Halloween

The week before Halloween we had my friend Thao over. I've been tutoring her in English for the past few months. Neither her or her husband had ever carved pumpkins before. It was so fun sharing this tradition with them. We also had some yummy soup and a pumpkin roll. 

 The Friday before Halloween we went trick-or-treating at the Commons with my parents. 

Is it just me or are these two the cutest Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee boy that you ever did see? I'm obsessed with them.

 On Saturday, Darin had a workshop to go to at school, so it was extra nice to have my parents in town to brave the Wizarding Weekend with us downtown. We started out by going to the wizarding family story time at the library.

 They had some fun Harry Potter themed crafts around the kids section of the library. We made these wizard/witch hats there.

 Following Harry Potter (in his invisibility cloak) around the library. The wrong way, it would seem...

 We found the Restricted Section!

My parents took off to go back home Saturday afternoon and we went to our branch Halloween party. I somehow didn't take any pictures. Darin dressed up as Lightning Bug Boy with his superhero costume from a few years ago, and we made him some antenna out of foil and a headband. I wore some butterfly wings to be Butterfly Girl to complete our Bug Squad Family.

 On Monday Shae had his Halloween party at school. Belén was super excited that she was invited to participate as well. They got to trick or treat around the school. At the Cosmetology school they got combs and hair gel :). 

Such a big girl.

 On Halloween night we scarfed down some mummy dogs (and skeletons and ghosts) and then went out for the last of the Halloween hoopla.

 We went to the street behind our apartments and they apparently rarely get any trick-or-treaters, which was golden for us because just about every house gave the kids handfuls of candy. It was so sweet to see some of these older couples faces light up as they saw the kids and exclaimed, "We never get trick-or-treaters! This is great!" 

One of the houses had a video going of a witch in the window that the kids were mesmerized by. It was fun to watch them.

 We ate so. much. candy for about a week and then I ended up giving a huge bag of it to Thao for her birthday so that she could taste all the American candy that she wanted.

 Funny story from Halloween. We told Shae that if people let him choose the candy, to always go for the orange packaged one. He obeyed, but also decided it was his favorite candy. That was what he chose to eat every single time so they went pretty quickly--but luckily he had chosen a bunch. The funny thing was, at houses where they stuck the bowl out, he would walk away saying, "No thanks," when they didn't have Reeses. Ha! Silly boy.

Aunt Amelia Visit

Woo, it's been awhile since I've blogged. I think I'm starting a new trend by always opening up my posts like that. 

I've been having trouble keeping up on life lately, let alone the blog. But here we are! Let's do this!

Amelia came to visit us about a month ago which was so much fun. We were all super excited to spend a week with her. We love her so much! We had lots of fun while she was here, hopefully she did too :).

Here's some pictures of all the fun things we did in no particular order.

We went to Little Tree Orchards to pick apples. This activity was a bit disappointing since it was rainy, the apple cider donuts were cold and just not that great, and they barely had any apples to pick. We didn't end up getting any because the few trees that did have apples did not look good at all. We still had fun hanging out playing ping pong and fooseball in the orchard store/hang out area.

We went to Iron Kettle Farm and went on a hay ride, tried some more apple cider donuts, as well as pumpkin donuts (the verdict being that they taste exactly the same). I really enjoyed walking around seeing all of the pumpkins that they had dressed up as tv/book characters. Very impressive.

So sad that the tree coloring in the background of this picture wasn't better! It has been a pretty disappointing fall this year in terms of fall foliage colors. 

We stopped in at the Ithaca Book Sale (it was my second time going, but I couldn't help myself from going again. Picture books!) This book sale is huge. It happens twice a year and people come from all over and leave with suitcases full of books being sold at very cheap prices. I love it so much.

The kids hanging out under the book stacks looking at seek and find books while I look through the books above them.

 Hike at Fillmore Glen. 

Trying our hand at apple picking again. Grismore Farms had much more to offer. 

After apple picking we moved on to the pumpkins. 

We ate at one of our favorite places to eat here in Ithaca, Circus Truck. We took the food up to campus and met up with Darin to eat before climbing the tower to listen to the chimes. 

Walk around Beebee Lake.

 The two things Shae said that he wanted to do with Aunt Amelia when she came to visit were:
Swimming

and

Science Center

We made sure to do both.

Checking out the new China exhibit--tying ropes and doing Tai-chi.

 Chinese theatre. Shae only lasted about a minute before he was like, get me out of this dress.

 Exploring worms.

Trip to the Botanical Gardens for some family photos.

We had a blast visiting all of these places with Amelia, as well as hanging out at home watching shows and playing games (lots of Disney Scene-It).

We were all so sad when she had to leave, but Belén especially had a hard time. She burst into tears in the car when she saw Amelia walking towards the airport and even though it's been a month since her visit, every few days she mentions Amelia coming back to our home, or her going to Amelia's home.

Thank you for coming out so far to visit us Amelia!