Trick-Or-Treat!

Hannah and Madison joined us to trick-or-treat around our neighborhood this year. We went for about an hour, then the kids were tired of walking, and they had enough candy anyway. Katie and Emma switched outfits from the ones they wore at my Mom's work. This time Katie was Anna and Emma was Elsa.

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Halloween isn't the most exciting holiday, but the kids like getting candy, and a night of walking never hurt anyone. I had a good time. I was happy David had the night off and was able to go with us.

An Early Halloween

My Mom's work does a trick-or-treating day each year, where the employees can bring their kids/grandkids to walk around the office and trick-or-treat. This year my Mom told me to go, even though she wasn't going to be there, she had a visit with a client. I invited Ashleigh too since Mary also works there. It was a bit weird going without my Mom, they did stop us at the door and tell us the employee is supposed  to be with us, and I was so embarrassed. Like I was trying to steal candy or something, geez lol. We got ready after school at Ashleigh's and she did Katie's hair for me.

Last year for Halloween, Emma was only 1 month, so she didn't really do much. Okay, she did nothing but eat and poop. But this year, she was ready. She had the getting candy thing down. She carried her bucket and carefully put each piece inside. It was so cute.

The girls got a lot of candy and tried to eat a bunch on the way to Gee Gee's, but I took the bucket to prevent that from happening.

Madison's Field Trip

Ashleigh invited me to Madison's school field trip so she wouldn't be alone. I was more than happy to tag along :) I dressed Emma in her Halloween outfit before dropping Katie off at school and we headed over to pick up Ashleigh. The kids learned about some animals when we got there.

Some of the statues were pretty cool. Olaf was cute. We had to follow another Mom into the maze, she was in charge of Madison's group, and she wouldn't wait for us to snap a picture or anything, it was annoying =/

We were finally able to go off on our own after the kids had lunch. If your parent was there, you were allowed to go with them. We rode in the cars for a bit.

Posed Emma for a bit.

And then bought tickets for the train ride that took us all around the corn maze.

It was a nice afternoon together, I'm glad she invited me. Emma had fun, Madison had fun, and I had fun.

Short Walk

The kids and I went around the neighborhood on Katie's scooter and Emma's car. It was a nice night outside and we had fun together. We walked up to the school near our house and back home again. Emma likes her car, and Katie is getting better on her scooter every time she uses it.

Girl Scout Pumpkin Patch

We had a Girl Scout outing at the pumpkin patch this week. The girls were given tickets to the petting zoo, and the parents had to pay if they wanted to do anything else. Of course they did. I forked over $20 just like the other Moms, and we let the girls play.

They each took turns carrying the poor bunny around ;p

They each played a game and won a prize.

Then we ended the night with a few rides and bouncy slides and headed home.

It's nice to be able to do something fun with the troop. A nice break from all the meetings.

Katie's Second Grade Field Trip

Mary was nice enough to watch Emma for 2 hours for me so I could attend Katie's field trip with her. It was Cirque Zuma Zuma. I didn't care for it, it didn't look like Katie and her friends did for very long either, but I was still glad I was able to be with Katie anyway. It's hard to spend time with her alone now that I have two kids. I miss her.

Las Vegas Morning

After our night at RiSe. we woke up early enough to go swimming before we had to leave to go back home. Katie LOVES swimming in the hotel pools, and I always try to make sure our hotel has a pool when we go somewhere. 

It was pretty chilly so Emma didn't want to stay in very long, so we waited for my Mom, Katie and Mary to be done.

Online, it said the pool had a cool fish theme, when we got there...I guess it was all taken down? All that remained was the waterfall. It was still fun though. The shallow end even had real sand like a beach.

Mary put $1 in a machine just for fun, but she ended up walking away with only 34 cents, so she laughed and left it on the seat.

We went for breakfast at iHop, which was not good. I don't think any of us liked our food. We hopped in the car in search of something else to do. We ended up walking around the strip for an hour or two before heading home.

