Halloween weekend

We had a very busy and very fun Halloween weekend! To begin the weekend I'll start with Thursday...which was the storybook character costume parade at Libby's school. They not only had to dress up as a character from a book but they also had to take the book with them. For the parade at school Libby decided to dress as Cleopatra. When we got to school Thursday morning all kinds of kids were arriving at the exact same time...and not one single child was dressed in a costume! Libby saw that and refused to get out of the car because she said she wasn't going in to school in a costume when no one else was dressed up. I have to admit - I was a little worried about it, too...but I had to get her in to class and get myself off to work. I told her that there would be plenty of children dressed up and not to worry but she still refused to get out of the car. I literally had to drag her out of the car!! Once I finally got her inside there were many children who were dressed up and she felt a little more comfortable. They had the costume parade in the morning and after lunch each class had a Fall Party and they got all sugared up and then they were sent home. :-)

Libby then went to her afterschool care where they passed out little bags of candy to all of the children. Just what they needed! :-) Libby was picked up early from afterschool by Ryan's mom and she took Libby in to Gainesville to Libby's art lesson. After Libby's art lesson she was picked up by Ryan and they came home. When I got off of work at 5pm I had to head straight to school for the parent/teacher conference. Libby's teacher had nothing but wonderful things to say about her. She is very well behaved in class and is working above grade level. What more can I ask for? :-)

Friday school was out (for a teacher workday) so Libby spent the day at work with me. She LOVES going to the childcare at my job. After work on Friday she and I went out to dinner and then headed to Alachua where they were having a Trick or Treat on Main Street. Many (many!) businesses from around Alachua set up little booths all along Main Street (which is a small two lane street lined with shops on each side) and the children walk down one side of Main Street and up the other and get their bags filled with candy. Libby wore her witch costume and we trick or treated for about an hour and a half and then went over to the fall festival that a church in Alachua was having where they had tons of games for the children to play. Libby had a great time playing all the games (a few times!) and when she had finally had enough we headed home.

Saturday morning we woke up early and left to meet Karen in Gainesville. I had yet another fall arts and crafts festival to go to this weekend!!!! Yes,this is my 5th week in a row going to a fall arts and crafts festival! :-) We spent an hour and a half walking around the festival looking at everything being sold and I found a cute little fall sign to buy. I also found a super cute orange and blue beaded bracelet that would go wonderfully with my others and I was going to get the bracelet on the way out (we always look all around first and then once we've seen everything there we go back to buy our favorite things). Well, we couldn't find the booth that had the bracelet that I loved so I left without it. I was in a hurry, anyway, because Libby and I had a get-together that we had to be at and I was pressed for time to get there on time. We got home from that get together at 4:00 and almost immediately headed right back out to a church that is very close to my house that was having a fall festival. They had a good amount of games set up for the children and were passing out water (which was nice because it was h.o.t!), juice, nachos (yummy!) and hot dogs (eww!) :-) Libby had a lot of fun and I finally pulled her away and we went home so that I could watch the second half of the Florida/Georgia game. And of course my lovely Gators beat the Bulldogs!!! After the football game was over we ate dinner and then it was time for Libby to get ready for Trick or Treating!

Libby put her witch costume back on and I took some pictures of her before we left. Our neighborhood only has three houses built in the neighborhood so far so we went to a nearby neighborhood that is huge and right by Libby's school. That was the most perfect Trick or Treating experience that I've ever had in my entire life. I've waited "27" years to have that perfect of a night. A lot of the houses in the neighborhood were fully decked out in Halloween decor, lighting, etc. There were hundreds of people on each street in the neighborhood. There were children darting from house to house and running across the street with their vampire capes blowing in the breeze. It was a scene straight out of any (non-scary) Halloween movie. It was p.e.r.f.e.c.t! I think I was probably enjoying it more than Libby was! :-) One of the houses is a big attraction each year because they set up a haunted house. I took Libby in and one of the characters really freaked Libby out and Libby was ready to hit the character with her witch broom that Libby was carrying! I had to cover her eyes and lead her out of the haunted house.

:-) However, Michael Myers was standing at the exit and he freaks the crap out of me so I had to close my eyes and lead Libby out while I still had my hands over Libby's eyes. :-) After about two hours of Trick-or-Treating Libby was getting tired so we finished up and headed for home.

Sunday morning we slept in a wee bit and then got up to start our regular weekend chores. Libby and I left at 1:30 to meet one of Libby's friends and her mom at the mall. We met up with them and then they rode with us to the corn maze in Micanopy. The weather was cooperating completely for a fun fall day. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather...it was in the low 70's! How divine! We got there and the first thing we did was go into the corn maze...which was five acres of maze! We were lost in there for quite some time! :-) We finally made our way out and Libby and Riley went over to play on the hay fort, then they rode the "bulls", played in the corn box (instead of a sand box it was filled with corn kernels...I've never seen children have so much fun!), and rode on the tire swing. We then went on a hay ride and that took us up to a pasture where we stopped to feed the cows. The cows know the drill when the tractor pulls up with a load of people so once we stopped they all started walking briskly over to get thier cow treats that were in buckets on the hayride and the kids threw out treats to the cows. One freaking cow had a foot fetish and kept licking my freaking feet! I had on flip flops and I thought I was going to die but I didn't quite think that kicking a cow was the smartest thing I could do so I stood there and took the foot licking. :-) After the hayride Libby and Riley rode the barrel-train and then we went into the corn maze one more time. Apparently the girls didn't get enough of it the first time we went through it! :-) We spent three hours there and if it weren't starting to get dark (thanks to the time change) I could have stayed three more hours. For me that was an ideal fall day!

After such a wonderful weekend it was very hard to get up and get geared up for work but I managed to do it. :-) To be honest, I am just using my upcoming weekend as my motivation to get up and get through work this week. This weekend is our Fall Girls Weekend and we are heading to Savannah!! I can't even describe to you how excited I am about this trip with my friends!