Halloween Week

This week we had a few different Halloween festivities going on. We started out the week by doing the traditional pumpkin carving. Our kids are finally at the age where they actually have an opinion about what their pumpkins are carved into. Jackson wanted a spider to go with his costume. I am glad that dad was on that design committee. I am not much of an artist but John-David did pretty good job at free handing a spider. As I was reviewing the pictures I took from the evening, this one of Jackson caught my eye because his goofy face looked a lot like this photo

that we took of Jackson from his first Halloween 4 years earlier. I guess pumpkin guts really makes him feel goofy.

Jocey wanted a happy-Jocey face pumpkin. She was modeling what that would look like. It turned out a little different than that but close. She really doesn't like the scary part of Halloween like Jackson does so she likes to add the word happy to things like a happy witch or happy ghost. I think it makes her feel less scared. Kelsey looks like she has been eating dirt off the pumpkin but that has just remnants of our "graveyard dessert" on her face. We made her a happy jack-0-lantern too but hers had a little snaggle tooth:)
John-David was on an Emergency Department(he says it's not a room, it's a department)rotation this month and was able to complete all his shifts by the 24th. We decided to use his little break to go to the temple. We are in the Washington D.C. temple district which is about 3 1/3 hours away. Although the Manhattan temple is closer, we decided to go to D.C. because I have never been. We left right after preschool on Wednesday and hurried down there so I could go to an evening session. After I dropped the family off at the hotel I drove to the temple. I have always heard how beautiful the D.C. temple is and that is known to cause some traffic congestion because of it's beauty but it still took me by surprise. As I rounded the corner of a very dark road and suddenly a brightly lit fairy tale castle was in front of me. Actually it was the temple but that's what it reminded me of. It choked me a little. I was also in awe of it's size. I know many temples have multiple levels because they are built in downtown metropolitan areas but this had multi levels and it was free standing. It was huge. I didn't realized that it's the largest temple the church has. Pretty neat.

John-David ventured to the temple the following morning then after he returned home, we hoped on a subway and headed into D.C. Our kids of course loved the subway ride and I have to say they are cleaner than N.Y.'s. We didn't have a lot of time so we had to just pick what we thought would keep our kids attention the longest. We decided to hit the Museum of Natural History first and on our way there we crossed the Mall. We got a shot of the capital building but as you will notice in the picture, the Mall has seen better days. John-David though that it was still recovering from Inauguration and the tourist season. Maybe but it looked kind of trashy. I hope I can come back another time and see it in better repair.
Jackson loves dinosaurs and was more that happy to see all the bones the museum had to offer. They also had a pretty amazing Ocean exhibit. The great thing about this museum is that it is free. Most of the museums in the area are free.
After the Natural History museum, we headed to the Aerospace museum. I think it had a more official name but that sound good for now. It was a pretty amazing museum and it had a lot of cool simulations of different flight things but I am still partial to the Air force museum in Dayton. Nothing can match the shear immense size of that place.
We were running out of time and energy but thought that we needed to go and see a few of the monuments in the area. The White House is in the background of this photo of the two nut cases shown here. I really wanted to walk to the gate but settled of this photo instead.

The Washington Monument.

We walked over to the memorial for World War II and the reflecting pool but I was having some hip issues and didn't have the energy to walk to the Lincoln memorial. I figure that in the next 5 years we will come back at least once and we will get to see the rest of D.C.

We left early Friday morning to be back in time for Jackson's preschool Halloween parade and party. Jocelyn wanted to be dressed up for the occasion and got her witch get up on.
Jackson's class plus the other afternoon class paraded around the school and then down the block. It was quite the parade. I need to insert something here. I must give credit where credit is due. Although this is not a good picture of the spider costume, John-David was a very important part of that costume coming together. I did sew the legs on the costumes but it was our in house surgeon who hand sewed each segment of the legs and then sewed them together to make them move when Jackson moved his arms. I am glad that all this surgical training is getting put to good use:) I also have to give John-David all the credit for our previous post. He was the one who came up with the entire announcement idea and actually he is the one who did the post. He can be pretty creative.
In Columbus and now here, Trick or Treating is done on a night other than Halloween. Yes I know this is strange but we just go with the flow so we went trick or treating on Friday night. I am learning that I do not take wonderful pictures. I have this one of them before they went out and then two black ones of while they were knocking doors. We just hit our street but felt that was a sufficient amount of our little goblins. Kelsey was very serious about it and if the bowl of candy was offered to her she would help herself to more than one. People thought that she was so cute though that they didn't care. She has sweet tooth especially for suckers.
The following night, on Halloween, our ward had a party but of course I forgot the camera. I dressed up like a cat and John-David put a sign on him that said "Meow". He went as the cat's meow. Yes, that was once again one of his ideas. I think he just didn't want to get dressed up like Frankenstein as Jackson wanted. As part of the party they had a "Trick or Trunk". If we didn't already have enough candy we now have doubled the stash. Our kids are going to rot out and I am going to gain 50 lbs, non- pregnancy related. I did snap this picture of Kelsey when we got home that was kind of funny. I dumped all of the kid's loot over the two day period in a grocery sack for each of them. Kelsey was not going to put hers down. She was determined to protect her candy.

As a side note and something to look forward to as a future post, Bethlehem, Christmas City, USA, is in full decorating mode. About 1 1/2 weeks ago I was taking Jackson to school and noticed all the Christmas trees they were tying to the stop lights. Large bells have also been seen adorning the stop lights now. Yesterday on the way to the ward party we spotted large candles by freeway entrances. And in my own little community of Hellertown, the man down the way finished the stable he was building in the front yard and is now in process of putting together the nativity. On the other side of the yard, it looks like he is putting together a Santa scene. At least we can say now we are in the month of November and it doesn't sound nearly as insane that they are already decorating for Christmas. Tis the season.