Trick-or-Teat!!

I think I may love Halloween more than my kids do, and that is saying a lot! I don't dress up, but I do love to see all the kids in their costumes, the trick or treating and staying out until all hours of night. This year was especially fun since the night was so unseasonably warm. In years past we've taken our kids out while it was snowing, raining, freezing and icy out... and that was just one Halloween night! Luckily our kids are marathon trick or treaters and they don't let the bad weather get them down.

Because of my excitement for Halloween I often go a little overboard with the costumes. We asked the kids what they wanted to be a couple of months ago and then I have an awful tendency to try and figure out how to do whatever they request. Usually its something easy... a ghost, a princess etc. This year, Taylor wanted to be a hatching chick, Olivia a witch, Dee Dee a Butterfly and Lucas wanted to be something scary... until he freaked out in the Halloween aisle at Target, then he decided he wanted to be something safe...a fireman.

Lucas' costume was the only one from the store, the rest we made at home. I thought Dee Dee's would be easy as well, I made the wings and just needed to buy some antenna to be a butterfly. Well, as it turns out, butterflies are OUT and fairy princesses are IN. It was even hard to find a head band to make our own antenna, so we went with a sparkly butterfly princess as her costume. She turned out pretty cute! It doesn't show in the picture, but we made her wings extra sparkly!

Taylor's developed from a fairly easy costume to one that was more complicated. The trouble started when I told DiDi that she was going to be a pink chick and that I needed a pink boa to finish the project. Diane had a hard time imagining a pink chick since chicks are usually yellow. I now realize I should have made the argument that she was a pink chick because for Halloween she was going as an Easter chick that had been dyed pink for that holiday. Unfortunately I didn't think of that argument until yesterday, so Taylor ended up being a hatching flamingo which was waaay more complicated. However, her costume got rave reviews on Halloween. I sewed the neck, the body and the wings, made the mask and sewed a store bought beak onto it, she also got a pink store bought wig for her 'hat'. The girls and I made the hatching egg parts from paper papier-mache. Even if I say so myself...it was a fabulous costume.

For Olivia I sewed her a skirt and shirt from some black fabric that Diane supplied. The girls and I made the hat from paper papier-mache and glued some hair from a wig onto it. Her face was from a makeup kit from the store that included an ugly, warty green nose. By the time Chris got done with her makeup, it looked like she was wearing an expensive and realistic mask. Olivia got tons of compliments for her costume as well, which she thought was kind of embarrassing.

For the first part of the night we went to Olde Town Arvada for their trick or treat street. After getting a ton of candy there, we went to a neighborhood so that we could completely fill up their candy bags. We were out for hours, the night was so warm and the kids were having so much fun. At a certain point, we realized it was just us and the teens still out and decided that it was time for us to go home and enjoy some of candy the kids had collected. I'm pretty sure, we'll have enough candy to last us until Christmas... or at least Thanksgiving!

We saw Senators Obama and McCain throw down in Denver!

Last Sunday, Diane, Taylor, Olivia and I decided to go to the Obama rally at Civic Center Park. It was a a spur of the moment decision, and we figured we wouldn't get in, but thought it would be a fun adventure to have with the girls. The day was a little cold, like sweater weather...or so I thought when we left our jackets at home...wow that was a mistake. By the time we arrived down town the wind started to kick up, making the sweater weather, more like 'thick jacket with sweater weather'! This mistake resulted in lots of whining from the 7 year old set. We decided to push on anyway.

Since parking is a bit of a nightmare on a daily basis in Denver we decided to park on the other side of I25, walk across the pedestrian bridge that spans the highway, across the bridge over the Platte River, across the park and then across the Millennium bridge and take the 16th street mall bus to Civic Center Park. I thought it was a brilliant plan... as did about 1000 other people. The bus was packed with Obama supporters and when I say packed, I mean by the end of the trip, had the bus tipped over, none of us would have been jarred from our positions. The bus trip went on for way too long, at least the girls enjoyed it, both thought it must be what a roller coaster is like.... maybe we need to take them to one of the local amusement parks so they experience what a roller coaster is really like. On the other hand... the mall bus is free....

When we got to the park, the rally area was already filled with 50,000 people with another 50,000 or more standing in the surrounding area. From the stage all the way back to the capital building, the place was filled with people just waiting to hear Obama's voice. There were people all the way around the rally area and even on top of buildings waiting for him to arrive.

Since we couldn't see the stage at all, we decided to hang out near the Greek columns. The fountain there was empty of water, but filled with little kids 'skating' on the smooth concrete. From there it was easy to hear the loudspeakers for the rally... actually, it was easy to hear the rally for a couple of blocks surrounding the park! It was fascinating that so many would hang out just to hear a candidate's voice, there certainly weren't that many that could even see the stage.

While there we saw these 2 little boys, one was dressed as Obama, the other was dressed as McCain. As it turned out they were brothers wearing their Halloween costumes. Pretty clever costumes if you ask me! At one point they started to wrestle and it was pretty funny. It was easy to picture the real Obama and McCain kind of wanting to go at each other like that. I'm not sure who would have won in this physical contest, the Obama kid was faster and had better reach, but McCain weighed a little more and liked to fight dirty. Mom came along and broke them up... Needless to say, both ended up in a timeout for trying to choke each other!

Between the speeches from various politicos and their flunkies the loud speakers would blare some catchy tune to keep the crowd up beat. The girls had a great time dancing together to the music and playing with the other kids. All the running around helped keep them warm and less whiny.

After waiting for awhile (Obama was late) the girls started to get really bored, cold and hungry. To try to keep them busy we walked closer to the capital building. We were hoping to find a vantage point where we could at least see where the stage was located. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but I did get some good snaps of the crowd and this one of the capital.

We stayed a little while longer and listened to the beginning of Obama's speech, but the girls were getting hungry and cold, so we went to McDonald's to stem the tide of whining. The bus trip to McDonald's was much nicer. The girls were amazed that there were so few people on the bus. There was a lot of counting and announcing of how there were only 12 people on the bus rather than 2000 (this number was Olivia's inflated number...I'm fairly sure there weren't 2000 people on that first bus!)

During lunch we sat at a the table next to an older lady that had also gone to the rally. She was so excited about the whole election and shared some of her stories about how Denver had changed during her lifetime. I don't know if the girls were really listening to her, but I hope they got an idea of how historic this election really is.

After lunch, we hit the crowds as they were leaving the rally. It was still less crowded on the bus and the trip was pretty pleasant. On the way back we did a little more of the touristy stuff as far as taking pictures and the girls got to play a little. At the park they rolled down the steep hill right by the sidewalk. One lady walking by and watching the kids roll down the hill commented, 'that is something that only a kid would enjoy!' How true, once you reach a certain age, avoiding falling down a hill becomes more of a priority.

Even though we didn't get to see anyone 'famous', it was a fun adventure and the girls had a good time.