Sunday, November 04, 2012

Sandy and Halloween

Last week, Hurricane Sandy roared through the Northeast. Our part of Maryland was very much spared the brunt of this storm-however, we were prepared for the worst. We spent the 2 days of rain and wind at home  together-Dennis was able to work from home as his office was closed. I put away some fall produce from the garden, and the kids got ready for Halloween.

I had lots of peppers ready for picking. After seeing them everywhere in New Mexico, I decided to try out making a "ristra" with my peppers this year. I looked up several different ways and videos of making them and kind of combined a couple of different ways to come up with what worked. I made 3 medium sized ristras. Two of them are drying in my attic, the third is hanging in a doorway downstairs in the heat of the woodstove.


Dennis set up a mini office at home so he could continue to work despite the rain and wind. Amazingly we did not lose power even once! Although we have a generator for just such an occasion, we were surprised as we almost always lose power-even in a regular rainstorm we might lose it. 

 The kids set up a table in the kitchen (Since Dennis was using the dining table!) to carve their pumpkins. 
 Leah designed and completely carved hers by herself. She did a face on one side and a ghost on the other.

 Eric did an owl on one side and a skull on the other. 
 Bay designed a tombstone with "RIP" written on the front. I helped him with the carving of the letters, but the design was all his!
 Leah proud of the ghost she carved
 Eric's owl
Bay's pumpkin

After swim practice on Halloween, Bay and Leah dressed up and visited a handful of families on our street for some trick-or-treating. We still enjoy doing this on our rural street better than any other event on Halloween. It is fun to stop by our neighbors' houses and use it as an opportunity to visit and say hello to people we only see every once in awhile. I know that our neighbors love it because they say so every year-how glad they are that we come by-they do love to see the kids growing. I think that they may get only 1 or 2 trick-or-treaters. We didn't have any at our house, so I know they don't get many. Even so, Bay and Leah's buckets were completely full to the brim with candy. They gladly divvied up their treats with Eric when he got home from his swim practice.