This year’s celebration of Halloween and Dia de los Muertos was quite possibly my favorite year yet. Definitely in the top five. All the events lined up nicely, and the costumes came together beautifully.
First, you need to know something about the south. It’s warm and humid, two things that encourage pumpkins to mold and rot pretty much as soon as you carve them. We waited until the day before Halloween so we could take them that night to our ward Trunk or Treat for the pumpkin contest. Then they would still be good for our cow to eat after Halloween (she loved them!). The Trunk or Treat was awesome. Before the collecting of candy, there were carnival games. Neil got to head up the cup game and got good enough that he was tricking teenagers and a few adults. Standing back and watching all of my kids run around and have a blast without me was really cool. We have entered into a new era now and I love the independence level that my kids are at…I’m just still wrapping my head around it. Anyways, everyone loved our costumes and they had so much fun. Halloween night we headed up to a normal neighborhood for Trick or Treating. Our house is much too much in the country to do it properly, so we went up to cousin’s house. (They live in a place where full sized candy bars are the norm. Just saying.) A huge storm stretching from Georgia to New York was due to roll through so we were all keeping an eye on our weather apps. Luckily we finished up with a good solid 30 minutes before rain hit. It did mean that we drove home through torrential rain and a spectacular lightning show, but we didn’t mind a bit. Day of the Dead brought sugar skull cookie decorating and sharing with friends. All in all…for sure top five. Also, I got to dress up like a Disney Princess (well, Queen) for the first time in my life. It was also my excuse to go blond. I’d been wanting a change for a while and since my husband is as crazy as I am, we dove in. We didn’t even watch YouTube videos. After he dyed, bleached, and toned my hair it was the perfect shade of “Wow! that’s really light!”