The Hazard Chronicles

It's over a week late, but I thought I should do a quick post here about Halloween. Holidays change as a family grows up and this one is no exception. All the kids had costumes, but were out almost exclusively with friends in the evening (I never went outside all night). Rach and I stayed home and handed out candy. We had carved jack-o-lanterns the night before, but it seemed almost like a formality- a fun activity, but without the gravitas of "tradition" that normally accompanies the occasion. As for spooky house decorations, we took some boxes down from the garage shelves but never got any further than that. Nobody wanted to take the time to actually distribute the items that were in them. They are still sitting our our garage floor- ready to be put back into place until next year.

None of this is sad to me. I've always been a little resistant to doing things simply for tradition's sake, and the natural aging and growth of a family seems to necessitate such changes. But it really stood out to me on that night, as Rachel and I just sat on the couch talking, that our "little kids" aren't so little any more. Maybe that is why I like hanging out with them more now ;)

Anyway- here are some pictures. Have a good week!

We all went downtown Coeur d'Alene as a family before splitting into our different friend groups. That is where these pictures came from. Evelyn and some of her friends dressed up as sheet ghosts. She stayed in CDA for most of the night with them.

Lindsey is a character from Harry Potter. Ginny? Hermione? I'm not totally sure. Her best friend came and hung out at our house for a while, and then the two of them hit the streets on their own. I don't think candy was really the objective for this one, as she gave almost all of her haul away to either other members of our family, or trick-or-treaters that came to our door. 

Addy is dressed up as Sophie Foster. I have no idea who that is supposed to be. It's from a book that she likes. Addy's best friend had a costume from another character in the same book, and those two nerds went to a different neighborhood in Post Falls and probably brought in more candy than anyone else.

I don't know what Jackson was. I don't think he knows either. He got this electronic mask from Amazon that he controls with a phone, so the face was constantly changing. He paired that with a cape, and like, a million coats, and became a fat, caped, masked....person? At the beginning part of the night he went out by himself, and then a little later hooked up with a friend for more trick-or-treating.

Maren was a stick figure. It worked pretty well once it got dark. She had a friend from school come over and hang out at the house before and after their candy run. She didn't have as much candy as others, but somehow seemed to come away with all the good stuff- king sized candy bars and the like. Also, after the neighborhood had quieted down, she had the great idea to go out again (to different houses) where she said people were just dumping all their leftovers into her bag.