Weekend Report

Happy Halloween! We had a witch, an elf queen, and a murderous clown. Kids are totally gorging themselves on candy. I want to try and see if they can self-regulate this year (they should be? they are old enough?). I have a big bowl of candy sitting in the dining room, totally open-access. The rest of the candy (according to this year's count, they collected over 260... not including the sweets they got from grandparents) is hidden away. I told them that bowl is what they have until Thanksgiving. They can eat it all at once or they can make it last. We'll see how well this is going to work out.

Stuff that got done:

• Friday: Halloween parade for the elementary school
• Saturday: Shabbat services + Hebrew school, followed by a quick trip to the pet shop to get supplies and toys.
• Saturday: 2 soccer games
• Saturday: Family movie night (Tomorrow Never Dies) 
• Sunday: drove 45 min each way to pick up our new cat, Vlad (because there are so many fun things we can call him: Vlad the Stinker, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Scratcher)
• Sunday: lunch/early dinner with my parents to celebrate their 4 years in the neighborhood (they moved across the country to be closer to us). The food was amazing! There was music and singing!
• Sunday: trick or treating in our neighborhood.
• Sunday: some jerks threw toilet paper at our trees and bushes. It was annoying but took only a couple of minutes to clean up (I guess the jerks were totally inept)
• Kids tell me that it's some weird American tradition, where kids throw TP at people's houses if they don't like them. 
• Clearly, some American traditions are stupid. What a waste of TP (seriously, haven't they heard there may be shortage of TP again?)
• Also, clearly, some neighborhood kids don't like us. 
• Sunday: kids counted and sorted all their candy

Kids had both Monday and Tuesday off, which was absolutely needed after the weekend and all that candy.

My husband and I took time off from work. On Monday, we went hiking to a place about an hour drive away. It was like a picture-perfect fall day: just a bit chilly, sunny, and perfect fall colors (bright orange, yellow, and red leaves, blue sky, green pines). The hike was mostly good (one of the children threw a temper tantrum but we managed to ignore the screaming and did not let it ruin the beautiful day). We stumbled on a lake that we had no idea was there - I love surprises like that. We explored new trails (it is always more exciting when you don't know for sure where exactly you are going to end up). Kids posed for pictures. We picked up some nice fall leaves to bring home. Kids picked up some coal chunks to bring home (no, I am not kidding) - they want to burn it in our fire place.

On Tuesday, my husband was back to work, so the kids and I decided to have a super-relaxing day. We had to do a couple of errands and chores, but then went to a local farm stand to feed the animals and buy some treats. Apple pie was amazing. At home, the kids spent hours playing with Vlad. Everyone had a bit of screen time. We read, we played a game, we cooked. Kids made breakfast - that was pretty awesome. H. made smoothies, E. made "soldier eggs" (my dad's method of scrambling eggs over turkey sausage), plus we made some crackers with cream cheese and salmon roe (from that trip to the Russian store a few weeks ago). (Only one of the kids seems to like fish eggs... ah well, acquired taste and all that).

And tomorrow it's back to work and school...