Trick or Treat

Wow! Halloween will never be the same!!!

It was kind of hard to come back to work as soon as I did after my illness, but somehow I managed. I really didn't want to miss out on anything.

A co-worker had gone out and bought pumpkins for every classroom. And there was to be a pumpkin carving contest. The winning pumpkin would win a party for the classroom. Now, some of you reading this may not know, but I can be a bit competitive. I'm getting a little tired of going up against the high school and honestly, my second graders haven't been fairing too well against them, but this was a contest that I knew I could win....for them of course, but my class could nail this!!!

When the pumpkin arrived, the kids were in awe. They asked me what would happen if they picked it up. I told them to find out. That's right, my students had never seen a pumpkin in real life before. One boy would carry it around and pat it saying, "That's my baby."

Next, came the task of selecting the pumpkin design. Since none of my students had ever carved a pumpkin, they wanted every design they saw. I found a pumpkin design that not only looked awesome, but that I could actually do. It's the one in the picture. I liked the idea of painting a haunted house & carving out the moon & windows. I thought it was different and very cool. Diffeniately something that could bring victory to the second grade. But I was going to let the kids pick out the end result. It was their pumpkin....sigh. Lucky for me they chose the one I wanted to do. I swear, I did not lead them to that choice at all.

We carved the pumpkin on Thursday. And they were so excited. Some of them stood at the door and told anyone who was passing by, "We're carving our pumpkin!!!" Everyone got a chance to pull out the guts of the pumpkin. Some of them really liked that part. Others were content to try it once and then watch other people do it.

I had a movie playing while I worked on the pumpkin. I didn't let the kids handle the knives and I do not feel guilty about that choice at all! Some watched while I drew, carved, and painted the pumpkin. It turned out pretty cool. The kids loved it! We were set for Friday's judging.

The next day we had people coming into our classroom saying "We heard you had a really cool pumpkin!!" Parents, kids, co-workers....this pumpkin was awesome. I forgot my camera, but the school newspaper came & took a picture of it.

Bet your thinking we won, right? Nope, the woman in charge of the contest was sick so it was cancelled. I'm thinking of a not-so-nice word right now.....

I think we had a chance too.......

But we didn't that let it ruin our Friday! Oh no! Not when we have some tee shirts to tie dye! I had gotten tee shirts and dye for the kids. I thought it would be fun to make tie dye shirts for the second graders. The kids loved it!! They absolutely loved making those shirts. I was a huge mess afterwards. I had taken off the gloves because they were slowing me down...so my hands were covered in dye. But the kids stayed pretty clean. I was the messiest person in the room. Go figure!!

So I really couldn't have missed out of work and missed out on all that fun! There was a carnival at the school Friday night, but sadly, I was so worn out from work that I just went home and slept.

Saturday was Trick or Treating. There were signs up that it started @ 3:00 at one villager's house. I thought that was kind of odd, but whatever. I had bought a ginormous bag of candy (for $30 - ouch!) and my roommate and I were ready.

3 hours later, there hadn't been any trick or treaters. Well, no matter but I thought it was kind of odd.

Then I saw some people heading our way. No, actually what I saw was the village heading our way. They lined up at our door - young kids, teenagers, parents, elders.....and people kept coming. There weren't a whole lot of costumes....just people wanting candy. We had this huge line of people.....there had to be about 100 people. And as quickly as they came.....they left. Within ten minutes, it was over. I only had a couple of pieces of candy left. I had never seen so many people at one time in the village.

It started snowing on Tuesday and hasn't stopped. I've never had Halloween in the snow before. It's 20 degrees outside. Yesterday, it was 14 degrees. I'm still liking the cold and loving the snow. I still haven't gotten my winter coat yet, but I'm still able to bundle up just fine.

This morning was pitch black on the way to work. I could only see as far as my flashlight shone. One of my co-workers thought it would be funny to run up behind me and scare me the other day. When I swung around I put my hand up on her chest to protect myself. I didn't push her down or anything, but I don't think she thought it was quite so funny after that. I like that my instinct was to protect myself. She's actually lucky I didn't hit her.

Sunrise: 10:14 a.m.
Sunset: 6:43 p.m.