Halloween

The Halloween Season has arrived back home and there is NOTHING here. NOTHING. No fall leaves crunching beneath my feet, no sweet smell of fall when we leave our home, no stores stocked to the rim with Halloween goodies, no pumpkins growing in the garden or stacked a mile high outside of grocery stores, no scarecrows and jack-o-lanterns appearing outside people's homes, no talk of costumes, treats and parties, no candycorn, no mini-chocolate bars, no trick-or-treat bags to choose from. Nothing.  Oh, my aching-Halloween-loving-heart.

I asked someone here, "Do people celebrate Halloween here?"  She responded, "A little," then asked, "Is it a big deal in the states?" Is is a big deal?  Is the sky blue?  Is the grass green?  Yes, it is a big deal.  Oh, my aching-Halloween-loving-heart.

So, Coop and I are taking matters into our own hands. This is going to be the best dang Halloween Australia has ever seen.  (Won't be that hard to do, huh?) First, we began with painting. We painted approximately a hundred pictures using orange and black and yellow.  We put candy corn on our brownies. We made pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns and colourful Halloween designs.  My mom sent us a huge box with all kinds of Halloween goodies inside and my wonderful friends back home sent candy corn!  I WILL find a pumpkin for us to carve- somewhere.  We are going to make black and orange play dough.  We will read Halloween stories. We will bake as many Halloween treats as we possibly can. We will make our costumes- Coop says he wants to be a firefighter so it will be black shirts and black pants with red stripes (yeah for red duct tape), fire boots and fire hats for all.  And, best of all, we are going to have our own Halloween celebration in our home and invite our new friends to join us.  We will make this a wonderful Halloween season no matter what!

Oh, my happy-Halloween-loving-heart!