harvest-ween

I'm pretty mad at myself right now.  Pretty darn mad.

I deleted all of my actual halloween night photos.  What a moron.  It was an accident, obviously, and one I am having a bit of a hard time forgiving myself for.  Sigh.  You see, this year, for the first time in four years, we had an actual real trick or treating experience.  We've got friends in high places so we were able to participate in what felt like real North American trick or treating.  It was a little more like trickle-treating, as there were only a few houses here or there that were participating, but it was great nonetheless.

There is an area in the city - highly secure, with clean streets, blissful calm and of course, very large houses - where most of the US embassy people live.  There are also some US oil people and some wealthy Ecuadorians and others, too.  We were invited to participate with their festivities.  They had a map of houses that were handing out candy, so we headed out with a bunch of friends from that area and went door-to-door (with many doors in between).  It felt almost like the real thing.  We even had misty rain.  Unfortunately, you will have to take my word for it as there is no actual photographic evidence.  We all had a great time, though, and are so thankful that we could enjoy this event even though we are from "the other side of the tracks" so to speak!

We also got to enjoy our friend's annual party.  Since the term Halloween is pretty sketchy with many people, and it isn't really a Harvest Party, the event goes without a real name - so I just refer to it as harvestween.  Mari, who hosts it, makes many people very happy with this event!

I honestly didn't pay much attention to what was going on as I was busy socializing, but I did catch on to the green spaghetti with treasures hidden inside.  This was mainly because my friend's three year old daughter started to toss her cookies at the sight of it!  Yes, for real.  One look as something she finds gross and the poor little pumpkin (or in this case, winnie the pooh) loses it.  Another friend affectionately started to call her Winnie the puke instead.

Okay, moving on.....

Cade was Russell from the movie UP.  I had to make the costume for another event (Spiritual Emphasis Week), so we repurposed.  He was quite delighted.

Mia and Lucy improvised with stuff we had around the house.  Mia was a pirate and

Lucy was a Japanese girl.  The only thing Japanese was her dress as she didn't want to hold her fan or have chopsticks in her hair.

Then it was trick-or-treating time.  Mari set up a few houses a head of time that we drove or walked to.

I once again kicked myself for bringing along only our little piece-of-garbage point and shoot (worst camera known to man) - I had to delete most of the pictures because it doesn't enjoy focussing.  I took a million (well, maybe 15) of Lucy helping her friend Molly hold her long skirt up because they were so cute.  This one is the closest to turning out.

The whole crew at the elementary school chaplain's house.  She normally isn't a clown....

And at our friends the Bryans.  The Bryans are leaving in two weeks and we couldn't be more sad.  It is a horrible, horrible loss.  I mean seriously - look at those legs.  Okay, but seriously, they are the most wonderful people and it is devastating that they are leaving.  Not surprising, I am tearing up as I write this.....

We ended the event by trick-or-treating at the Tassy's house.  Our house was supposed to be on the radar as well but somehow it got missed.  I told everyone that they might want to stop by, however, as I had imported some real North American Halloween candy for this purpose but they were only going to get some if they stopped by.  We had a few takers.