This year we are down to only one kid having a parade.  The kids could dress up at BH middle school, but Logan did not want to dress up, so he was off to school as usual.  Connor had wanted to be very scary this year and had wanted a headless bloody costume initially.  That costume was too gruesome for me, so I convinced him to get a slightly less scary Zombie one.  Connor seemed to like the costume, but was contemplating not to dress up for the parade.  I brought his costume with me to school, but at the end Connor kept his decision even though he could tell that I was disappointed.  I was sad that my little one was also growing up and not wanting to dress for the parade already.

    The parade was entertaining as usual, watching all the kids and teachers enjoying this festivity.  The class then took some group pictures before returning to the classroom for the party.  I had volunteered to help out so I stayed.  During the party, I ended up being in charge of taking the photo booth pictures of the kids and I enjoyed my task.  I did make sure I took pictures of all the kids; I also encouraged the adults to take some too.  The kids also rotated through the different stations.  They decorated donuts and enjoyed eating them, they decorated a mini pumpkins and had fun with a game called freeze dance.  An hour of fun time went by fast and the kids had a blast.

    I had stopped volunteering for Art Vistas at least 2 years ago when the school hired an art teacher to teach most of the classes.  This year I signed up as a helper.  I missed the first class while I was in Colorado in Sept, and the second class was last week.  Since I left being an art docent volunteer, they had put together an art classroom; it looked so nice to have all the supply in this classroom compared to how I used to have to gather all the needed supplies and to bring and set up the kids’ classroom or the cafeteria.  This art teacher was nice and calm; the format of the class basically was still the same as how we were told to teach the classes previously.  Being there reminded me how much I enjoyed these art classes.

   It was great spending time with Connor along with meeting his classmates and helping them too.  The class this time was about pointillism and the kids were to dip and dap paint to make a painting.  The class was given quite a bit of time and the entire class lasted 1.5 hours.  The kids made nice artwork, and I enjoyed being there.

    Another cool thing was when we talked about this over dinner at night, the boys said they still remembered when I used to teach those classes.  Logan also added that his classmates thought I did a great job too; this was the first I heard this from him and of course I was quite happy about it.

    Last Saturday at 8pm, the power went out as scheduled and we did not have power for the next 48 hours.  It was really windy on Sunday; at least this power outage seemed to be justified.  Due to the length of this, we ended up losing everything in the fridge and freezer, so on Monday Stuart and I emptied everything inside.  Fortunately our water tank is large enough that we continued to have hot shower during this time.  We were happy also that the boys’ schools continued business as usual.  Over the weekend, we ate out and carried in for our meal.  The tougher part was for Buddy as he was still on bland food due to tummy issue, so I had to use the stove method to make each of his meal.  When the power finally returned on Monday night at 8:30pm, we were all so happy that we sang and danced around while Buddy just stared at us.

    Even though only Connor goes to Graystone now, Logan was interested to go to the school event Pumpkin Bust on Friday last week.  Connor was excited for this event and gathered all his Pumpkin Bust shirts throughout the years.  I rushed home from work and both boys were ready to go.  It turned out that Cole wanted to go as well and had made plan with Logan, so as soon as we walked to school, Logan met up with Cole.  Connor had told me that he would be hanging out with his friends and he would find me when it was time to go home.  Throughout the evening, Logan and Cole would come say hi to me sometimes, and they played some of the carnival games and happy to gather candies.  I walked around spying the kids and chitchatted with some parents on the way.  DeeDee also found me and we caught up for awhile too.  Later, I found Connor and Neil waiting at the Hair Scare booth and Connor wanted his hair sprayed pink,  Other times I found Logan and Connor along with their friends playing at the playground together.  Later in the evening, Stuart and Buddy walked to the park adjacent to the school to meet up with us; Buddy got some attention from other kids.  Right near the end of the event, we finally wrapped up the night to walk home for a late dinner.

    Last week was Pharmacy Week.  The bosses had some treats for the pharmacy staff most days of the week, and we gathered for some pictures too.