Happy Halloween! (and it was)

 Is it absolutely crazy to invite 2 classfuls of children to a trick-or-treating party outside on the eve of November when it's dark? Possibly. Was it fun? Yes. Was it noisy? Oh yes. Were there tricks in addition to treats? Oh ya. A snowplow marker was found in our yard afterwards (as if these parts were going to be getting winters that required plowing), plenty of candy wrappers decorated the grass, and a handful of neighbors had had mystery doorbell ringing happening, until the marauding 3rd graders were summoned back into the yard. 

How do you decorate a whole house and yard with as little as possible? We were thinking of the setups in Mountain View with lost of props, animatronics, lights, inflatables, etc...  and had to come up with something else! We went with scary decals, ghosts and lights. We had candles big, small, and electric, which were outside, helping bring a little light to the key areas of the yard. Of course we also had a jack-o-lantern pumpkin (thanks to local grocery store! totally carveable, seeds were delicious toasted), which Kai helped design. The scary decals were pasted onto almost all the windows with soapy water. Petra made some of those as well. We also had little ghosts hanging around and Kai spooked people by running around with a noise maker that had a range of outputs from cackles to howls and creaky door sounds. The kids came up with all kinds of fun stuff to do, and one boy from Kai's class organized a treasure hunt with our candy. 

We'd chatted with some parents, and not so much with others. At the end, some kids came to say thanks and bye, and others went off when their parents picked them up. To some relief, at the end there were neither upset kids nor parents looking for each other, which was good. 

The next day I saw a neighbor and apologized for the noisy party. "Kyllä maailmaan ääntä mahtuu", she said. Which means that being noisy outside is fine and to be expected, since there's plenty of space in this world for a bit of noise. 

Now, a week later, the oak tree has shed the last of its leaves, and the storms, hail, gale and rain had piles the leaves into thick banks, easy to remove. A sunny, unseasonably warm day (+12C) made for a good day to clear the leaves up and away.