My Halloweek

What a fun week it's been! First, we got a big snowstorm. I told you all about that. Fall literally lasts for, like, two weeks here in North Idaho. A few weeks ago it got up to 80. Now it got down to 1 last Sunday night. That's nuts! But on the bright side, I got to go sledding for the first time this year.

When the plows clear the streets in Wallace, all the snow gets dumped in a couple of different places. One of them is the alley between our house and the grocery store. The snow hill isn't very big yet, but it was big enough for me to ride my sled down.

Since it was so cold after the snowfall, we spent a lot of time indoors, getting ready for my favorite holiday... Halloween!

I'm always up for Halloween! That's me from a couple of weeks ago, showing off my new fangs. And here are some of the crafts we've been working on.

I made the jars and the "boo" blocks!

And Mom made lots of cool crafts, including that really neat "Spoopy" sign out of scrap wood. It's "Spoopy," not "Spooky," on purpose. I just think "Spoopy" is a funny word. We do things our own way around here.

Then we carved pumpkins! I explained to our bluetick hound, Huckleberry, what I was doing. He just wanted to lick me -- and eat the pumpkin guts. He's such a goofball!

So this was my creation. I drew a face on a baby pumpkin and made a house for him, with a door, a window, a chimney, and a mailbox!

And here are all three of our pumpkins, lit up. Mom made Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc., and dad made a playing card... the Jack of Lanterns. Yeah, he's actually that much of a nerd.

We had plans to go to a couple of Halloween parties, but then our governor rolled us back a stage with the virus stuff just before the big day. The Elks Club here in town still had their party. They just had to limit how many people could be inside at one time. The other one was at a church a few towns over. That got turned into a lame drive-through "trunk-or-treat." But we found another church out in Post Falls that moved their festival outdoors, and it was awesome!

That festival ended up being a day before Halloween, so I got to spread out the fun for two whole days! A lot of other people heard about this outdoor party too. It was packed! There were games spread out across two soccer fields, and there was a band playing, plus free cider and hot chocolate. 

Here I am getting to the party, in the patchwork tortoise costume my mom made. Everybody loved it!

And here I am with Dad, the plague doctor. He is SO WEIRD.

And all this happened under the full moon. How perfect for Halloween, right?

Hmm... what should I do first?

There were so many games to play, and the lines were long for all of them. Dad said he figures everyone ended up here because so many other things got canceled. That meant it was really crowded, and I only got to play a few games.

But it was all really fun stuff, like ball-tossing, horseshoes, and a toy pig race. And whether you won or lost, you still got candy. So everyone wins!

I got to meet Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

And I got to warm up with some hot chocolate. Oh, yummmm. It was windy and cold out there!

Then came the actual day of Halloween. Mom and Dad took me to the Elks Club party. This is what they had in the lobby when you walked in. Scary!

The rest of the place was kinda dark, so the pictures didn't come out so great. But you can probably see what's going on. Here I am just hanging out and having a hot dog and some mac-and-cheese.

Then more fun games, like throwing Ping-Pong balls into a cup, or shooting a vampire in the face!

I got to paint a pumpkin.

And I got to bob for an apple. It's funny, because Dad was saying that bobbing for apples would never happen with the way things are now. I guess they got creative and figured out a way to do it without making you stick your face in a tub of water.

I got my face painted... with a tortoise, of course!

And the fortune-teller gave me a whole full-sized Hershey bar! That was the total highlight of the whole day!

And we still weren't done! Dad took me out trick-or-treating afterward. We had a hard time figuring out what time trick-or-treating was, because no one but the next town over posted any hours. But no one canceled that we knew of, either. So we just went out driving and watched for porch lights and kids in costumes. 

Some people in Wallace were normal and handed out candy at the door...

But a lot of other people slid candy down chutes or just let you pick from a bowl they set on the porch. That was pretty lame. 

So we headed over to Osburn. That was the town that posted their trick-or-treat times. And it was packed! Dad said it was like a street party. Cars and costumed kids everywhere, and lots and lots of lit-up porch lights. No chutes. No unattended candy bins. Just people actually opening up their doors and handing out candy, like normal. No wonder everyone came there. Like my dad said, everybody flocked to where things were normal, like the outdoor church party, and the streets of Osburn.

When I got home, I decided it was easier just to stick my head in my bag to see all I got! It was a pillowcase, so it was pretty deep. But heavy! I got a lot of candy!

