Halloween & Snow?

Halloween fell on a Monday this year, which meant I wasn't available to help at the school Halloween festival, or join Lucie for the Kindergarten Halloween parade.  I was feeling a little guilty about it, so I took them (+ Enzo) to the YMCA's Halloween party the Friday prior.  I handed over the tickets and told them they could use them how they liked, at which point the boys proceeded to get a bunch of snacks and I had to establish a new set of usage rules. 

Lucie was happy to be included and really enjoyed the bouncy obstacle course.  She had already had a big day of coloring, as you might notice from her right forearm.

A special guest arrived that weekend - Gangi!  She hitched a ride with Uncle Gavin when he was flying the plane back from Michigan to Denver, and after a few days of helping baby Essie, she traveled on to San Francisco.

She got to take in Lucie's soccer game, Brennan's soccer practice (since his game was rained out), watch The Goonies, and do some rainy-day wine tasting in Healdsburg, starting first with beignets at the Parrish Cafe.  Lucie got to have family at the Halloween parade after all, and it was great to have a little extra help for the week.

When we got a little break in the rain, we carved the pumpkins.  Brennan requested a "dead emoji" and a skeleton face on his little white pumpkin.  Lucie wanted her big pumpkin to be "barfing", and when she saw the dead emoji, decided she needed that for her little pumpkin.  And we roasted all the pumpkin seeds - they ate about 4 each, and I just put the remainder in the compost bin last week.

We went trick-or-treating on Belvedere Street, as usual.  Although the dynamics have changed significantly - we used to have to hold their little hands, and guard them from the bigger kids shoving their way into the candy.  Now they're racing up and down the street like they're being timed, and probably doing their share of shoving:

It's been 8 years of pushing through unruly crowds, carrying pumpkins and masks and jackets, lifting little bodies up so they can see something....Now that they are moderately self-sufficient, I think they should let their adults take a little slower pace, and give them time to chat with friends and neighbors along the way.   We're going to have a serious conversation about it next year.

If I remember.

Proving great minds think alike, here's Brennan and his buddy William:

Lucie quickly tired of her snow leopard mask and switched to ears.  I thought the dragon behind her was pretty cool, but didn't intend to make it look like she was wearing a giant yellow hat.  I also didn't clock the guy in the Ari Tanenbaum costume until I was looking through photos later.

Back at the ranch, we admired our pumpkins again, and then capped off the night with pizza, wine, and candy at our neighbor's.

I put together another one of my patented obscure, only-dorks-get-me costumes.  This year, it was Joyce Byers, the crazy mother from "Stranger Things".  Bonus, I can use part of my costume again at Christmas.

...and speaking of Christmas, it's time for a little snow!  Through some small miracle, neither kid had a soccer game the following weekend, so we made a quick visit to Truckee.  Daddy had to reset all the smart devices that got messed up when the cleaning service accidentally turned off the internet, and we had to fix a few little things around the house and make sure it's all set for ski season.  And, of course, check out the snow. 

While our weekends of soccer games and park birthday parties were getting rained out all October, snow was falling in the mountains.  Even though it was too warm for it to stick around at lower altitudes, there was a lot, so we got to Truckee in time to play in the snow before it melted away.  And more keeps coming, so cross your fingers for a snowy winter break and good skiing.

We had 3 seasons in one weekend: chilly, windy fall when we left San Francisco, winter in Truckee, and summer when we stopped in Davis for sandwiches on the way back:

Fall Odds & Ends

A quick backtrack to our end-of-summer stay in Truckee:  the peak of the Perseid shower coincided with our last days there, and Brennan begged to see it, even chastising me one morning for failing to get him if I woke up in the middle of the night (which is unfortunately somewhat common for me).  And since I fondly remember lying on the lawn with my friend Beckie, outdoor lights shut down, and staring at the August sky for shooting stars, I sucked it up and set an alarm for 1:30 am.  To his credit, Brennan got out of bed, bundled up to sit on the deck, and counted about a dozen meteors before I put him back to bed.  Fast forward to September - I'm waiting in the school hallway to pick him up, and I see the the "What I did on Summer Break" bulletin board:

Generally I think I'm just getting by at this parenting gig, but that was one of those times I felt like I crushed it.

