Seriously, we’re going into Thanksgiving next week, and I’m just now posting about our Halloween?? Why is it that the last 3 months of the year always flies by at lightening speed?
It was really neat to expose Brianne to our Halloween traditions this year, since she is not use to all the festivities around this holiday while living in Hong Kong. We started off with our annual visit to Pastorino Farms in Half Moon Bay where the girls picked their own pumpkins for school, and for our house.
We didn’t carve any pumpkins at home this year, as the girls did it in their kindergarten class. Definitely saved Alan a few hours there! Instead, we painted the pumpkins together at home, before we placed them on the front porch.
Growing up, Halloween was a 1-day event for me. I got dressed up in a costume for that one day, and went trick or treating after school. I can’t even remember if we celebrated in school with parades and all. These days, Halloween seems to be a 2 week event for kids. It usually begins 2 weeks prior, with pumpkin patches, local parades, school parades and house parties, culminating with an evening of trick or treating around our neighborhood. Thus, the girls had plenty of opportunities to show off in not one, but two to three different costumes!
This year, we participated in the Menlo Park Halloween Parade one week prior. The girls got dressed up as Chinese princesses and proudly strutted down the streets of downtown Menlo Park before collecting candy from the local merchants. There was also a small Halloween fair set up with a variety of art and craft tables, which the kids just loved.
That weekend, we also attended the annual Halloween Party hosted by our friends Olivia and Steven, and the girls chose to dress up in their Jasmine costumes gifted to them from Auntie Elaine in L.A.
On Halloween Day, the girls had another opportunity to dress up for the school parade. This time, they invented their own costumes by pulling together random pieces from their wardrobes. Brianne was a self-proclaimed rock star, while Bridgette was a “schoolgirl ballerina.” 🙂
That night, after an early dinner, the girls picked their final costumes and made their rounds in our wonderful neighborhood to collect as much loot as they could possibly find.
After 2 weeks of Halloween festivities and probably 5 cavities later, we’re moving into Thanksgiving and our much anticipated trip (shhhh, it’s a secret for the girls) which I will blog about next week! 🙂