And there's my haul from two days of trick-or-treating and Halloween parties. Not bad! And that's minus what I gave to Mom and Dad (she loves Twizzlers and Peppermint Patties, and I don't like stuff with nuts, so Dad takes all that). 

Dad thought it was going to be a disappointing Halloween with everything going on, but it turned out to be one of the best Halloweens ever!

Winter Already?

Well, fall didn't last long. Welcome to North Idaho! Here's what it looks like in late October...

I know I don't look happy...

... but snow means Mom gets to pull me down the street in my sled. I loved doing that last year!

Dad wanted to go to the last Wallace high school football game of the year, and I thought it would be fun to pack some warm snacks and drinks and watch football in the snow.

And it was fun, kind of. But I did talk him in to watching the second half of the game from the car. I need to ease myself into this winter stuff!

Cooking!

I helped Mom make a bunch of mini-quiches for all of us. Mom and I chopped up the ingredients, and then we all got to add the stuff we wanted to ours. 

Cooking is fun! Mom loves it, and so do I. Sometimes I even like making breakfast, as long as Mom and Dad ask me to make something easy, like toast or cereal. But I'm getting better and learning more. I think I'm even about ready to make my own mashed potatoes... one of my favorite foods!

A Hailstorm and a Nature Hike

We just got a hailstorm the other day! Dad went outside to see what was going on when it sounded like our metal roof was getting hit with bullets.

The hailstones were pretty big!

But because Idaho weather is weird, we were able to take a nice nature hike yesterday. We went out on the Pulaski Trail, which is one of those places Dad wanted to see ever since we moved here but never got around to it. He says it goes to a cave where a fire chief led a bunch of his workers to safety during the big fire of 1910. Everyone knows about the big fire around here. Dad says it burned down millions of acres, including most of Wallace. Our house was built in 1910, so either it somehow survived the fire or wasn't finished yet.

It's a 2-mile trail, and we only made it a quarter of a mile. We all got cold and tired, me included. But we did collect some cool leaves to start a leaf collection, and we're going to go back until we can make it to the end.

That's me on the ride home. Sometimes Mom lets me sit up front. Good thing she's always quick with her camera!

A New Friend and a Lot More

We've had a busy couple of days!

The best news is that I made a new friend! The guy who lives in the duplex next door had his nieces over for a visit. I was watching them play from our porch, and I told my dad, "I wish I had friends like that I could play with." I was really sad about it.

But my dad said, "Why don't you go over and ask if you can play? What's the worst that can happen?"

I decided he was right. So I got as brave as I could and went over and asked to play. And they said I could! I rode my bike up and down the street with them and played some baseball until it got dark. Then we made a playdate for today. We rode some more, we played soccer and some more baseball, and then we played with our OMG dolls up in her uncle's apartment.

I'm so excited to have some friends! My best friend lives way out in Connecticut, which Dad says is something like 2,000 miles away. That's a long plane ride. Here, I just have to go next door!

Before that, I went with my dad to the computer store.

That was boring. Not much to do but dab while we waited.

We also went to a thrift store I like to check out whenever we're nearby. They have clothes on sale for 25 cents on Fridays. So I had Dad take me in. I'm going to be a tortoise for Halloween, and I wanted to go in and buy some green, yellow, and blue clothes so Mom can make me a patchwork shell for my costume. She's just learning how to use a sewing machine, so this should be a fun project for both of us!

After my playdate, I hung out with Dad while he made a huge fire out of the wood scraps and cardboard boxes we had lying around. It was so hot that my mom's wooden planter started smoking, and I think he killed the hops that Mom had climbing up an old wooden ladder. 

So, what do you do with a massive fire like that? Make S'mores, of course!

After all that, we had another friend come over. Daphne used to work at the store where Mom and I went to do our clay class every week. Now Daphne comes over to our house once a week to do some writing. For me, it's kind of a school assignment, and for Mom, she gets an excuse to write fiction, which is one of her favorite things to do.

So she has this book where you have to complete the story. Each one is just a couple of sentences, and then you have to finish it off yourself. So all four of us sit at the table and write down our ideas. 

Today's story was about someone who was kidnapped and waiting for the Secret Service to show up. When Dad read off his short story, he did in his ridiculous Trump voice. You'd have to hear it to believe it. He's so weird.

But I love Dad, and I love his days off. We get to do so much fun stuff! Next Thursday or Friday, I hope we can camp out in the yard -- if the weather doesn't get too cold by then.