Happy Halloween!

Our second one in Dominica, where the locals were busy celebrating Creole. It is actually a lengthy celebration and goes on for days, maybe even weeks in October. It culminates at the end because it is basically in preparation for their Independence Day celebration - maybe it's all the same thing. (If you want real details then Google it.) Anyway, for some reason we didn't go to any of the Creole celebrations. Now I am a bit sad because we won't be here next year. Oh well. Maybe their Madras clothing will be on sale and I can get some for the girls as reminders of the island. I have gotten off on a bit of a tangent... Halloween is not celebrated by the Dominicans but we had a party on campus with all the American kids. I was hoping my kids would be happy going as a rainbow again this year - it worked nicely last year. No one was interested. That meant I had to help come up with 5 costumes that didn't require anything that we didn't already have on hand. Marissa figured hers out first - wear dads scrubs and be one of the people in the Anatomy lab who cuts up the bodies to see what's inside and what they died from. Too much so I talked her into being a veterinarian. Ben was next - blueberry. He wore Kevin's blue shirt and we stuffed a pillow in front and a pillow in back. Emily was next - the Incredible Shrinking Woman. She was that one year in Alaska and she was all excited to do it again. Xiomara came up with her own - a coconut. I told her she didn't have a brown shirt. Her reply, "Dad does." Okay then. Coconut it is. I made three brown paper circles to tape to her shirt but they wouldn't stay so she was just brown. Kemiah didn't have any ideas so I started off with a bird watcher. Before we left the house I decided she could be a block. I pulled up the mat squares and made a block and she loved it. When we arrived at the building where the party was Kemiah was the only one who wouldn't stay in her costume. It would fall apart too easily so I just left her out of it. Oh well. I had talked to the kids the night before about what to do when we got to the party - go play games and don't hang on mom's legs. Well, they must have forgotten because no one would go play games. It was a little crazy and eventually they did warm up to the idea of playing games because that's how you get the candy and cakes and other sweet things and toys. So they had some fun after all.

One game was guessing how many pieces of candy were in the jar. Adults couldn't guess but I put down a guess for Kemiah - and it was the closest so we won. She didn't want to let go of it so I had to give her a piece of candy from inside so that she would let me put it in my backpack.

Ben did not want to wear the stem I made him so I decided I would - I was a green tomato.