This year we resumed our normal Halloween tradition since moving to this neighborhood: Gathering at Andrea's for pizza then trick-or-treating in her end of the neighborhood. This year, Jess, Rosa, and Anna were added to the group.
Here's a picture from the first year, 2017. It's Glenn, Genevieve, Murphy, Alice, Emory, Simon.
This year: Simon, Anna, Genevieve, Alice, Izzy, Glenn (Murphy is somewhere...but not in the picture)
The kids like to trade candy afterwards. Alice doesn't like most candy, so she gives a lot away.
I took the kids, against their will, to nearby Hemlock Bluffs for a little fall hike. They resist hiking these days, which makes me sad. Part of the problem is that their hiking styles are incompatible. Alice likes to hike, see the next thing, move, move, move. Simon likes to stop and play, stop and climb, stop, stop stop. So at any given time, one of them is whining that we're moving or stopping. I just try to focus on enjoying being out in nature.
It had rained recently, so there were lots of mushrooms in the forest. Simon had brought his rubber band sling-shot, initially with the plan of hunting squirrels. Since the squirrels were scarce, he turned his attention to shooting the fungus among us. I didn't worry too much about his mushroom destruction, figuring they grow fast and mentally equating them with weeds. However, when we were leaving the park and I saw a sign posted saying to leave all the mushrooms alone. I felt very guilty then. Simon single-handedly destroyed at least 70% of the mushrooms within sight of the path. Oops.
The kids generally refuse to cooperate with pictures, and make horrible faces instead of smiling. Apparently hugging trees makes them want to smile, though.
Alice's obsession with screens is a bit out of control. We still limit her screen time, of course, but she's very addicted. We have to yell at her a lot to get her off in time for supper.
Simon was super excited to carve into his pumpkin this evening. Unfortunately, since we bought them so long ago, they were already getting moldy and had a few soft spots.
I wish I took video of the relish and joy Simon had while stabbing into his. They both did their pumpkins almost entirely on their own. I'm not sure why we don't have more pictures of Alice. I must have been in a bad mood or busy or something.
We finally broke down and got a new fridge. The door on the old one was always problematic, but had recently gotten worse and now wasn't closing properly. We'd been meaning to buy a new fridge for a long time, but always had trouble finding one we liked that would fit in this space and still be as big as our old one. So we did the best we could. The new one has far less room inside, so we're also getting a garage fridge now, because we have no way of coping with a birthday cake or watermelon or frozen turkey with this new, smaller one. It has an ice-maker though.
After checking out of our condo, we headed to Carolina Beach State Park on our way out of town. It was freezing cold at first, with strong winds cancelling out any warmth from the sun. Simon walked in the water of course, and then complained about being cold and demanded we leave right away. We made him stay, as the tide was going out and we knew it would be super fun to walk around the sand bar and hunt blue crabs like we did last year. So we persevered, and had a good time eventually in this most beautiful spot.
We got very lucky with our beach trip this year. We went in mid-October (my fall break) but the weather was quite warm and lovely. I was actually too hot most of the time. We stayed in a condo on Kure Beach and did all the usual things: fishing, swimming, boogie boarding, digging in the sand, chasing crabs...well, that's what everyone else did anyway. I mostly just sat around watching or reading. I don't know how to have fun myself, but I do enjoy watching other people have fun.
