Whoa. Getting back to school is harder than it looks. We sent the kids off to school, while mom and I stayed home to do laundry. Four days later we were still doing laundry--and our trip was only 9 days. We again had to start up with school and hockey. Dan left to go back to Rome for business. Mom and I held down the fort here. We were able to visit the craft store--I needed to get some supplies for Halloween costumes. Since trick-or-treating is not done here, I decided to just do costumes for Dyllan and Deagan. They had a party during the day at school and a carnival that night. Tuesday we had German lessons and Saxophone for Dane. Wednesday night Dane had a hockey game, then we had to rush over to the doctor to get physicals (in order for the kids to be eligible to play a sport). Then mom and I madly sewed costumes. It is quite a different experience creating a costume in one night and not having the normal resources. Without a glue gun, the stapler took over as my best friend.
Dyllan conceived the idea for her costume from start to finish. She found a box and instantly started to work. She cut holes for her arms and head. Then she taped white paper all over it. Then she drew dots all over it. She wanted to be a die (dice). I helped her staple the pink sparkly dots all over it, so she was set. Deagan wanted to be a s'more (okay, I wanted him to be a s'more, and he is still complaining about it). I found some perfect fabric at the craft store to create the perfect toasted marshmallow look. We used boxes for the crackers, and more fabric for the chocolate. They turned out pretty good. Not my best work, but they were dressed up.
For the carnival that night, I signed up to volunteer to help with the trunk-or-treat. I was instructed to decorate the trunk and show up at the school. They would provide the candy to hand out. That seemed like a pretty easy assignment to me! I found some freaky fabric in my Halloween box. I collected some orange stars at the craft store. Mom made a tombstone to set in the trunk. We had carved pumpkins and lanterns. We also had a strobe light. We put some good Halloween tunes on the ipod and then, I had an idea. If you lay one side of the seats in the back row down, there is space underneath that the seat back covers. I thought that maybe I could dress Dane up as a vampire, put a pillow in the open half of the back and cover the entire thing with white fabric. Then put in Dane, add a little make-up, contort his body so that all of his legs were underneath the covered part. The only thing showing was from his waist up. He looked just a vampire in a coffin. He "x-ed" his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. The lighting in the trunk was perfect to make him look very freakishly scary. It was perfect. Dane loved "coming alive" and screaming at unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. We heard several comments about how kids were going to "skip that car because it was too scary". It made Dane's Halloween. He measured the success of the evening by how many people he made scream, cry, or wet their pants--in total, countless screamers, 2 criers, and an undisclosed number of wet pants--a true success. Not even his friends recognized him! It was also interesting to me to see that several adults were also impressed by scene. We had more pictures taken of our car than any other car. We also had a few parents get their kids and make them come back to the car, just to take a second look. It's funny that being scared on Halloween is a new experience for even some adults here. The only sad thing is, that my camera decided not to work on Halloween night (must be a haunted camera, whose ghost was out partying on Halloween, as it worked just fine the day before, and the day after) and I have no pictures of the scene. I was able to get some shots of the costumes the next day, but none on Halloween.
The kids and Dan had Friday off of school. Two major holidays are on November 1 and 2: All Saints Day and All Souls Day. On the Saints Day, all of the cemeteries are packed with people. They leave several candles on each grave. They light them, and at night, the cemeteries are all a-glow. It is actually really cool to see. I tried to get a picture of it, but people were still packed in the cemetery, even later in the evening, and I felt like just taking pictures might have been a little disrespectful. I got one, but it is not great. It is hard to show just how cool everything looked.
Since the kids had the day off of school, we decided to head down into southern Austria to Styria. We stopped at a Therme (hot springs). Some of these are very adult oriented for relaxation and de-stressing. However, I was able to find one that catered to children and had several pools and some slides, a lazy river, and a wave pool. We had a great time. Danyon loved being in the water. He wasn't allowed to go swimming on the cruise, so this was a much better deal for him. Looking at the Austrian countryside was very cool in the Fall. Everything looked so pretty. That night, we found a quaint little hotel just across the boarder in Hungary. We were one of 4 guests at the hotel that night. It was a pretty little place and it was very inexpensive compared to Vienna. We ordered dinner in the restaurant. We ordered 4 full meals, 2 orders of fries, 2 salads, one more side order of steak fries for Dane, and drinks. We ended up paying only 35 Euro for the entire dinner. The three ladies who were ironing the sheets and towels in one back room (yes, towels too), moved to the kitchen after we had ordered our dinner. We knew the food was fresh! It was delicious food in a very cute little setting. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there and our free breakfast buffet the next morning.
The next morning we drove to Zotter Chocolate Factory. I know that I have blogged about it before, but it had changed slightly since our last visit. It was even better. There were more samples, and I have to admit that 3 of the 7 of us were sick to our stomachs at the end--how lucky were are! We drove around the beautiful countryside and found a family run orchard and farm. We bought fresh apples and a case of homegrown grape juice. We also found pumpkin seed oil and peach nectar. It was delicious. We had a nice drive home, then we went back to work. Lisa and Laslo, our cousins from Hungary, were coming for dinner. We cleaned the house, unpacked the car and bags, and got to work making soups. We had a very enjoyable evening visiting with them.
The weather here has turned a little cold. It is definitely Fall. The leaves are falling, the rain is coming, and the wind has started. We fought back by putting a fire in the fireplace for the first time. It's pretty fun to have our own fire. What a relaxing way to start, yet another, very busy week.
It has started already! We are listening to Christmas music almost full-time now. We are really getting into the holiday mood around here. Thanksgiving is not celebrated here. They do have a day of the Goose--it happened last week, but no other holiday until Christmas. The day of the Goose goes back to some guy who was chosen to be Bishop. He didn't want the position and ran to hide in the barn. The geese gaggled so loudly that the people were able to find him. So now they celebrate this day by eating goose.--That'll teach 'em to gaggle so loudly. It seems weird, but we are going to break out the Christmas decorations this next week. It will be the first time in Baker history that we will have our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. We are getting so excited!!!! The malls and streets have started their decorating. We can't wait until our city turns into a winter wonderland! We drove by one building that had a tree on it in lights already. It was really cool because the dark part of the building had lights that flashed on and off that made it look like it was snowing. I got a picture of it, but it was from the motorway, and the car was moving pretty fast, so it didn't turn out as cool as it was. The Christmas Markets started this last weekend, or will start next weekend.
