I miss the fall in DC quite a bit. I love everything about fall - the smell, the cool air after a hot summer, the colors of all the trees as they change and I love Halloween on Capitol Hill. For those who don't live there, we have "Hilloween" which is a great big party for families next to Eastern Market. Everyone gets dressed up and it is a blast. It's usually a few days before Halloween so everyone can dress up twice - once for Hilloween and then again on the real thing - Halloween.
Julia has been obsessed with Cinderella so that's what I thought she'd like to be for Halloween. When I told her that her friend Ainsley back in DC was going to be Snow White, she immediately said "I want to be Snow White too!" Too bad - Cinderella was already on her way. Apparently, Ainsley did the same thing. Maybe next year, we'll just swap costumes if they still fit. Clearly Tommy didn't care what he was so my rationale in picking something was to pick something that was clearly identifiable in pictures - a tiger. Unfortunately, the tiger costume arrived 2 days too late so we borrowed a costume and Thomas was once again, a chicken.
Some friends of ours live in Tel Aviv and they invited us up to the Halloween festivities there. It is a much bigger post and they do "trunk or treat" in conjunction with the American International School. After inviting the whole school, and all the families from the embassy (expats and foreign nationals) there were 800 official Halloween bags sold. The money from the Halloween bags goes towards all the candy that was purchased to hand out - over $7000!! "Trunk or treat" was done in a neighborhood just north of Tel Aviv where a lot of families live. They chose a street and had cars parked and decorated for maybe half a mile. Brian and our friend, Ben, stayed at the car and handed out candy while Julia, Jen, Thomas and I went "trunk or treating". Thomas never actually put his chicken costume on since he fell asleep pretty quickly. Julia did a good job at walking the whole time. When we finally got back into the car to go back to Jen and Ben's place for pizza - she was asleep in 5 minutes.
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| Julia, Ben, Me and Brian in front of the bat car for "trunk or treat" |
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| Julia and Jen |
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Ben and Julia
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On Halloween, the consulate had a big party. There was a costume contest, trick or treating in one of the buildings, carnival games and even a haunted house. We chose not to do the haunted house and just stuck with everything else. We all had a great time. Thomas finally got a chance to wear his borrowed costume. Last year, our friend who wore it won cutest costume. I thought maybe we had a chance but he was beaten out by a baby dressed as Spock. Maybe next year.
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| Julia with her friends, Ingrid and Elliot |
Happy Halloween!
