The Psychology of Halloween Costume Selection

Here is my obligatory Halloween costume posting. All my little ghouls and goblins are buzzing and bouncing and shooting around the house on sugar highs. It's clearly going to be several hours before they come down to earth long enough to fall asleep, so I thought I would take this time to hide in the office and upload their costume pictures. The choices they made this year are very revealing about their individual personalities, I think.

Zachary chose to be a football player. Yeah, yeah, I know you already know this child is obsessed with anything to do with sports, but I don't think that's the real reason he chose this. And maybe you think he wanted to be a football player because that's what all his friends are going as this year, and he is in sixth grade when things like that really begin to matter to these guys, but that's not really why either. The real reason he went as a football player is that it meant he didn't have to make any effort whatsoever to be creative...I just love that kid.

Noah made a list sometime back when he was in preschool of all the costumes that are scary, and he has been systematically working his way through that list ever since. We have done vampire, mummy, and ghost. This year he chose to get skeleton out of the way. Unfortunately, we didn't try on the costume before we bought it, and when he pulled it on Halloween night and discovered it was 3 inches to short, it was just way too late to do anything about it. It turns out that skeletons just aren't that scary with three inches of ankle and wrist showing. Just call him, "Stretch."

Isaac's choice went something like this, "Isaac, you can be a vampire, a pirate, or a Jedi." Isaac's reply, "Umm....vampire!" There are some disadvantages to being the 3rd boy in a family.

Anna's choice I'm sure comes as a shock to no one....she wanted to be a pink noonicorn. What is shocking, however is that I actually found a pink unicorn costume. She loved it! Then the boys told her that Halloween costumes were supposed to be scary. She thought long and hard about that one. Then she offered her own solution. "I can get a shotgun!"

Love,

Minnie Mouse (I'm not sure what this says about me besides the fact that I aready had the dress. I love Halloween!)

"Alamosa, we hardly knew ye."

October has been a golden, glorious succession of crisp mornings and sunshiny afternoons this year. Or so I hear. I have been out of town for most of the month.

I think I'm recovering from our trip to Alamosa, CO last week with four children and no spouse. This is surely karma for my relaxing getaway of the week before. Cory needed to stay here and catch up on all the work that was piling up while he frittered his time away on a beach, and I felt obligated to take my children somewhere while they are off-track, since this is the last year they will all be in year-round school. So...we made a long overdue trip to south central Colorado to visit my sister and her chillins. (They live in the middle of nowhere so I feel obligated to include as many country phrases as possible. When else will I be able to say things like "dag-nabbit" or "I was fixing to?")

My sister is one of those people who makes you feel like the biggest sloth in the universe. You know the type...teaches her kids Latin, sits on the board for the community homeless shelter, cooks a full breakfast for her family...every day. She makes her own cheese, for crying out loud!

(Just a little side note here. My children have become so accustomed to cold cereal for their morning repast that when Cory got up one Saturday and made pancakes, Anna told him, "Daddy, pancakes are for dinner!")

But my sister, Larissa, (the old goody-two-shoes) is also my biggest blog fan, so I feel extra pressure to make sure I get an account of all the goings on with the "country cousins" included in this here history.

Monday-We drove the 9 1/2 hours to their house, including a 30 minute stop for lunch. Thank goodness for books on CD, a DVD player, and a navigation system. Seriously, traveling with kids has become so easy now that I feel like I should cut a check to my parents to pay them back for all the whining, fighting, and car-sickness their generation was forced to endure without the distraction of "Bugs Bunny" cartoons on continuous play in the back seat.

Tuesday-We got up early to attend the children's play "Grimm Pajamas" at Alamosa's local college, Adams State. It was darling, but I still have not figured out a way to get the theme song out of my head...especially since Zachary has adopted it as his own personal soundtrack. After the show, we drove straight to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Imagine an endless sandbox blowing around the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Now imagine six boys age 6-11. They had a fabulous time. Anna, on the other hand, betrayed her sissy, city roots and spent the morning terrorized. It might be my fault. As she got more and more frustrated on the walk to the nearest dune I may have inadvertently scared her boots off by the following conversation:

Me: It's kind of hard to walk in all this sand, isn't it sweetie?

