This week was full of festivities for Halloween and Eliza and James totally got into the spirit of things.

Tuesday we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat at the church. Things were a bit crazy with me having to be there early to help set up and Sarah trying to get the kids ready to come down in time. We got everyone there though and Eliza had a great time going around getting candy. She dressed up as Rapunzel and she loved it. She loved getting candy in her jack-o-lantern and was so polite and nice with everyone.

On Wednesday we had a party at my work for the kids to come to. This is the first year that we’ve gone because Eliza is old enough to appreciate it now. They had the deck between two of our buildings at work full of games for the kids to play. Eliza got to fish for a duck in a pond and get a prize. She also got to decorate a little pumpkin with stickers. She thought that was pretty cool. We also did a beanbag toss and had some popcorn. They had a guy there making balloon animals and she got a kitty. We had to talk her out of sleeping with it! I also realized while the family was at work that I had never actually shown them my desk where I spend all my time so I took them all upstairs and showed them where I sit.

Thursday night into Friday morning we got a ton of rain. We had some record flooding to the south of Austin. Here where we live we only got 5 inches of rain but down south a bit they had 12 inches or so. The weather was so crazy on Friday that I decided to work from home. There was a tornado warning on Friday morning for our area so that was a bit exciting. They had all the kids shelter at the schools for two hours. We were fine here and there wasn’t ever any sign of an actual tornado. Part of I35 was also closed down by San Marcos because the creek under the highway was over 20 feet above it’s banks and was running over the bridge. Luckily everything was safe there but things were dicey for a bit.

As Friday wore on, the weather started to clear up a bit and Sarah and I decided that we were going to try to go to the temple as we had originally planned. We had a great drive down with just a little rain and had a good time doing sealings. We haven’t done sealings in a while and it was good to do them again. We got to participate in a proxy family sealing which was pretty cool.

Saturday, of course, was Halloween. I spent the morning (the early morning) with the scouts. We took a few of the boys out to Lampasas to fly planes with a group called Young Eagles. I only had three boys come but they had a good time. They got to go up for a 20 minute flight and one of them got to try his hand at the controls. While I was out having fun, Sarah dragged the kids to her missionary coordination meeting.

Saturday night we spent trick-or-treating. Eliza was excited about it all day. She kept being totally ready to get her costume on and go out with her jack-o-lantern. I got to take her out first while Sarah handed out candy at home. We went up and down our road and to the cul-de-sac behind our house. Eliza was very brave and polite and said thank you to everyone. I asked her several times how she was doing with the “long walk” and she would respond “I not tired!” Sarah and I switched roles after we finished the cul-de-sac and Sarah took her out for the rest. James and I were together at home and I tried to keep him from eating the candy we were supposed to give out! We had a great time and actually had a net negative on candy (we gave out more than we brought in) which is good.

James has been getting closer and closer to walking this week. He will take up to 20 steps at a time especially when he’s walking toward someone. I think that this week he’ll make the step (pun intended) to walking everywhere. Both of the kids have been a bit congested this week and nights have been a bit interesting sometimes.