Happy Halloween!

Last night we went trick-or-treating like most other folks in our area.  Whenever a holiday such as this falls on a Sunday, most everybody celebrates it the Saturday before (it's a religious thing since Sunday is the Sabbath.)  Some kids have figured out that they can go both nights and really load up.  :)

Anyhoo, here are the kiddo's all dressed up:

 Obviously, Rigdon wasn't up for any pictures. 

So let's see if you can guess who everybody is, let's start with Aubrey:

She is probably the hardest for some to figure out....but I won't give it away just yet.  Keep thinkin!

Next, Ronin:

 Ronin is GI-Joe.

And then Connor:

Connor is Snake Eyes.

Finally, Rigdon:

 I know, easy, Batman.  But a cute Batman.

So here's a clue for Aubrey's costume - I am dressed up as her character friend:

I think this second clue definitely gives it away:

If you guessed Alice from Twilight, you're right!  Good job!  (I am Bella with a bad hair dye job since all I could find was a black wig.)

We had so much fun making Aubrey up as Alice.  We even dyed her hair a darker brown (didn't want to go too dark though) and cut it a little bit to match the hairstyle a little more.  Then we sprayed glitter all over her face and arms so that she would "shine like diamonds" in the sun.  Love it!

For the final touch (and just for the fun of it), I later changed her eye color to golden-brown in photoshop since we didn't have time to order any vampire contacts (yeah, you can actually buy those - gold-brown or red!)

We tried to match up with one of Alices' outfits in the first movie...I think we got pretty close with that too.

___________________________________________________

Friday night we attended our church Halloween Party.  We were served up some sloppy joes and later went trick-or-treating around the classrooms.  However, you had to work for your treat, you couldn't just grab and go.

This one made me laugh so hard....

 Let me explain, Mr. Beck and Mr. Albright (above) have sprayed themselves with either shaving or whipping cream.  In order to earn your treat you had to throw Cheeto puffs at them and get your puffs to stick.  They crack me up just looking at these pictures, what a crazy and funny idea.

Rigdon's having a go at it.

If you had really good aim and wanted a challenge...you could get them to catch a few puffs in their mouths too.

Arrrr...ya gotta answer three questions to look in me chest for yer treasure.

It's always fun to check out everyone else's costumes.  Here are a few that I really liked:

Above: "White trash"

 Above: Cat in the Hat with Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Cute!!!!

______________________________________________

Saturday evening we did our door-to-door trick-or-treating. 

Aubrey noticed pretty quickly how people would give Rigdon extra candy because they thought he was  cute.  Guess that means I just might have to help him with all of that extra stuff he got.  We don't want him getting a tummy ache now do we?  And since Jed is gone, it's all up to me to make sure that he doesn't, right?  :)  

Look at all of them....just waiting for that door to open.

It was a perfect night for trick-or-treating, the temperature was in the 50's and there was NO wind!  A rarity indeed, considering some years it's either freezing, blowing, and/or snowing!  So we stayed out for a few hours and the kids got a whole bunch of candy.

 Pretty soon Rigdon caught on with what to do....ring the doorbell

 and someone comes out with candy! 

 Happy Halloween everyone!

Training In Action

What do you think, construction workers who like to wear masks?

 Nope, it's a mock scenario training day at the state police academy for the police cadets.  That guy there on the left?  That's my hubby (above.) 

Jed has long been involved with carrying out police training for many years, either for his own police department, new police cadets at the state academy or university programs, or other police agencies.  (Obviously he isn't doing any police stuff now, just all military training for the next year.)

Jed is the one of the graders that evaluates each cadet on their tactics and decision making skills during scenarios played out by other police officers. 

This training happened earlier this year, but I am just seeing these for the first time.   Which is why they are now just being posted.

Why all the masks?

 The cadets use air soft guns during the training so if a scenario ends up involving a "need to shoot" situation, the officers can actually shoot a dangerous suspect with paint balls or sometimes even a suspect will have a weapon and fire on the officers.

Even the graders use masks.

From the looks of this photo...this could be a boyfriend/husband beating on his girl.  This officer decides to take action.

Looks like everyone is playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie here and they all fell down.

It's fun to look at these pictures...I don't usually get to see what Jed does when it comes to his police training.  I find it all very interesting to see.

Traditional Halloween Treats

Me and the kids got together a couple of evenings ago and made one of my favorite childhood Halloween treats - caramel apples.  Yummy!  Yummy!   

I've cheated in years past and just bought the apple dip...but they just don't tast the same as the old fashioned way of making them.

So this year I decided to have a go at them.  I tried them once years ago and failed miserably at getting the caramel to melt and gave up.

But not this year.  I was determined.  :) 

First, I bought a whole lot of those little square caramels and then got my kids to unwrap every single one.  This was my job too when I was their age.   I've since graduated to the heavier responsibilities.  

Keep it up kids, you're doing good, and no, you can't eat any of them. 

What is Aubrey looking at out the window?  SNOW!!! 

Yep, we had our first official taste of snow...even though it lasted just briefly it still counts in my book.  I am really not looking forward to winter just yet.

It didn't take Rigdon very long to figure out what those little brown cubes were and despite our best efforts, he still managed to sneak a few in his mouth.

 Just about done.

Meanwhile, I washed and prepared the apples for dipping.

I melted the caramel cubes in a double boiler pot.  My goodness, that caramel takes quite awhile to get it to the right consistency!  No wonder I gave up years ago...I didn't realize it takes FOREVER to melt the cubes down.  I had to add a tiny bit a milk here and there to help move it along.

Success!!!  The caramel is nice and smooth.  Apple dipping time.

Connor was my apple holder-rotator-guy, rotating the apples until the caramel cools off enough so that it doesn't run off the apple once it's set down.  Once cooled a little bit, we dipped the bottom of the apples in a bowl of sugar.  This helps the caramel apple from getting stuck to the wax paper.  (This was always my favorite part to eat as a kid.)

Finishing up the rest of the apples.

Well, by the time the apples were done, it was too late to eat them.  So they became the after-school snack for the next day.  Don't they look so pretty?  And yummy?  Mmmmmmm.

Delicious!