We made a pretty quick return to Truckee for Labor Day weekend - our neighbors generously offered to be our first vacation renters AND have us join them.  Also we didn't get to everything we meant to do in August.  There were fewer trips to the hardware store and cardboard dump this time, thankfully. We even branched out a little and made our way to Kings Beach for some mini-golf one day.

So what else did we do this fall?  Well, there was the 3rd grade Count Me In party at the vet hospital. The Count Me In parties are a school fund-raiser where various families host events for a small fee per participant, and the money goes to the PTA.  I'm on my 2nd year of Afternoon with the Vet, which always sounds fine when I agree to it, and then turns out to be ridiculously stressful.  Last time, I was worried the kids were bored and I was going too science-y for their age.

This year, they were CRAZY.  Maybe because it was 90% boys.  I had to tell them to quiet down THEY ARE IN AN ANIMAL HOSPITAL WITH ACTUAL SICK ANIMALS WHO DON'T APPRECIATE YOUR NOISE about 70 times.  Also they took all the sugar packets from the coffee area without my noticing until we got to the park.

I should of left them in that dog run.

Also filed under "Things I'm Considering Never Doing Again" was our annual Fleet Week excursion to watch the Blue Angels.  I collected Brennan, Lucie, and a friend each from school on Friday and dashed over to Pacific Heights for choose-your-own-topping frozen yogurt and air show watching.  Seven minutes in, Lucie and her buddy were asking to go to the playground, and making a disgusting "potion" of melty yogurt, grass, and dirt in their water bottles.  Fifteen minutes in, 75% of the group was climbing trees.  And at the half hour mark, the last holdout (Bren's friend Julian) decided he'd prefer the playground also.  So I carried everyone's crap over the hill and we all ignored the jets in favor of the jungle gym.

F/A 18 Hornets in formation over San Francisco and COULD NOT CARE LESS.

On the more positive side, both Brennan and Lucie have settled into school and seem to be doing well.  Bren really seems to like his 3rd grade teacher - maybe because Mr. Draven takes them on field trips all the time.  His reading skills have grown exponentially since last year - it used to be like pulling teeth to get through an "Elephant & Piggy" book to satisfy his 20 minute reading log requirement, now he's plowing through giant Harry Potter books for an hour and has to be told to stop reading and go to sleep.  And Lucie loves being a kindergartener - she loves lining up with her class instead of being signed in by Mommy - 

She loves going to the after-school program - instead of having forced nap time, she gets to do stuff like dig in the garden, draw, listen to stories, learn the parts of a mushroom (although she only remembers the top is called the cap), and be Kid of the Day.  For which you wear a cape, naturally.

Sometimes she even goes to "the salon", when one of the after-school teachers puts her hair in way more elaborate braids than she will ever allow at home.  (Although I was just informed that salon time is currently suspended, "because there's still lice")

And she loves her soccer team - this is her 3rd season as a Jellyfish, and her participation has come about as far as Brennan's reading.  Instead of pouting on the sidelines because Coach Daddy won't drop everything to give her the pink cheetah-print ball, she's running as fast as she can and practicing her passes and goal shots.

Preparing for Halloween is another important fall activity - but finding a day to head out to Healdsburg or Half Moon Bay pumpkin patches was hard to schedule around all the soccer games and birthday parties.  So we came up with Plan B on the day Bren's game was early and Lu's game was late and hit a parking lot pumpkin patch in San Mateo mid-day.  What it lacked in rural charm it more than made up in crazy bounce houses and slides.

And there were lots of good pumpkins - they picked one big and one little each, so we're ready for the big day!