Pumpkins, pirates, vampires, and earthquakes

It's fun to see the Halloween spirit hit our house. I feel those excited feelings that I once had as a kid.  The anticipation of those few hours where the entire city, or country for that matter, all mingle in a way we would never otherwise do on a regular day.  It's actually kind of funny to think about how easy it is to talk to strangers when they are dressed in costumes.  And how strange it is that we go knocking on strangers doors asking for them to give us stuff for free!  One day, I bet, this won't even be the norm.   Or the feelings when the winds pick up, swirling the leaves everywhere, and joy just hits you for no apparent reason.

I promised the kids we'd decorate really nice this year, because last Halloween we were preparing for a move to our new place and had no time or energy to deal with it.  It was so cute to watch them working together to set up the fake grave stones and skeletons and other dollar store goodies (I know, they won't last until next year).  In fact, the day after we set up the 4 grave stones on our lawn, we woke up to find only 2 left.  Neighbors kindly returned them to us over the next few days, thanks to those October winds.

And it wouldn't be October without an earthquake, right?  The 5.3 quake that hit last weekend sure woke me up.  The rattling of the bunkbeds set my heart racing, as I thought back to the many many earthquakes I survived as a child living between both the San Andreas and Hayward Faults in Berkeley.  My husband, and children, unaware of the quake, slept on and on, while I sat up, almost paralyzed, trying to figure out how to get 2 of my children down off their bunbkeds in case a larger quake was about to hit.

I finally woke my husband up in a panic, hoping he would help bring the girls down, but instead he logged on to the ipad and started listing all the aftershocks, which were coming every second. OK, I thought, at least we aren't feeling those.  And facebook was kind of entertaining, as I realized I had friends from all over the central coast awake at the same time.  And somehow I fell back to sleep.

October gets really busy and yesterday I realized if we didn't hit the pumpkin patch, we might just never even find time.  Robb was working, so I braved the Avila Valley Barn, with about 2,000 other souls in the 85 degree heat.  Sorry to Koa, I didn't take all those cherished "my baby's first halloween" pictures.  I get sort of claustrophobic around crowds, and without another adult to help with the pictures, I just knew they wouldn't happen.  I was able to snap a few shots of the kids in the "photo sets" they have placed about the farm.  Unfortunately we were there early enough that the kids were all blinded as I made them smile at the camera. Sorry about that, guys!  But at least we have a few shots for the memory book.  Well, er, I mean, this blog.

I'll get pictures of the crew in their costumes on Wednesday. And once Wednesday comes, we can prepare for the holidays!  Yippie!

Koa got to drive the hay wagon!

The corn maze was really fun, but since Anu was leading the way, we never quite made it to the exit.  We seem to be better at going in and out of the same door in these things.

I forgot I had kept Anu's pumkin costume when we was one.  So we were going to put Koa in a panda bear costume from my co-worker. But at the last minute this pumpkin outfit appeared out of the tupperware, and I had to put Koa in it.  At 7 months he fits it just fine.

The shadows are actually pretty cool in this picture, but sorry to the kids for getting blinded in this one also.