Tricks and Treats Round 1

Yes, we have already been trick or treating. Though we had originally planned two outings of tricks and treats this past weekend, we decided to just go with one after having a bit of a rough week with Sarah not feeling well. The weather this past weekend was gorgeous, though a bit cool.

We enjoyed a later start to our Saturday with the 10:30 soccer game, but Daddy was up early (actually we all were because that is just how it is with kids in a routine...who knew?) to get the oil changed on his car. 90 Euros and 4 hours later, he had his car back. Apparently other expats have paid much more than that for an oil change and waited much longer so we are feeling pretty fortunate.

We enjoyed most of the day at home and headed to our early Halloween party around 4:30 in the afternoon. The kids were a little surprised to be greeted by a lot of ghosts, goblins and witches. Non Americans tended to have the scarier costumes and generally you could pick out the Americans by finding the princesses, unicorns, and cartoon characters. After the initial nervousness of seeing so many witches (to say Nathan is not a fan of witches is putting it mildly), the kids moved on and enjoyed the party. They didn't know very many of the kids, but the trick or treating was a huge hit.

In the last few years, Halloween as we Americans know it has become more and more popular in Belgium. The stores have more Halloween items for sale: costumes and decorations (albeit scary costumes and decorations), candy (individually wrapped just for us "paranoid" Americans), pumpkins, etc. The hostess of this party took bags of candy donated by other parents to each of her neighbors, both expat and local and explained the concept of trick or treating. She then left the bags of candy with those who were interested and made a list for us to follow as we walked her neighborhood. Even with the language barrier, she was able to explain the process to all but one neighbor. She said one older man never quite understood and so she just walked away saying "Merci, au revoir" with a big smile on her face. (I do that at least weekly in my own life. Just today I smiled and said, "Oui, oui" to our gardener, only knowing that he was asking something about the car. After seeing the look on his face, I thought about changing my answer to "Non, non", but how would that look? So I stuck with my response. One of these days I'll be able to understand more than every 3rd or 4th word).

So here are some pictures of our little trick or treaters during round one. (Note Cinder-Sleeping Beauty's slippers which held us up on our trick or treating much to Ninja Turtle Nathan's dismay--we now understand why she lost that glass slipper in the first place, those things don't stay on very well!) Round two will be Thursday evening in the neighborhood around Nathan's school. We'll only be going to the houses of those participating and again we donated bags of candy to pass out around the neighborhood. We haven't been able to locate our Halloween decorations or the kids' bags so our house remains undecorated this year. Most likely they have been mixed in with the Christmas decorations and we'll find them eventually.

Daddy is traveling entirely too much this week. Some for work and some for pleasure. He just left for Paris tonight and has a brief stop over tomorrow night before heading to Germany. Hopefully he'll make it back in time to trick and treat. Friday Aunt Carole arrives and we are giving her no time to rest. We are taking our first family trip to Germany and bringing her along for the fun. Nathan has a field trip all day on Thursday. Parents are not allowed so we just get to hear about it when he gets home. In Belgium, children begin taking overnight trips with their classmates as early as grade 1 (6 or 7 years old), but Nathan's school waits until grade 3. Phew, that gives us several years to work on this sleeping away from Mommy and Daddy thing.

Friday is "Crazy Hair" day at school and Nathan is torn between wanting to go and pick up Aunt Carole at the airport and going at least half a day to have crazy hair with his friends. Tonight he was leaning toward "crazy hair" and mentioned that he should bring Sarah with him because she "always has crazy hair".