Me Gustan Tus Zapatos...: Happy Halloween!!

Sadly, Halloween is one of those holidays that we've had to make do with on a smaller scale here in Barcelona. Unlike in the States and other countries, it's not a holiday that's very popular here and the kids don't go door to door to get candy like we do at home. I didn't even see pumpkins here (and they are really small ones) until about 2 weeks ago. However, once again, my kids are surprising me. They are ok with this. They said they can trick or treat one way at "home home" and do it another way here. As long as they got to dress up...that's all that mattered.

Dressing up...hmmm... I'm not the most creative person and watching TV last night Aidan saw a commercial that involved a sewing machine and asked me what that machine was... I think that says it all right? There would be no home made costumes here. After asking them what they wanted to be for Halloween, I set out on my mission to find a Yoshi and Luigi costume for them (from Super Mario Bros for those not in the know). My original plan was to bring them back with me from the States since their school party was on Friday but then the party changed to Thursday, the day I returned and it was a little too tight for me. So I needed to order the costumes early and have my dad ship them to me. Easy right??

I ordered the costumes on September 24th thru Spirit Halloween (won't EVER use them again). Liam's costume shipped right away, but not Aidan's. I called a few days later to inquire about the delay. It turns out that despite the website saying otherwise, his costume was out of stock until 10/15. Too late to get it shipped to me here in Spain. So I cancelled his order and spent the next 5 hours online looking for a Yoshi costume in stock. I found one in CA and had it shipped (to the tune of $45) via 3 day to my parents so that they could get the costumes out by that Monday to ship to me. My dad called me Monday and Aidan's costume had arrived but Liam's still wasn't there. What???? That shipped 2 weeks before! I did the tracking and it was stuck in VA. Seriously could this be any more of a pain in the ass? Maybe I should have made the costumes afterall! So I then had to order another costume for Liam. Once I had confirmation that it had shipped, my dad called me and said he had picked up one. Too late to turn this one around so now we've got an extra Luigi costume (in addition to the one that showed up around 10/18 from our original 9/24 order). But the good news in all of this, despite all the extra headache and money, we got the costumes before I even left to go back to the States...whew!!!

I would hate for the kids to miss a fun holiday like Halloween because we were living in a foreign country and so I'm really thankful that their school puts on a really big festival to celebrate the big day. The unfortunate part for me is that the festival was the evening that I got back from the States so you can imagine my condition to go to a huge party with lots and lots of screaming children. But it's all good and they had an amazing time!! I did lose Liam a few times and by the end of the night he had somehow lost his shoes (which were found by his teacher the next day). The kids had a fabulous time playing with their friends, playing games and just running around in their costumes. It was nothing like the way we do things back home, but no one seemed to care and that's part of what made it so great - traditions are wonderful to have but it's ok to start new ones too.

Luigi and Yoshi in our back yard (check out my fancy dryer to the left - yes it is outside!)

As we enter the school campus

Crowds of people

A content Liam has some candy

Aidan and his BFF in Spain, Santi

Yoshi, Mario and Luigi

Liam wins a glow necklace after getting a pumpkin in the hole (after several tries)

Aidan taking a break from all the fun

Luigi and Mario!

The following day, Friday, the kids had a Halloween parade at school. I arrived early to help Aidan's class get ready for it. Some of the upper classes did some performances as well and the parade was well received by everyone. A great way to start off the long weekend here (we have Monday off for All Saints Day). I hope everyone at home has a fun (and safe) Halloween!!!