Our Life in Australia: Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Halloween is a favorite holiday at our house so we've been looking forward to it for weeks. The kids have been drawing and coloring Halloween pictures (Nate draws an excellent bat and witch on a broomstick) all week. Plus there has been lots of Halloween crafts- from making a giant spider (the size of a trashcan) to a mobile of bats, to small spiders (red backs of course). We even paid a small fortune for a pumpkin (extortion or ex-pat tax prices...we saw some medium sized ones for $45 - OMG). Nate had decided that he wanted to be a leaf blower man and his sister a pile of leaves he could pretend to blow around. After spending three hours last Sunday searching craft and hardware shops getting all the supplies to jerryrig this costume he announced that he had changed his mind. I thought Michael was going to faint then awake to kill him but it was a true parenting moment and he rose the challenge and calmly said ok. UGH!!! So instead Nate went as the Lollipop man (school crossing man) and Reese went as a bumble bee. They both looked great and got lots of compliments on their outfits. We went over to Nate's friend Harry's neighborhood. Halloween is just starting to take off here in Sydney so we had to go to a neighborhood known for decorations and celebrating. It is nice and old fashion- a lot of homemade costumes, still safe to give unwrapped candy (of course us being American paranoid freaks threw those away). Plus you can't beat trick or treating in 80 degree weather and sunshine (plus the mom's walk around with glasses of wine)- much better experience than Seattle cold, dark and wet. We only got 4 groups of trick or treaters to our house (a gaggle of girls who screamed she's American when I opened the door...apparently they must have gotten odd reactions from the rest of the neighbors). Nate loved zig zagging across the streets so he could pretend to be a real crossing guard- he even stopped several cars. Reese loved the holiday and by the second house she had the routine down pat saying trick or treat and thank you. Then she would open her bag to show us (after each treat received :)) then run to the next house to do it again. Every time we met up with other kids she would wave and yell "Happy Halloween"- it was complete joy. I think both kids could have gone for hours (a vast improvement over last year's one house adventure).

Here are some photos: our bee & lollipop man