Anna: Why is it hard?

Me: Well your feet sink into the sand a little, and it makes it hard to lift them back out.

Anna: (face pales, eyes grow wider, I see an image of sinking in quicksand flitting through her mind)...oops.


When the afternoon wind picked up, we packed up the shovels and loaded up the ol' cowpokes for a trip to the pool. (My sister is so smart...what better way to clean off a couple of van-loads of sand-encrusted kids than a dip in the pool? It must be all of that book learning she done got at college.) The pool is actually filled via a local hot spring and was more like taking a long and luxurious bath. I had to threaten, cajole and bribe my kids out of that place.

Wednesday: Here's where the sloth part comes in. While my sister productively checked things off her to-do list (meetings, meal preparation, world peace) I hung out with the kids reading, watching movies and playing board games. In the late afternoon, we all went downtown (through 2 whole streetlights!) to attend the grand opening tour of the city's new water treatment plant. Anna of course was terrified because water treatment includes a lot of ear-piercing machinery pulsing out decibels just slightly higher than your average Ozzie Osbourne concert. That girl is such a wuss...I really must figure out a way to toughen her up to country standards. The boys were interested for the first 5 minutes, and then, driven by boredom, spent the rest of the time trying to turn my hair gray by running around open vats of chemicals. Everyone managed to survive (even through the mayor's speech and reporters' interviews...my brother-in-law is the city manager, so his kids are more inured to this particular type of activity.) We finished the day off by eating ourselves sick at the local Mexican buffet. Isaac thought he had gone to heaven...all the cheese and taco shells he could possibly ever want.

Thursday: It must be a rare sight for a town this size to have such a metropolitan presence because when we woke up Thursday morning, we discovered a picture of ourselves on the front page of the Alamosa paper. Don't believe me? Follow the link below to a search of the local paper. Under the date, enter 10/22/08-10/23/08 and under article text type "water treatment." If you look closely, you can even see Isaac behind Zachary.

http://www.alamosanews.com/V2_search_archives.php?heading=3#

Of course we had to leave town that afternoon to avoid the autograph-seeking masses, so we hitched up a team (okay, so we really just drove in minivans) and rode off to the nearby Alligator Farm. Some local entrepreneurs have taken advantage of their own hot spring by raising Tilapia to sell to nearby restaurants. Many years ago, they hit upon the idea to introduce a few alligators into the system to eat up the waste...kind of organic waste management. With the warm waters, the experiment thrived, and pretty soon, they were the proud caretakers of hundreds of prehistoric reptiles. Always thinking about that bottom line, they hit upon the idea of selling entrance tickets to tourists interested in getting a close-up view of gators far outside the Everglades. I had heard about this place prior to our visit and had always imagined something akin to a zoo...and it is exactly like a zoo...that is if a group of rednecks got together and opened a zoo. Imagine a zoo without any kind of codes or regulations. Imagine power cords dangling precariously over open fish tanks. Imagine a zoo, where the only thing separating you from ferocious, wild animals is a chain link fence, jury-rigged together in several places with ropes and plywood. Imagine a zoo whose sole security system is a kennel of junk-yard dogs and a couple of fractious ostriches. The alligator farm is everything that is great about America and a free-market economy.

We took turns holding the little alligator. I'm a little afraid to post this blog lest the EPA come and shut down the entire operation.

Gives me chills just thinking about it.

Across the entrance from the farm is a "playground." You walk over a bridge, through a gate into a pen with a swing set and slide 30 feet high, a couple of goats, a donkey, a pond, piles of old tires, and a mountain of animal droppings. The only rule here is, there are no rules. On our way out, Zachary forgot to close the gate and we soon discovered we were being followed by a very tall, very stubborn goat. You would think maybe there would be some kind of staff on hand to deal with this kind of thing, but no in the end, we sent our kids off to chase it back. When that didn't work, we told them to try to lure it back to the pen with hay. When that didn't work, we told them to slap it in the right direction. Finally, I had to stop laughing long enough, join the kids, and push the stubborn animal with every ounce of my strength back into the enclosure. I'm pretty sure the owners of the "establishment" were watching these proceedings from their office just to poke fun at us poor, helpless city folk.

