Halloween Fun

Marisol was RIDICULOUSLY excited about Halloween. Our good friend and neighbor, Adrienne, LOVES Halloween (it's her favorite holiday) Adrienne told Marisol all her plans for decorating and her party at the BEGINNING of October. So the countdown began - every day, "How many more days till Halloween Mom?"
Luckily we filled the days with planning and decorating and activities. Adrienne even took Marisol shopping for decorations one Sunday afternoon! Marisol also helped her putting the kids' goodie bags together.
Here are some pictures Halloween day of the decorations and us helping Adrienne set up for her party.

Clapping to make the spiders come down out of the tree.

Marisol and her new buddy Noah. Noah and his mom are good friends of Adrienne too, and helped set up.

"Happy Halloween!" :-)

We actually didn't even Trick or Treat because Marisol was too excited about the party (We could barely get her inside to put her Lauren the Puppy Fairy costume on!). We partied hard at Adrienne's and when Marisol said at 9 o'clock - "Ok I want to go Trick or Treating now" Mike and I exchanged worried looks. I told her it was too late and she was upset at first - but some nice neighbors were heading home and we got to go to 3 houses and say, "Trick or Treat!" and she was happy. Made for a very reasonable candy loot too. ;-)
What a fun day.

Zoo-trip highlights

The Orangutan on his high-wire walkway - so cool!

The Cheetahs and the Zebras seem to enjoy teasing each other...

We sat and watched the panda eat for at least 15 minutes! Seems like he could eat all day...

Random Creativity

Marisol posed almost 20 times pretending to sleep...
Here are a few

This was her idea, of course!

Quite the actress!

We made a puppet theater out of a box and several puppets. I love this picture ;-)

A card for Mommy,
She spent quite some time making this for me <3

Fairy Party

Flower decorations and Streamers - Grandma worked hard!

Fairy snacks - many wand shaped :-)

Ready for our guests

List of Fairy party activities:
Favorites included Pin the Star on the Wand and Pass the Package

Christmas lights and decorations helped make it magical

Story time - Tinkerbell

Fairy Portal

An outdoor party

The invitations

Setup

Somersaults!

Lessons learned on a Rainy outing

So yesterday I woke up full of energy and ready for an adventure with Marisol and Gerry. I thought it was supposed to be another beautiful day, and the forecast for our neighborhood said 70 and sunny. Perfect!

We made the preparations. I made lunches. We got dressed. Loaded up the van and stopped at an ATM for some cash.

As we drove out of Alexandria towards Washington DC I noticed that although it was mostly sunny above us, the sky looked very foreboding and ominous where we were headed. uh oh. So I crossed my fingers and kept going - we couldn't stop now!

Leesburg Animal Park is almost an hour drive from us. Five minutes before we got there it started raining. Shoot. Of course I didn't have rain gear - it was supposed to be sunny and 70! Luckily I did bring some warm clothes. I ran through options in my head - go to a store and buy some rain gear? Or at least kill some time till the rain stopped?

We ended up hanging out in the car for half an hour or so then putting our warmest clothes on and braving the weather. The kids were awesome, especially Marisol, who does NOT like to get wet. I told her that I learned a lesson - to check the weather of where you were going, not just your home! She also learned a lesson on the way - 4 headbands in your hair can give you a headache. :-)

They both loved the animals and Gerry is following in his big sister's footsteps - he was brave enough to touch a donkey, pig, and feed some sheep. This surprised me since he is often afraid of dogs at the park!

After the animals we headed over to "Pumpkinville", had some free cider and did as many fun things as we could. I even took them down two huge slides on my lap to spare them wet bottoms (I on the other-hand look like I waded up to my waist into the nearby pond!) They really were troopers and we made the best of it. At least there were no lines - we were almost the only ones there!

Today we are all recovering and slightly sick. You can read about that here.