12.4 and 12.5

At the end of October we had a very severe wind and rainstorm on a Sunday night. It was brief but to my memory not unlike when hurricane Irene slammed us back when we lived in southern Maryland. Our power was out for a bit overnight but since or neighborhood has underground lines we were restored pretty quickly. The best part though, was that the damage in our town was so bad that they closed school for two days! The kids and I were overjoyed about the unexpected long weekend and made the most of Monday by carving pumpkins, something we had sadly not had time for the previous two days. 

The big kids did quite a bit of it themselves, and we followed that up with more craftiness and made plaster masks. 

When we got the call Monday evening saying that school would be closed again the news was heralded as "a Halloween miracle!" And we proceeded with more fun accordingly. 

Bare feet with a sweater weather. 

More leaf raking. 

Furniture rearranging. And then...

Trick or treating! A bunch of unrelated costumes this year, mostly of their own creation. Forced M into the raccoon jacket again, though he spent most of the (rather chilly) walk trying to take it off. 

We went with a whooole lot of people and were out for a long time. Honestly, I liked last year's trick-or-treating which kept us on the quieter half the neighborhood with a smaller group of friends, but this was fun, too. The kids had a blast, and I kept thinking about how lucky we are to live in a walkable neighborhood like this. All in all it was a thoroughly awesome couple of days to end October.