Surprise Visitor

My sister Michelle must have gotten sick of my years of comments about her needing to come visit. I didn't really think she could come, but I bugged about her it anyway. Then, last week, she showed up at my door. Actually, she was with John when he came home from work. She surprised me for my birthday! It made me so happy!

And Sadie got to come, too.


Everyone said we look the same, just like old times. But here she is looking cuter than me.
We rode the ferry over to Kingston and played on the beach, got some really good food, and walked around the little town.

Olivia looks like she is pant-less,

because she's doing this.

The sun finally came out for us on the last day they were here.

It was so fun to see cute Sadie, too, even though she didn't like us too much. I think she looks a little like Katelyn (above). Maybe it's the brows.

We went a few other fun places, but I have to go get packed for our next adventure. We're flying out tonight to look into a job.

Thanks so much Michelle!

More Halloween, and MORE CANDY

Katelyn thinks trick-or-treating is pretty fun.

These were the easiest homemade costumes ever.

Three capes - one from a really cool Batman birthday party,

one piece of spiderweb fabric with a ribbon sewed onto it,

and for Katelyn's I used one of her jackets for a hood pattern, made a cape and put them together. The only other things I sewed were the ribbon on the witch's hat, and a Batman sign onto a shirt (I turned one of his shirts backwards and sewed Batman on. His cape covers the truck print on his back, so I didn't have to buy a new gray shirt).

Olivia showed me a witch coloring picture that she wanted to look like. So I went to Goodwill to try to find a plain black dress for her, and happened to find the perfect one, and it happened to be her size.
We did well in the candy gathering. First, there was trick-or-treating along the street of businesses by us Friday afternoon (and lots of other kids in Olivia's class were going, so we had to, too, right)? Saturday we went to our stake's trunk-or-treat and got full baskets. And, I'm a little embarrassed to say, we still took our kids out to some houses in our neighborhood after that. Just to a few of the older neighbors we know. And a friend in Olivia's class. And the houses on the way to his house. And then just down to the one with the cool spider in their yard and back.

Maybe I like the trick-or-treating part as much as them. "Should we go to this street, too? What, your feet hurt? Hurry, go get more candy!" Maybe it's the memory of wishing I could collect as much as my brother always got in his pillowcase on Halloween. Or maybe I just liked seeing Red Riding Hood waddling up to the doors. But of course once we get home with all that sugar, I don't like them to eat much of it and keep telling Olivia to stop asking me if she can have more.

What to do with all that candy? They each took some of their candy and we put it in a bag to give to kids who don't have very much candy. (Charitable, huh? Anyone know any candy-needy children? Or should John and I just keep eating out of that bag)? Then, they had to eat some. And make some candy soup.

Spooky

More to come. We're busy eating candy right now.