Family Halloween

How many Halloween parties can one attend in a year?!

Since October 31st happened to fall on Sunday, we invited everyone to dress up for Sunday dinner. . .   my Uncle David, aka Fred Flintstone.


A Halloween cake!


My other Uncle David was dressed as a golfer (quite original, not! Next year he promised to have a better costume - because my aunt will hopefully be in town - yes, he blamed his lack of originality on her absence! At least he tried!). Can you figure out everyone else? Where's Waldo?! My sister on the far right is a character from the movie the Clockwork Orange.

Adult Halloween Party

Today was the parents' turn to dress up for the Adult Halloween Party at school - this is the no children event. Holly took these pictures of us at home:


Love Daddy's fake arm - he put gloves on so the fake hand wouldn't look so obvious and when someone came to shakes hands, he'd let go and the hand would come out of his sleeve! Lovely!


I didn't think this outfit was "school appropriate", so I wore my Minnie Mouse costume to school yesterday. This is the outfit I got with Mimi last year after Halloween at a store that we figured would have a great sale (and it did!).


More transformations at school today. . .


Steve, the Pirate!


Mimi & Jeff, the Super Couple - and Trish, the Sexy Vampire.


Laura and Brian.

Halloween at School

Today was Halloween at school - everyone (students, staff, teachers) were encouraged to dress up. This is Ms. Newman, our Drama Specialist. I love her costume - can you guess what she is?! A jellyfish!


The Kindergarten class . . .




My office was transformed overnight - what a surprise! Love the GREAT, BIG, HUGE spider hanging from the ceiling?! That was a super surprise for me - if you know me, you'll know I'm just ever so slightly arachnophobic!


And there were baby rats/mice running all over, too! These were actually funny little things that were kind of sticky and rubbery to touch - pretty realistic looking!


The junior grades had a parade of costumes and then a dance in the afternoon. It was like a big kids school dance with snacks to purchase, a glitter ball and a DJ!


Here is Ms. Celis, our resident flamenco dancer - love her dress!

Fireplace

The fireplace in our new family room (aka "Great Room") - the beams you see above the mantle and at the top of the fireplace "chimney" are cut from one beam that used to hold up the corner of the house that used to be Holly's bedroom when she was born! Counting the rings, the tree that made the beam was over 80 years old!

Great Big Boo

We went with some of Holly's friends from school to see the Great Big Boo. Holly saw it 2 years ago and still talks about it sometimes!

They encourage dressing up to see the performance, so we put on our Hallowe'en costumes - the Tooth Fairy and Minnie Mouse!


In the lobby of the theatre were some inflatable Hallowe'en decorations . . .


As we were entering the theatre to find our seats, one of the ushers looked at Holly to try and guess what her costume was . . .    she noticed the big tooth necklace I had made, and said, "You're the Tooth Fairy!". Holly was thrilled!

Near the end of the show - you can see Sammy Joe the Scarecrow, Cranium the Mad Scientist, Justin, Frankie the Lounge Singer, Zoe, Wendella the Witch, Priscilla the Princess and Wolfgang the Werewolf.


After the show, Holly wanted to find as many of the characters as she could - she wanted to take pictures with all of them. The fact that they were handing out treats for "trick or treating" didn't really have anything to do with it - really!

Wendella the Witch


Frankie the Lounge Singer


Wolfgang the Werewolf


Zoe, one of the main characters - she and her brother Justin are trick or treating in Boo Alley and have to save Hallowe'en!


After the show, we were all invited to Sienna's house by her parents, Ruby and Jason. We had dinner there and ended up having lots of fun dancing to Indian music. Here is Steve, Katie's dad showing off his castanet skills. We don't have any pictures of how the guys looked later, but suffice it to say, they all had a bit too much (ask Paul about the tequila!).

Field Trip - Pumpkin Patch

Today, the Kindergarten class went to Aldor Acres farm. I wasn't able to go with them, but Mehr's mom, Ash, took a bunch of pictures for us.

Mehr and Holly - pumpkin eyes?!


Petting a calf.


Sienna, Holly, Mehr, Hanna, Samaya, Ioana, Nicholas & Sammy.
Behind them is Ms. Wright with Aryn, Lucas, Kyle, Katie & Sophie.


Karl, Aryn, Sienna, Mehr, Holly, Ioana, and Lucas.




I love the way Mehr is posing in this one!


Annabel, Sophie's mom, sent me this one! Thank you!

Hawaii, Here We Come!

At the airport, getting ready to go meet Dad in Hawaii! Check out our vacation photos at: Our Hawaii Trip - 2010

The Big Show

Today we had the "Big Show" for our hula school. It's what our hula master ("kumu"), Josie, calls it. All year we practice for the big show and now it's finally here! Too bad Paul missed it, since it's our (mine and Holly's) first one.

We had to go early for a rehearsal on the actual stage before the show. You can see Holly in the middle watching her teacher, Rani, and Cassie standing to Holly's left.














A short clip of the "Hibiscus Hula" in rehearsal (yes, if you can hear it, it's Mickey and Minnie Mouse singing).


This is the poi ball song (poi are practised by the Maori in New Zealand) - the song is called Piki Mai:


Practising their Tahitian dance - Te Hora Bora Bora!

















This group performed a dance called Seabreeze:
Mimi (Cassie's mom), Kim, Anita, Cindy, Siobhan, Molly, Me (top row)
Sulay, Frankie, Diana.














Couldn't resist including this picture of Frankie.














Holly was in 3 dances - yes, she has more costumes than I do! This one is for the Hibiscus Hula.





































I had to sneak a shot during the show because the ushers were making people put away their cameras! Because some of us were only doing 2 dances, we bought tickets so we could sit and watch the show in between our performances.














Holly got flowers after the show! And we took a picture with Josie after our first "big show"!

More railings

Paul left for Hawaii before the railings were finished off, so I took these photos to show him the progress Rick (our neighbour) had made after he left.