On Saturday, the 25th, we attended our 8th Halloween carnival here in Switzerland. It is with a bit of pride and happiness that I reflect back on that very first one, when it was still just an idea floating around my head. Nicholas had gone trick-or-treating for his first time just before we moved to Switzerland, and loved it. We had gone with the Cottle cousins around their neighborhood and had a blast. He dressed up as Steve from Blue's Clues and looked so cute! I was really sad about him never having that opportunity again. Halloween was such a fun part of childhood for me, and even though there are other fun things to do in Switzerland, they aren't Halloween by a long shot. So I decided that Trick-or-Treating at the Stake Center would be the perfect substitute. The idea was people would decorate each door really cute and festive, all along the hallways, and then the kids could come knock on each door and get candy.
I also had the idea that it would be a good missionary tool to invite those from the expat community who weren't members of the Church to come see how normal us "weirdo Mormons" could be. Plus, the more the merrier at a party, right? There were a few hitches along the way. For one, I didn't correctly fill out the form to reserve the Stake center and get a proper Swiss reaming from the Bishop of that ward. (He is now the Stake President. Ah, good times.) But he graciously allowed us to use the building anyway, seeing as how no one else was using it that night. The turn out was better than expected, and one of the other moms organized a few games for before the trick-or-treating. It was really fun, and has now snowballed into this huge carnival, attended by over 150 kids, plus parents and the kids come home with bags stuffed with as much candy as I ever got as a kid left to roam free in the neighborhood til all hours of the night. (Well, okay, I think I had to be home by 8:30, but it seemed really late to a 9 year old.)
Thankfully, I am not in charge anymore. That has been handed down from me, to Julie R., to Tanya, to Julie S. Each person has done a fabulous job, and it just gets better every year. I just run one of the booths now. This year it was the bean bag toss/knock the cans over game. I made these adorable candy corn beanbags, if I do say so myself. And decorated some cocoa cans generously donated by my friend Rahel, with bats and jack o lanterns. No picture, as the game was so popular, a lady there wanted to borrow it for her school class. I hope it comes back in one piece, I haven't been having much luck with things I have loaned out lately. But that's another story.
Anyway, Oma once again did a fabulous job with the kids' costumes. I just called her up and told her what the kids wanted to be, and she hunted them all down and got them in the mail to be here in time for the party. They actually arrived on Tuesday, which was a good thing because I spent the next three days madly sewing fake fur onto Nicholas' werewolf costume. There were stray hairs EVERYWHERE, but it looked really cute in the end. I meant to sew more fur on Sophie's cat costume as well, but I just ran out of time. In fact, I sewed on her tail 5 minutes before we climbed in the car to go to the party. I probably could have used my sewing machine, but I was afraid I would mess up the material, or sew pant legs together, so I just did it by hand. Thank you again, Angie for doing all that for us. You definitely went above and beyond.
The kids had a blast, as always, and even I decided to get in the spirit of things and dress up. I hadn't done that for a few years, and I forgot how much fun it always is. We didn't take too many pictures, but here are some of the kids.
