Science Club, Halloween Horror Nights, & No Sugar

October is ending. In 3 days. Which means....Carving pumpkins, finishing costumes, Trick or Treating, Chili & Homemade Root Beer, The Ghost & Mr Chicken, World Series (GO GIANTS!), pumpkin pancakes & candy candy candy!!! Halloween is upon us! We love Halloween around here. One of our favorite Holidays. We are spending the evening with our good friends, the Hillis family, & trick or treating in their very awesome neighborhood. A trolley takes you from block to block, how cool is that? Ben and the boys are planning on filling their pillowcases no matter how long it takes. Funny boys.

The boys are going as Zombies, and Sophie is going as Cinderella. Her first choice was Darth Vader. But every costume in her size was too babyish, and then when it was the regular kid costume it was huge on her. So....she went for Cinderella instead. Darth will be next year. :)

In the Spirit of Halloween, we have been trying to do Halloween activities fairly often throughout the month. So far we have decorated the house, made Caramel Apples, made and decorated sugar cookies...Ghosts and Cats were the favorites, been to a couple Halloween parties, watched every kid appropriate Halloween movie in existence, had a black & orange dinner, went to Hotel Transylvania & Ben and I went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. Let's start with that one.

Ben has, of course, been working pretty much around the clock. He loves his work, but still every now and then you need to take a break. And by 5 pm Thursday, Ben needed a break, whether he knew it or not. Fortunately he is married to me and I take good care of him. ;) So, I called up a sitter last minute, and we were off to the Horror nights. Ben has always wanted to go, he loves a good scare and all the gore and creepiness that goes along with it. So, this is kind of perfect for him.

It was great fun. The place was super decked out and definitely had the creepy halloween feel. There was fog machines everywhere, "broken" things all over. People all dressed up following you around in the dark....loved it. I actually liked all that better than the different haunted houses, but those were fun and scary too. We couldn't go there and not go on the Rip Ride Rockit, awesome coaster, and once again loved that ride. We got some food at 11 pm...yes 11 pm at night..sheesh and sat in a dark ally watching all the people getting scared at everything. It was great fun. Before we knew it it was past midnight and time to head home. It was a great time, though I need to clarify I would never ever ever send my teenager there for any reason. SO much alcohol and drunk people, and smoking and who knows what else...it was definitely a different crowd than what we typically hang around. So, don't send your kids there. ever. unless they are 21. There you go.

Also this week was filled with School fun. It was red ribbon week and the kids had fun wearing the different fun things to school each day. James had Pumpkin day, and I was there to help out. The kids were doing different things with the pumpkins, measuring, weighing, counting lines etc. And then the moms were assigned to cut the pumpkins open. All they had were huge Halloween-Stabbing-Knives...I felt very odd walking around the classroom with that big knife and cutting those pumpkins open. Anyways, it was great fun with the kids. I always like spending time in my kids class. Need to go more often.

James also put his name in for the science club at the school. They only pick 24 kids and he really wanted to get in. He loves science more than any other subject and always does well with it. So I was really excited when I got the email that he made it in. He will love it. He was really excited when he found out.

Let's see...oh yeah. Epic thing happened this week. We, as in our entire family of 5, went to a movie together. I know that does not seem like a big deal at all. But you should know we have not done that since....before Sophie was born? I kind of remember why too, it cost $50 for a matinee. and then $20 for 2 drinks and a popcorn. Yep. That's why. Honestly though, the kids loved it. It was a big deal to them to go to the movies and get popcorn and all be there. We saw Hotel Transylvania. It was cute and I loved seeing the kids laugh & laugh at all the jokes. So yeah, it was probably worth the $70. A good Happy memory. Oh, speaking of memory...here's one for ya. Before we left we refilled our bucket of popcorn...just gettin our money's worth...as we walked out of the theater a huge gust of wind came up and suddenly there was popcorn flying through the air everywhere. We tried to cover the bucket, but it was no use, it just went flying. my kids tried grabbing it in the air with their moths. So funny.

And on to the No sugar part of my blog. a few weeks ago I did a Mud run with my friends. It was disgusting. Hanging with my friends was super fun. We stayed overnight stayed up all night, and binged on candy. The candy was all my doing. I love candy. All candy. Anyways, the next day I realized that I was no longer a teenager and that bingeing on candy will make you horribly sick to your stomach. Yuck. So I swore it off. Not for life, not 100%, but about 95%. And I am happy to say I have been good since. Did I have a drizzle of caramel on my green apples when we had friends over for a Caramel Apple night? Why yes I did. Did I go back for seconds? No I did not. did I have any other treats the rest of the week? nope. Sunday I allow myself one smallish treat and that is it.


I am not going to lie, the first week was rough, I hated everyone that was eating treats and I wasn't. But then, as I realized I was feeling better, sleeping better, running better, losing weight, enjoying food more.....I didn't care about eating the treats. It's weird, because I usually am the one making fun of those non sugar people. hahaha. And now I am (sort of) one of them. I say sort of because if I go to a party and they hand me a piece of cake I am not going to give them a gross look and give a lecture on how and why sugar is bad for you. That is just plain old stuck up and rude. I'll take the cake, eat a bite or two and discretely toss it later. No big deal. No feelings hurt. And a little taste of sweetness for me. :)

So there you have it. I'm not all Nazi, but just trying to cut out the sugar where I can. And yes, Ben is going along with me on this too.

Okay, so I know more stuff happened this week, but this is good enough for now. Ben is watching the world series without me, and I have never missed it. Love baseball. So, I am off to go watch the Giants win the World Series with my hub, Have a very Happy Halloween!!!