Candy Overload!

Once again, a busy month. A few weeks ago, we had our very first Chuck E Cheese experience. Well, I've been there, but Anthony swears they were never allowed to go as kids, so they thought it was some kind of wicked place that respectable people don't visit. That may still be true. It sure has changed since my last visit. Does anyone else remember when it used to be called Showbiz, or does that just show my age? Now it's all lights and noise and craziness, but we had a fun time. The birthday party was for an Air Force family in our ward, the Jacksons, who have three boys. We're sad that they're moving to the Azores (Portugal) in a few weeks, and totally jealous that they're leaving winter in Alaska for a tropical island. It was nice to get the chance to celebrate with them before they go.

Will, of course, was terrified of Chuck E, but Ethan was more than willing to pose.

They both had lots of fun with the games and rides.

Will put his arm around Ethan all by himself to help keep Ethan in the car.
He's such a good big brother.

Will's favorite was probably the Whack A Mole game.




The week before Halloween, we carved our pumpkin for Family Home Evening. Unfortunately, the pumpkin had to come from the grocery store since there aren't any pumpkin patches or apple orchards here. Or none that I can find. I miss fall in Indiana! But we had a great time working on the pumpkin. Will was a little more helpful this year, but we still spent a lot of time keeping Ethan from eating the gunk.

Our pumpkin, Homestar Runner

This is the only time we were able to light the pumpkin. I put it on our porch the next afternoon, and two hours later, an animal ate the face. Usually we have to worry about punk kids, not wild animals.

We were able to go trick or treating twice on Halloween. The community center has an indoor event in the afternoon, which was nice because it was freezing that evening. Ethan was a dalmatian, and Will wore his zebra costume from last year. To say that Will was not excited about putting on his costume would be an understatement. He was sobbing and telling me, "No zebra!" I finally was able to get him into the pants, but we thought that would be as far as we would get until I convinced him that the top was just a jacket. For some reason he was okay with that.




And once he caught on that zebra=candy, he was all for it. He ate quite a bit of that candy before we left the community center.






When we went out that night, our first stop was at our neighbor, Dan's, door. Dan gets really into Halloween, so his house was all decorated, and he was dressed up as the Grim Reaper. He tried not to scare Will, but Dan's a pretty big guy, and it was just too much. Will started crying, and for the rest of the block, at every house he said, "No Dan! No Dan!"


















I had to include this video of Ethan attacking Will for his candy. This is how he growls whenever he wants food.




This is Will's version of "Trick or Treat."



It is definitely getting colder, but we're still waiting for the snow. They predict it every couple of days, but so far, we've only had about 10 minutes of it, and it melted right away. The main thing we're having to adjust to is a lot less daylight. Right now, the sun rises at about 8:30 and sets at 4:30, so we never are quite sure what time it is without looking at a clock. The one good thing is that it makes me start dinner a lot earlier than I normally do because I just assume that it's 6 o'clock. Which means in December, we'll probably be eating dinner at 3 in the afternoon and in bed by 5. Perhaps we'll move into a Senior Community. It's always an adventure in Alaska!