Oh, and did I mention that Anna was terrified? When we pulled in, we saw some ducks in a separate pond, and she said, "Um, I don't think those ducks should swim with the alligators."

Friday-We did lots of down-home cooking this day...or Larissa did. I did lots of down-home eating this day. In the afternoon, we attended the college's "Chemistry Magic Show." Just one more way for me to traumatize my daughter. They exploded balloons filled with gas in one of the "tricks." I don't think she'll ever go near a balloon again. The rest of our crowd had a marvelous time however, and even Anna enjoyed going to the lab and doing some experiments of her own after the show.

Doing a little ph-testing.

Saturday-Why is it that the drive home always seems to take twice as long? We survived it though, and came home with colds instead of souvenirs. It was a wonderful week.

Here's what the kids said were their favorite parts of the trip:

Anna-"playing dollies with Nicole" Those two little girls are peas in a pod...we hardly saw them the whole week.

Here they are putting makeup on in the bathroom. After the photo, Anna told Nicole, "She's taking our picture because we are so beautiful."

Isaac-"the sand dunes and swimming"

Noah-"playing boardgames"

Zachary-"I don't have a favorite thing." How typical...you know those city cousins...they are so wishy-washy!

I apologize to all those who may have been offended by the content of this post...especially any alligators or goats who may have seen themselves depicted in an unflattering light. It was intended to be all in good humor.

Travelogue Stardate 10-1-1

Don't you hate it when people send you email bragging about their most recent exotic vacation? That's why I like to post my bragging vacation accounts right here on my own blog instead. So much less obnoxious that way.

Cory and I just got back from a week in Oahu...that's right...just us..no kids (thanks Mom and Dad!) and now it's time to journal the highlights of a relaxing, tropical getaway. I promise only to hit the high points and not record an annoying play by play of all the relaxing hours on beautiful beaches with a refreshing, tropical drink in one hand.

Here are a few of my favorite things (cue Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music).

We tried to balance the week out by spending complete days sitting on the beach doing nothing but reading, snorkeling, and the crossword puzzle and days driving around to all the spectacular sites on the island. I can't decide which kinds of days I like better. Snorkeling was a surprising highlight--we didn't go anywhere special, just right there at the resort where we were staying. I was pretty sure I would see rocks, sand, and maybe a fish or two if I got lucky. Imagine my surprise when I put my mask in the water and discovered entire schools of brightly colored fish, urchins, corals and even sea turtles within arm's length. Completely surreal to see the white legs of tourists splashing in the surf just yards away from me while I followed a brightly colored humuhumunukunukuapua'a along the rocks (yes, it's a real fish, look it up). Then after soaking up enough salt water, I was perfectly content to dry off on a chair in the sand while Cory played volleyball.

The last two pictures represent the great sushi episode known as "Before and After." Okay, I know they are out of focus, but they're also priceless so into the blog they go! Cory is pretty into sushi these days and so convinced his sister Kim and her friend Becky to try it for the first time with us. Can I take a minute here to point out that neither Kim nor Becky are exactly known for great culinary adventure and risk-taking. I think their Island dining highlights include Wendys and Taco Bell at the top of their Zagat rating system. But they were good sports and went along with us to "Banzai Sushi Bar." After much trepidation, spit, and tears, they formed a firm and unchangeable opinion on this particular type of cuisine. This is a case where a picture is definitely worth any of my thousand words...even if it is out of focus.

Cory and I took one day to drive down from the north shore where we were staying, to follow along the eastern coast of Oahu. This drive is fairly rural and dotted with small, charming villages, agriculture, beaches, and shrimp farms. We made it all the way to Pali Lookout, which is a jungle-covered cliff where you can see everything along the eastern shore. It was spectacular..cliffs covered in dense growth, Diamond Head Crater, enormous suburbs tucked between the ocean and the mountains, inland lagoons, all in the same view.

