Happy Halloween!

Well, Halloween has come and gone. Some things I've come to realize about "Halloween in Alaska" are a bit different than "Halloween in California."

Emily is not at that age where she knows what she wants to be for Halloween. I had thought about getting her a Tinkerbell Costume because she's into Tink right now, and she would be stinking adorable as Tinkerbell. But, sadly, this type of costume isn't possible in Alaska.

You must realize that right now it is literally freezing outside during both the day and the night. So, at 32 degrees, Emily can't be walking around the neighborhood in a skimpy little green dress. If we gave in to this type of costume, she would require a ton of layers underneath the green dress, which would just look silly. Or, as most kids here, she would wander around in her heavy overcoat, and no one would know what type of costume she had on underneath.

So, this type of limitation rules out just about anything "girly cute" -- it rules out any sort of princess, fairy, witch, etc. If it is thin and has a dress...it's just not a reasonable costume for our Alaskan weather.

So, we had two monkeys this year...and they were adorable! Emily wore the monkey costume last year as well, but while deployed for Training, Chris found a matching monkey costume for Ethan. So, our two little monkeys were two little monkeys for Halloween.

Friday night kicked off the festivities. It was actually a nice evening here in Kodiak; yes, it was 32 degrees, but the sun was out and there was no sign of rain. Every year the downtown Kodiak businesses open their doors to the kids who can go trick-or-treating downtown at the business locations. Well, because we had beautiful weather, the downtown area was PACKED with kids...hundreds! Most businesses ran out of candy within the first hour of the event.

Emily went shop to shop, trick-or-treating with daddy, as I pushed Ethan along in the stroller. Ethan didn't know what to make of the whole thing. The poor guy was so tired, but was intrigued by all the activity so remained awake. He sat there in his monkey costume just watching his surroundings.

When we got home Emily was SO EXCITED about all her candy that she immediately ran to her snack drawer in the kitchen to unload. We typically don't allow her too have much candy, but considering her new stash, she could now have candy for months!

When Sunday finally came she didn't really want to go trick-or-treating again. She said that she already had enough candy. She was content with handing out candy to the people who came to the door. Yet, I managed to coax her out of the house to a few of the neighbors.

The weather Halloween Night was impossible! 40mph wind gusts, hard sideways rain, bitter cold, and pitch black...but, we managed. (Hey, we're in Alaska...you can't let the weather stop you!) We ended up going to about 8 houses and she got even more candy. The neighbors were very generous. Considering the weather, there weren't many kids out, so the neighbors handed out gobs of candy just to try to get rid of it. Her snack drawer is set for life!

Chloe and Bryndall got dressed up for Halloween. Chloe was a banana split, and Bryn a bumblebee. Bryn was pissed, so we took the costume off...but, Chloe, she wore it all night long and greeted everyone at the door. I think, in total, we got about 40 trick-or-treaters...not too shabby.

Here are some pictures from the Halloween Festivities!