Happy Halloween!

This Halloween ended up being a lot more fun than I had feared it would be.  The week before Halloween was a midterm break, so we did lots of fun activities including a trip to Gullivers, which is like a really great Carnival or a really small Disney...take your pick.   The kids opted to wear their costumes to Gullivers so I got lots of great pictures of them in them, better than Halloween night.  We rode a rollercoaster, the kids' first, and went on the spinning barrels, where I narrowly missed losing my lunch.  We then did the log flume which was, by far, the favorite ride of the day.

On Halloween night we went Trick or Treating as usual.  There are definitely differences between the States and the UK.  Not bad, just different.  Here they are very much more into the scary or gory part of Halloween, where as in the States we just dress up, it doesn't have to have a scary theme.  Most of the costumes that we saw on kids were zombies, witches, and vampires.  Yup, that's it.  Part of the fun for me in the States is guessing what everyone is when you see them.  Joci and Joe were told many times that they looked very smart.  There weren't nearly the numbers that you see in the States, either, but there were more than I thought there might be.  We were often recognized as the American family as we went through the night, or asking where we were from.  There was only one house that was decorated on the outside of the house and they were having a party.

Something we noticed was the difference in candy, especially for those that are 'American'.  For instance, here a Milky Way is like the American 3 Musketeers, and the Mars bar is like an American Milky Way.  Cadbury chocolate is probably my favorite here, although, to me, it pales in comparison to true Belgium chocolate.

So we ended up having a great Halloween and we hope you did, too! 

Joci and Joe's first rollercoaster ride.  They loved it!

 The Trick-or-treating bags I made for the kids.

 My beautiful Belle and Dr. Who.

 I think this picture shows just how annoyed we were with Joe's screwdriver and the noises it made all day.

 I worked really hard on Joci's Belle hair.

 The ride that Joci freaked out on.  She did not like the heights and cried the entire time.

 Completely got talked into riding the spinning crazy barrels with the kids as Joci really wanted to ride it and was just barely too little to do so by herself.  Completely regret doing it.  I had to shut my eyes most of the time and had to sit down afterward trying not to get sick.  But, she loved it.