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We mostly used what we had at home for costumes and purchased just Kamree's hat, Kaiya's wings and mask. Everyone decided on Halloween day what they were going to be except for Kamree. She wore her costume to school because she was so excited and was one of about 3 kids in the entire school dressed up.
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Most of the kids here wore scary costumes perhaps because that is all that is sold in the stores. When the kids went out trick or treating there were some kids that weren't dressed up at all and many were barely dressed up with just scary make-up. We saw no princesses, or superheroes, but lots of witches, vampires and zombies.
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The candy haul was definitely different from what the kids are used to: Unwrapped candy, no chocolate except for chocolate Easter eggs, breath mints and cough drops. It made the thought of raiding the kids treat bags while they are asleep not too tempting.
"Trick or Treating" here is done a little differently since it is so new. Instead of "Trick or Treat" it is "Truco o Trato", and only about 1 in 10-15 houses participated, many gave a handful of candy instead of just one or two. We only had about 25 kids come by our house. The kids that came to our house would hold out their hands for me to fill and then they would take their handful to a parent that was waiting with a bag, usually a very small grocery bag. Some kids had no bags and just started eating the candy or would stick it in their pockets. There were several older kids that came including a couple that seemed to be close to 20.
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"Celebración de las Razas"
The Saturday before Halloween, when most wards in the US were having Halloween parties, our ward had a "Celebration of the Races" party. We all brought food from our home countries and many did traditional dances which they made us promise to do the next year. This girl is from Spain and she did a great Flamenco dance. The flags in the background show all the countries represented in our ward.
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Here are most of the people that participated in the dancing program. The party was supposed to start at 6 but didn't until 7 and the program was before the food so needless to say we were starving by the time we ate at 8pm. The food was cold, but most was still really tasty. FYI this room is also where we have our Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School and Relief Society.
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When we were leaving, some of the missionaries intercepted us and informed us that our vehicles were all blocked in. There was a concert across from the church and apparently not enough parking spots. The entrance and exit to this dirt overflow parking lot were blocked by cars. It seems there aren't many rules when it comes to parking in Spain-pictures to come soon in another post! Brent and the elders pushed this black car back so one set of elders could get their car parked next to it out and then we followed and another set of missionaries after us.
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Parque Juan Carlos 1
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| Clara, Morgan, Isaac, Kamree and Kyle. |
November 1st is All Saints Day and we all had the day off which went perfectly with a late Halloween night. We met up with our Madrid American friends at another one of the great big huge Madrid Parks. We barely saw any of it, but we found plenty to entertain us for 6 hours.
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| Kaiya, Mason, Isaac, Morgan, Clara, Kyle, and Kamee. |
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| Mason on the pinky finger! |
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Morgan and Isaac jumping right into it! Notice the olive trees in the background. They were everywhere at the park and were loaded with unripe olives.
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| A very candid photo of Kamree and Hailey from the other side of the playground. |
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After the kids played for several hours we began a great game of Ultimate Frisbee with all the adults and all the kids except Molly the darling little munchkin!
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Hmm? Morgan and Isaac, the cool kids!
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| On the way home we enjoyed a beautiful sunset that filled the sky. |
That giant finger-hand thing is really something!
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