It’s been a while since I did a proper catch up on this blog about things we’ve been up to. Life just gets so crazy, doesn’t it? The first half of the year was dominated by some pretty serious family stuff, thankfully that’s come to an end with a good resolution and we are settling down to normality with a newfound appreciation of each other and life in general. So after the madness that the summer was (I literally blinked and missed it) I was very much looking forward to another favourite time of the year – Halloween break.
I think its the drama-queen in me, but I love any excuse to dress up and be silly – and having kids gives you a licence to join in and do this with them – which of course they really love also. So we had lots of fun activities planned for the break – and now that work looms ahead next Monday, I decided to think back over the last few days and share a little of it on here too – I also like to look back through these posts and use them as a sort of online journal – so even if no-one is particularly interested in this (quite likely) then at least it will record some fond memories for me.
Last weekend we took ourselves off for the day to the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh – I hadn’t been since I was really young and had honestly forgotten how good a day out it is. The rain stayed off – amazing – and they had several Halloween themed aspects incorporated into the visit; ghost story telling in the Old Schoolhouse, fortune telling in the cottage and tasting autumnal food in various places – there were lots of spooky decorations around too. We had a fantastic day.
The next night we took ourselves out for dinner with our extended family and then had a visit to the Halloween Monster Mash in Belfast city centre, and enjoyed the fireworks – the kids squealed with excitement.
Monday saw us prepping for Halloween – we had a friend round for a play date and we made toffee apples, apple tarts and Halloween themed shortbread – messy but lots of fun.
On Halloween night we went out trick or treating in the local area – I used to get so jealous of seeing American films when I was young -seeing all the kids who lived in these amazing neighbourhoods where everyone had eye-wateringly scary decorations and went trick or treating for hours. In my day, all you had was a hollowed out turnip (pumpkins were literally exotic) and your Mum made you a ‘vampire’ cape out of a bin liner. Ah, the good old days.
My kids? Well they came home with FOUR containers worth of sweets, several bags of crisps, Halloween toys AND nearly thirty quid in small change! They have it sorted!
The rest of the week was filled with some nice lunches, visits to soft play and the cinema and some gorgeous lie-ins with the kiddies and me all cuddled up listening to the rain outside while poor Daddy had to get up at 6am for work…
…I laugh but, I only have two more days before I will be doing the same.
Happy Halloween-Break everyone.
(How many weeks until Christmas break?)