It was a nice morning. Katie ended up forgetting her new doll at the M&M store and we had to go back and get it for her after calling to make sure it was there. My poor Mom had to go and look for it in that 4 story building. There was a lot of traffic on the way home, we finally had to stop at Peggy Sue's diner for dinner since we weren't going to be home until late. Super fun weekend though, so glad I bought tickets. This was all a birthday present for my Mom, so I hope she had a lot of fun! I did! ;)

RiSE

This has to easily be the best trip I've been on. It was amazing. 

We started driving early Saturday morning to get to Vegas. I got us a room at the Rio where our shuttle was picking us up from. We got there just in time to check in (it says please don't come before 4pm or you'll be charged extra.) First things first, we had to find our tickets for RiSE. I had no idea where to get them from, and neither did any of the hotel workers =/ We finally saw people who were also looking, and they helped us find the tent, in the parking lot, all the way in the back of the hotel. Geez, that took a while, we were so lost. I guess there was also an anime convention this weekend, so it was crowded in the back too. We got our tickets, which was not organized at all, they just handed me the number of tickets I said I bought. Very odd and very easy to steal. But anyway, we got our tickets, went to the car to get our luggage and put it in the hotel room before heading over to the shuttle. It was a 30 minute ride to the designated area that would be safe for all the lanterns to float around. Then we had to walk about a mile, maybe more, to get to the spot with all our mats and lanterns. It was a nice day out. Mary carried Emma in the backpack thing for me, and I took pictures ;)

When we got there, they handed us pens with the schedule and spot to write our hopes and dreams and things on, in case we want to remember what we wrote on our lanterns before floating them off into the night. It did not start on time however. I guess a lot of the people coming in, were experiencing high traffic since there was only one road/freeway to get there, and they made us wait an hour before lighting the lanterns. They said there would be food for sale and not to bring our own, so we went to buy snacks. All of the good food was sold out. Like adult lunchables and fruit plates and things. All that was left were red apples, cookies, licorice, and candy. Not a very good dinner. Bummer. Plus, they didn't even check our bags, we totally could have brought Subway or something. Now we know for next time. We bought a few snacks and went back to our seats to wait and write on our lanterns.

Finally they announced we could start the countdown to light the first lanterns. We were having a BIT of trouble figuring out how to do that haha. I guess it just takes some time for the fire to catch good enough.

When the first wave flew up into the air, I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful. It was amazing.

We each had 2 lanterns, so we were lighting them and enjoying the night, having fun. They were big enough that you needed more than 1 person to light them, too.

When it was time for the fireworks, we bolted, hoping to beat the crowd to the shuttle buses. We were on one of the first to leave. We made it back in good time, headed to our room and knocked out. The next day we heard about people who came from another hotel, having a lot of trouble getting back and being stuck there til around 3am with kids, too. So sad. I guess the bus drivers didn't know we started an hour late, and they were only contracted til 11pm, so after that they left. It was so cold, there was no food, and the bathrooms were at least a mile away from the buses so anytime you had to pee, you had to make the trek back to the lantern site. So sad. I'm so thankful our transportation was alright, esp having Katie and Emma with us.

Riley's Farm

Katie had the day off school, so my Mom planned a trip to Riley's Farm. The only problem was, since it wasn't a weekend, they didn't have many activities going on.We had lunch, which was super yummy and nice cold drinks in their cool mugs. Topped off with a cookie dessert, yum.

The kids walked around exploring, climbed trees, and posed for pictures :p

Apple picking was pretty cool when we found these handy dandy apple picking tools.

The girls just loved this secret clubhouse. They wanted to play in it all day.

When we ran out of things to do at Riley's, we headed over to a pumpkin patch we passed on the way. It looked so cool, a lot of neat rides and things to do there. The kids each got some tickets and were able to go  on some bounce houses and go-karts and things. We let them pick, mostly. We did have to stop them from spending $40 on just bounce houses and slides, lol.

Before we left the girls each picked a pumpkin to take home and carve =)

A nice way to spend a day off off school!

Stu Miller's Pumpkin Patch

I know this pumpkin patch is small and has the same few rides every year, but I really like taking Katie every year, and now Emma too. Of course Emma couldn't do anything yet, but Katie was able to go on the rides with her cousins and they had a lot of fun together.

Hopefully next year Emma will be able to join the kids on some of the rides or bounce slides. It's hard watching other kids have all the fun.