Due to Covid guilt, for the first time ever, I spent money on their costumes. Normally I just say, "go downstairs and pick out something to wear," but not this year. Not when they were SO EXCITED, and, well, what else do they have to be excited about right now?

But after spending WAY too much for costumes, we had a quandary: where would they wear them with everything canceled?

I thought about it quite and bit and thought to myself: If we are outside at a park, everyone wearing masks and socially distanced, how is that dangerous? In fact, wouldn't that be safer than pretty much anything else Halloween related?

So, I decided to host a Halloween parade. I didn't know if people would come, but figured 20-30 kids would be a good number.

I started advertising and inviting friends, neighbors, homeschool groups, and ward members, and voila- 85 kids! I couldn't believe it!

And, it was perfect. The girls and I went and put X's every 10 feet. Parents stood on every other X, and everyone wore a mask. The weather was perfect. The kids were happy and laughing and so incredibly cute in their costumes. People were happy- it was fun. It was almost normal, despite those pesky masks. Did I mention it was FUN? Candy and costumes- the kids were in Heaven!

Here's Audra helping sidewalk chalk the path. They put things like "Hop to the next X" and such.

Originally Claire wanted to be Kim Possible, but it proved impossible to find that costume, so she settled for cop. Audra was Ginny and Camille was Hermione (don't get them messed up!).

The parade! We brought our 10 foot gutter to keep socially distanced. I also had Silly String to spray on the kids- the little kids were scared of it, the older kids LOVED it.

Baby E loved it:

I saw on Pinterest this idea and knew I had to steal it as I was looking for ways to hand out candy as safely as possible:

The "Monster House" was fun to put together! Our last trick-or-treaters were teenagers. They said, "This is a cool set up!" That's the best compliment I could receive! I think we are going to need to keep this gutter and make it a new tradition! As a bonus, and because it's Covid, I even bought full size candy bars for the trick-or-treaters. I have wanted to do that for a long time, and with Covid I really wanted to make Halloween special and different, so I did. Something simple, but it was fun and helped to make Halloween special.

I'm pretty sure the girls got more candy this year than any other year! While we didn't have very many trick-or-treaters (only about 20), Ben said there were a lot of treaters out on the main neighborhood streets, with most people either leaving a bowl of candy out on their step of sitting outside with a table to hand out candy. It made it very fast to go to a lot of houses in a short amount of time.

Grandma and Grandpa Marriott and Beth's family came over and went to the parade, ate some pizza for dinner with us, and then went trick-or-treating. They all had a blast and got WAY too much candy!

Then, my friend sent me this- a message from Nextdoor from a neighbor who had just happened to drive by and saw the parade happening. How sweet is this!!!!

Halloween House

 

 During a pandemic, it's essential to think outside the box to find fun, safe, family friendly activities. A pirate ship house is just the ticket! I told the family we were going adventuring, and we hopped in the car and went to this fabulous Halloween House, complete with canons the children could fire (while masked and gloved, of course).

What a great thing for people to use their talents to bring joy to others!

Early Christmas

 The younger girls believe they are monkeys, so I decided to get them a balance beam for Christmas. The timing was perfect as they started using the high beam that holds the swings on the swing set (you know, the beam that goes across to swing from that sits 10 feet off the ground) as a balance beam and have been walking across that.

I found one on Craigslist for a pretty good price, so Ben and I went to pick it up. But, it turns out a balance beam is pretty impossible to store/hide. So, after much frustration trying to find a hiding place, we gave up and decided to have an early Christmas.

They were THRILLED! Within about 5 minutes Claire and Camille could do handstands on it. I think with winter coming and no end to the pandemic in sight, having this will be wonderful! Claire said we now have the coolest basement, aside from Grandma and Grandpas, and we need to get a rope swing and a barrel for them to jump off of.

Silverthorne Trailhead

 I wanted to go up to see the changing leaves, so we decided to head up to Georgetown for a hike. We were maybe a week late as several of the leaves had already fallen, but then- it was also beautiful to see the ground covered in gold leaves.

Second Semi-Annual Sweet 16 Conference Edition

 With another inspiring conference in the books, we held our second Sweet 16 Conference Quote Challenge!

It was a lot of fun, and the family really got into it.

In the end, there were two excellent finalists. Claire and Camille were SOOOOO sad that this quote lost:

Elder Gong: “As ‘fellow citizens with the saints,’ we are invited to change the world for the better, from the inside out, one person, one family, one neighborhood at a time.”

And the winner is....

Elder Stevenson: “I believe that one day, each of you will look back at the canceled events, the sadness, disappointments and loneliness attendant to the challenging times we are passing through to see it overshadowed by choice blessings and increased faith and testimonies.”

Heading Home!

 We were so sad to head home! We drove out the Northeast Entrance. I'm glad we did because we saw about 10 different herds of buffalo, a pack of wolves, and the back of a moose. Driving through Montana was also much more beautiful than the Wyoming portion of the drive.

It took about 11 hours to come home, but we did make a few stops to see animals and a waterfall, so it really wasn't too bad. It was certainly worth the drive to experience the grandeur of this world!

Yellowstone #2

 Day #2 of Yellowstone brought Black Cauldron Mud Pots, Upper and Lower Falls, Mammoth Springs, buffalo, and elk.

Part of keeping Camille entertained involved Grandma and Grandpa letting her use their camera. They likely have over a thousand random Camille photos.

Spooky!!!!!

This herd of buffalo walked across our road. It was so cool!

Claire found a bear claw. It was the closest we came to seeing a bear.

Audra and I took a hike that went down to the top of Lower Falls. It was pretty awesome to be on top of the waterfall, but it also was creepy and gave me a little bit of vertigo!

Mammoth Hot Springs:

The cabin was wonderful! The only problem was that because of Covid they removed all fridges and microwaves from all the cabins in the park. I had carefully planned meals for the entire week, but they required a microwave. So, for the last night, Grandpa bought us all hamburgers. Nobody complained.

There were elk EVERYWHERE- there were hundreds of them, and they had rangers directing people and traffic to keep the herd safe. It was really cool!