Monday's Moment: Halloween with no HHE

 

Wrapping up 2022

So other than our trips to Koln and all over Poland, we did the usual school, work, scouts, hair dyeing, and try to relax here and there. Clarissa was in part of the stage crew for a Snoopy production.

We did the usual pumpkin carving.

The cat even got into the Halloween spirit!

Clarissa dressed up as a cat. Given she's now used to wearing contacts she opted to get some cat eye contacts to complete the costume.

Richard and I attend the Marine Corps Ball. It was on a boat and we did a harbor cruise.

In December, college acceptance letters started coming in and someone was happy to have made it into their first choice!

Isa got into the holiday spirit. 

My in-laws came over once school was out and stayed until the new year. They were able to enjoy the Christmas morning fun.

As well as Christmas dinner.

The day they arrived, Richard took his parents down to the Frankfurt Christmas market. Between Christmas and New Years, we went to a glühwein tasting at night in the Kloster Eberbach (Eberbach Monastery) near Wiesbaden. 

Because websites will automatically translate, we did not realize the tour was in German...lol. Our tour guide did not realize we couldn't understand anything he was saying until the last 20 minutes....where he gave us the cliffnotes version of the 2 hour tour....lol.

Some fall escapades...

Sadly with C-19 number still all over the place, most Oktoberfest celebrations around the country were canceled. The Consulate was able to hold a small event with registered guests (for contact tracing of course) that was outdoors. We stopped in for a little bit, Clarissa got her hair braided, pretzels and beer were consumed, and the need to pick up our own dirndl and lederhosen was discovered.  

Clarissa actually did a wardrobe change when we got home and wanted to take some photos of her styled hair. Problem is to get the cute face you can't see the braid. So here's a little video of her braid.

The following weekend was Halloween/Richard's birthday. Friday evening was the compound door decorating contest. We and two of our other neighbors went all out. We dug out the old gravestones we had made a few years back...and used our little LED lights on them. We gathered up leaves to make it look likely freshly buried graves..lol. The door also had spider webs, spooky witches that talked to you and jumped, fog machine (I managed to not take a picture of it). We won most cool initially, then after checking out all entries we won first place!

The next day we had our friends from Doha, who are now posted in Frankfurt! Over for a little pumpkin carving party. It had been a while since we had one of these with pumpkins being so pricey in Qatar and Fiji!

It was chilly carving outside, so we took a break and came in for some hot drinks and Richard's birthday cake (again, somehow no pictures of the cake. Clarissa did the baking and decorating this year, so I'll use that as my excuse. I typically take a picture when I finish).

Clarissa dressed up as Enola Holmes and the teen as a character from Bob's Burgers (I've never watched that show, so IDK).

I took a couple day trips (more on those later). The teen turned 17! Can you believe it! 

My birthday came and went. We all went out to eat one Friday evening at a little Italian place up the street to celebrate everyone's birthdays. We celebrated Thanksgiving. We invited a friend of ours from the hood over....we knew her back when we lived in Tbilisi......(start singing "It's a small world after all......")

As you can see, already putting some of that Polish pottery to use! Then it was time for Christmas and Christmas markets.....so stayed tuned :)

Monday's Moment: Spooky Time

Halloween 2020

So as it was for everyone else, Halloween + social distancing for 2020 = strange year....the kids were able to dress up for school (they are on an A/B day type schedule). Clarissa went as a dark angel and the teen went as a fave character from 'The Big Lebowski'. The teen was able to incorporate the mask into the costume, where as Clarissa said her ears couldn't handle a mask, headband, and glasses so would alternate two of three. So for school she only wore the headband for the class photo since the other two were required items.....

The CLO was unable plan/host the usual walk around and trick or treat in the different offices/sections at Richard's work....there are always bottlenecks and there would be no way to social distance. We did have a virtual coffee and brainstorm alternative ideas. There was a candy bar one afternoon, we went by and filled a bag up with a bottle of 'ghost tears', mini bags of popcorn, and all kinds of sweets (way too many pixy sticks if you want my opinion) your 10 year old heart desired....lol.

Then with it being the perfect year and Halloween falling on a weekend. CLO planned a scavenger hunt for families on Friday morning (the start of the weekend here). First I'll show the clues and then the photos we sent along the way proving we were there...lol.

We skipped #1 - the Thumb statue in Souq Waqif (almost added a photo I've taken another time in here...lol), it's not in an easy park, hop out, snap a photo, and go place.

#2 -the Pearl fountain along the corniche (this might be the only photo with all four of us....I promise the teen was there.....even though you only see hair....).

#3 - Dhow boats along the corniche (this one was a hard one....there may have a child knocking another child out of the picture while I was staring into the sun attempting to take the photo...but there are parts of a couple boats in the background there).

#4 - "Orry" the Qatari Oryx along the corniche (this one was funny, the photo function from my watch was still on even though I was in the car, so I actually took this from the car while Richard held my phone in selfie mode).

#5 - teapot sculpture along the corniche (I may (or may not) have egged some competitors on and called them cheaters for trying to just drive by and take a photo instead of getting out for the picture (this one had a parking lot)).

#6 - clay pigeon towers in Katara (Richard may have had some technical difficulties and the tween is laughing at her dad for being unable to do something so easy....)

