This year we created an altar to celebrate dia de los muertos. Pictures and memories of grandma Goldie, Aunt Gwen, Josh, Shannon, Alicia, and Irene were the focus. And it was cathartic. It was joyful. And allowed us to focus on our energy not just on the feeling of loss, but of peace and a gratefulness for those around us. Like the girls.
Good gracious we packed a lot into the month of October!
The best part about the pumpkin walk at the park was seeing Bri and her girls. As for the event itself...eh. Super crowded, over in 5 minutes, not much in the way of treats really. We'll probably skip that next year. If you go, get your tickets in advance! I felt bad for the people in the 3 hour-ish line who didn't pre-purchase! I cannot imagine their faces when their little stroll was over!
The girls have a large chest full of dress up clothes. They must have worn five different costumers to various events this month. They started out as butterflies. Then evolved into princess butterflies. Then batgirl and a home depot worker. Michael's has awesome masks for $1! You get to color them in. That is what started the butterfly phenom....
Trick or Treating at TMCC! Where even the president's office suite gets into it! Though admittedly, my favorite part was watching all the parents. We are way more excited than our mini-me-s.
Cass comes to the office with me a few times a month. She has her own nametage, when she is here, she is on the clock! Girl can use the shredder and copy machine real well in addition to counting swag and bringing cheer to the office :-)
Here we are visiting Tara's office, relieving Tara of her extra Halloween candy after
the TMCC trick or treat...
I just love having my students over to hang out. We make dinner and then make them do arts and crafts. They try to act too cool at first, but in no time they are laughing and arguing over who gets to carve the pumpkin.
This was our first year at Pumpkinpalooza! Matt Smith tried to doubt the fun factor of the event, even after I assured him that it had been voted a top 10 event by Food network. If you do not count that as credibility, I cannot help you.
This event has absolutely made it into our traditions of October splendor! Well organized, the right price for games, fun music by kids who really do rock, and not too crowded. Yes, I do believe we will be in attendance next year!
This year our friends Heather, John, Deaon, Jay and all their kids joined us. I have some super cute pics with all the kids! However, we'll all have to practice some delayed gratification before seeing them as Deaon Jay are adopting all three siblings and their pics cannot be on social media for some time.
Rules is rules people.
Just know those are some fun loving children with two very devoted daddies!
I also appreciated the informational aspect and community organizing pice added to this event. It was a social justice nee carnival feel with some pumpkin spice thrown in for good measure. I had my own ah-hah moment too! We were chatting with Thomas, a colleague who works in the DRC at TMCC, and at his station were two friends who were blind. The girls did not know quite what to make of these new friends. Matt and I are often so focused on diversity in terms of race, that we sometimes forget other lived human experiences such as disabilities. The girls asked lots of questions and there was nothing "weird" about our new friends at all. Their normal is just different from our normal. Good lessons all around!
Every year we talk about going to Carson City for their events and every year we somehow miss it. Not this year! Trick or treating near the governor's house and all those local business (shout out to the Purple Avocado!) was a blast! Especially when joined by Che, Stephen, and Sawyer. The houses are just so beautiful. So much history you can breathe it in. All those people who walked before us have left a small piece of themselves behind for us to discover and learn about. And then all those current neighbors have some interesting decorating ideas! This first house in particular...I am going to go ahead and say that ramp is not ADA accessible....
Cassidy loves volleyball! If y'all will fondly recall, she tried gymnastics, swim, ballet, and soccer and hated them all. She was not allowed to quit, had to finish out the session, and she had some enjoyable moments. But volleyball is her thing! She loves it. She is good at it. The coaches are wonderful. The other kids are a delight. And their parents are not crazy. Boom.
At volleyball this past Saturday, everyone wore their costumes and much merriment was had.
We did trick or treat in our own neighborhood too! Our first kids arrived at our own doorstep before 5pm. Good gracious I thought that was a bit early, don't you think so? We went out for a little over 90 minutes, made it all the way around one block! Then handed out candy that we had just collected till 9pm. We do enjoy recycling :-) We still have quite a bit of candy, so more than half of it is coming with me to the dentist tomorrow.
And we also went to the dia de los muertos event on campus on Sunday! It was fantastic. Adriana and Serj and Sophia and Samira joined us for that. There was a dance performance in particular by an Aztec group that was chilling. Goosebumps for days. The headdress and feathers, the ritualistic movements and symbolism, the drums; it all made for a performance we almost felt unworthy of watching. Were we supposed to watch something so sacred? And there was a wonderful mariachi band from a middle school. And of course lovely foods from a local panderia and lots of crafts for the kids. The girls got their faces painted too. I think Matt has some of those pics. We'll see if he adds them. Let me explain how Cass knows when to take advantage of a situation...
Serj: We should go out for pizza or something.
Cass: OOh that's a great idea! Then momma you don't have to cook or clean anything. We can just go home and get ready for school tomorrow.
She knows all the right words to say and at just the right time....
If you are not on the facebook, you probably have not seen the video below. I do believe it is the perfect ending to this perfect fall collection of stories and friends :-)
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