Halloween in the Foreign Service

Today is Halloween.  It's our first Halloween in the Foreign Service.  In the past, we've trick-or-treated in our neighborhood.  It was always a walking party.  Kids we'd seen grow up with parents we've known forever.  And visiting neighbors we know very well.  Good times.

This year is different.  Where we live now, there's no block.  But there are a number of apartment buildings full of people in similar situations.  Oakwood does a great job with the holidays.  They had people sign up if they were going to participate.  And then give the trick-or-treaters a list of participating apartments.  It's good fun and great community.

Walking around apartment hallways isn't the same as walking dark, spooky streets.  But it's still fun and people really decorate their doorways.

I know it will be even more different next year.  Most countries don't celebrate Halloween like they do in the US.  But the FS communities really pull together to make it fun for all.

Making Halloween Costumes

Every year I've made the kids costumes for Halloween - well except for their first Halloween when they were both Crew members on Star Trek.

And the year N. wore my old witch costume that my mother had made for me.  O. was a cat that year.

But every year after that.

N. was Josephine Baker when she was a toddler.  I found plastic bananas and sewed them to a belt and she wore it over black pants and a turtleneck.  Warm - and cool!

And O. was Astro Boy one year.  I even made red boot covers and a special hat with the weird tufts of robot hair.

Last year, N. wanted to be a water goddess.  I had her draw me a design and then we went to the fabric store to pick out the fabric.

This year it's been a bit different. All my sewing and craft supplies are in storage.  It makes it pretty challenging.  Especially since N. decided she wanted to go as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books.  I have no desire to hand sew a Hogwarts cape!!!

Luckily, the local Joanne's Fabric has some savvy sales people who turned me on to the fusible tape to put fabric together.

And we ended up with this:

Not bad for fuseable tape!

Snow!!!!

We've come full circle it seems.  When we arrived here back at the end of March, we thought winter was over.  But . . . we did have snow one morning.  But then it melted and it didn't really feel like we'd experienced snow.  And coming from a part of California where it doesn't snow, we really wanted to have that experience too.

Well, we got it - or at least the beginning of it.  On Saturday, the forecast was rain and snow, but I didn't really think it would happen.  But then it did.  N and I were driving around looking for Halloween costume items and the rain started to seem different.  We realized it was snowing!

It was beautiful.  By the time we got home, there was snow on the cars in the parking lot.

And we could see the snow falling through the trees.

So we stayed in, made a good veggie stew and apple crisp.  It was a warm, cozy, family night.

My Son's Sense of Style

When my son started sporting his sister's hair bands on his wrists - I put it down to his own quirky sense of style.  (He is from Berkeley after all!).

But then I noticed that a colleague of mine had similar bracelets . . .

And then I saw this in Oprah's magazine!

They are Goody Doublewear 2In1 Ponytailers.  

I always knew he had a great sense of style.  I wonder what will come next.

He already has some great techniques with his socks.

He got complemented on his socks by a fashionable 20-something in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.

And apparently it's catching on!