#7 - entrance to Children's Mall (the official end - somebody less than five feet tall was already digging into the prize bucket of goodies....lol).

#8 - Giant falcon hood, which houses a falconry exhibit and veterinary clinic for falcons (since optional, totally cheated and took a car photo).

So obviously we drove as they sites were a good bit apart, but it was fun couple hours (which the kids did admit to after much protesting when mandatory fun rules were incited upon the start).

Clarissa has picked up a painting hobby during all the stay at home time this year. She's been using this website for inspiration/directions. She painted a Halloween painting and finished it two days before Halloween.

The compound we are on sent out a confusing message with CDC guidelines about trick or treating but ended it with a 'do what you want' line, so I ended up running to the store last minute and grabbing some candy. 

We put out the gravestones we made last year with some light up skeleton hands I had ordered online. They weren't 220V, so I knew we would have to use a transformer but I wasn't expecting the cord to be only about a foot long. So if you look closely, one of our mini transformers is in the hibiscus branches with an extension cord running into the house. We also had some battery operated (much easier!) projector lights that we scattered around.

For trick or treating, we displayed Clarissa's painting outside. Richard and I sat outside and would put our masks on when kids walked up. We are on an outer road and hidden behind a bunch of trees so we weren't very busy (Richard walked around with Clarissa a bit when her friends were taking a while to get ready and said one street was super busy). The teen went off with some other teens and I did not see them.

It was a very different Halloween this year and next year the kids will get to experience the fun of figuring out a costume that looks good with a thick warm coat in Germany....lol.

Monday's Moment: Halloween Crafting....

 

Monday's Moment: Just a Researcher and her Giant Panda (and other Halloween Shenanigans)

 

That one Halloween

That one Halloween......I made the kids Halloween costumes! Yep...(just don't look too close, they aren't perfect). As I mentioned in the Hawai'i posts, we picked up portions of Mason's costumes and fabric for Clarissa and her gang's costumes.

Clarissa decided she wanted to be Bubbles from the PowerPuff Girls. She's been a fan since before the reboot (thanks Boomerang!). When Clarissa first tried on her costume, she looked at me and said 'I can't really fly?!?'....so I walked around as the Professor with a bottle of 'Chemical X' to explain why they couldn't fly yet...lol.

Given the PPG are Kindergarten-aged....which so is Clarissa....it would be perfect (and insanely adorable) to recruit two other friends to dress up. So she found two other friends to be Blossom and Buttercup! It was like wrangling cats to get a photo of the three of them.....and then they heard music and started dancing...so this is as good as I got! Then they were off to gather candy.

Mason is re-reading the Harry Potter Series for the second time (he read them back in 4th grade). He has gone onto Pottermore and was sorted in Hufflepuff. So he wanted to be a Hogwarts student (especially given he is the age that kids typically get their Hogwarts Acceptance Letters) and therefore, needed his house uniform.

Hufflepuff Student casting spells.

Given we live in Fiji, we had to modify it a bit or he might have a heat stroke! So in Hawai'i, we found a white (short sleeve) button down shirt and a blue and yellow tie (apparently the thick/vs thin stripes are opposite of what they "should" be). He also made gold and black flip flops. At the fabric shop we found the clasp for his robe. Here in Fiji, I found some black and gold fabric to make his robe, which was relatively easy. I ordered his Hufflepuff patch and the yarn for his scarf (that was the only the thing I couldn't talk him out of). He also agreed to wear some gray shorts he already had and viola.....

We had multiple events to go to (one Clarissa was sick for and we didn't end up making it to) and she was fine using other dress up things she has to wear to it. There was also one street made up a few Americans and Australians that will give out candy for Trick or Treaters. So we went over there on Halloween. Given we don't live there, I brought some candy to give out too (some Mom's got some nice chocolate to hide from their kids/I was a mobile "house"...lol). Mason wore his Hufflepuff uniform again. Clarissa wore a vampire dress she had found at the Goodwill store in Hawai'i. She did all her own make-up.....I'm not quite sure where she learned about vampire blood running down their chins....but kuddos to her handiwork!

Actual Halloween!

Unfortunately, the kids did not get a chance to dress up for a school day. Diwali falls on the darkest night (so new moon, therefore it changes year to year) and fell same as Halloween week this year. So the Friday before Diwali/Halloween weekend, for mufti day the kids could wear Indian clothing. So I picked Clarissa up a pretty sparkly dress. It's been torturing her hanging in the closet not being able to be worn yet. So she was quite exited to put it on that morning (I even let her put on some lipstick for school!).

And when she got home, she told me her good friend was wearing the same dress, just in a different color and that made her day! Her friend's mom was kind enough to send me the picture (you may recognize her friend as Blossom from the PPG!).

Anyway, hopefully I haven't set the bar too high this year in regards to Halloween costumes....

Sewing Details:
For PPGs, I found a tank dress that Clarissa had in size 6-8y and just traced it to make a pattern. I then made the PPG dresses in the same fabric just different colors. I did scan the pattern before making the first dress in case I messed up cutting with the rotary cutter so that would all be close to identical. If you would like the pdf, drop me an email.

For the Robe, I followed this tutorial and on a tip I found somewhere else, I traced a sweatshirt hood to make a pattern and used that for the robe hood.