Here is sunset from our hotel. The whole week, I was disappointed with my inability to transfer the gorgeous surroundings into my photography. This picture still doesn't quite do the scene justice, but was something of a triumph for my photo-inept self.

I'm no World War II buff, but our trip to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial was sobering. It's hard to view this peaceful, isolated place as the site of battleships and torpedoes. Nearly 70 years after the Arizona and most of her crew were sunk to the bottom of the harbor, the ship remains there and even continues to emit oil into the water.

The dwindling survivors refer to this phenomenon as "the tears of Arizona."

The gold at the end of this rainbow is the Dole Pineapple plantation...mmm...sorry, got a bit distracted there...hold on a minute while I go wipe off a little drool.




In honor of my father--aka "waterfall hunter"-- we made a valiant effort in this trip to visit a waterfall...Hawaii is famous for them right? Our first effort to seek out "Sacred Falls" involved a drive down the coast, a visit to "Uncle Bobo's," some quick Blackberry research, and the discovery that even though this waterfall shows up on the tourist map, it's been closed for almost ten years after a tragic Mothers' Day landslide that killed 3 people. Not to be discouraged, a few days later, we paid the $10 park fee for "Waimea Falls," hiked the paved trail, began to grow concerned as we ambled next to a very dry river-bed, and discovered that October is the dry season for waterfalls in Hawaii. The guides at the top assured us that they were expecting the falls to open up at any moment, but in the meantime, this pathetic trickle was the only fruit of our earnest labors.



Try as I might, I just can't find a way to capture 15 foot waves into pixels. Surfing looks fun and terrifying at the same time. We watched one surfer ride the waves into shore with a little boy no more than 4 riding along the same surf board on his tummy.





My favorite "field trip" for the week was to the Polynesian Cultural Center. The grounds are divided into different island nations, and at each "village" natives of the island teach you about their history and culture. I love folk music and dancing...and it was great to hear young people who are passionate about their heritage. If we had the time, I would have gladly devoted another complete day to the PCC. The video above is something I taped for Anna at the pageant of canoes. (she's crazy about hula dancing)

Our village tours and activities were followed by a traditional luau and an evening show complete with grass skirts, ukuleles and fire dancers...amazing!

We got to attend the Primary Sacrament Meeting Presentation in the Laie 2nd Ward. Guess what? Sunbeams everywhere are shy and scared about saying their parts into the microphone. And the popcorn effect that happens when kids get up to sing a song must be a universal phenomenon. We also were able to visit the Hawaii, Laie temple just before it will be closed for 18 months of refurbishing.

Someone told us not to miss out on "Puka Dog" in Honolulu because despite the unappealing name, this was the greatest hot dog you would ever have. I wouldn't call myself a hotdog connoisseur, but I have to admit that it was delicious. They toast the bun on the inside, fill it with garlicy-lemon sauce, pineapple salsa and tangy mustard, and then stick the hot dog in. In an ironic twist, while reading the Honolulu newspaper dining section, there was an article about this Cult-following Restaurant. You'll never guess where they ship the hot dogs from? If you guessed Utah, then give yourself a pat on the back for understanding the meaning of the word "ironic."

After a tedious day of travel, we are home with sunburns and sandy suitcases. Next up? It's the kids' turn. I'm taking them to Colorado to visit with cousins while they are off track next week.

I'm Still Here

I have spent the last two hours catching up on all my friends' blogs. Of course, I just got home from a week-long trip and have laundry, unpacking, and settling things to do. Of course, I'm getting ready to leave for another week-long trip in 3 days and have packing and cleaning and preparing to do. Of course, reading and laughing at blog entries all morning is probably not the most pressing priority on my list of things to do. But boy is it good to be back and to see that my regular life is still kicking. Not that I would say no to another week in Hawaii.