Halloween

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I finished a session of AECI and started a new job. I miss my students, but I don't miss grading their papers.
My job started right away with a conference on technology with the League for Innovation. First I had training for this project that I'm a part of called Pathways- it's kind of cool. Then I attended conference and also volunteered at the registration desk but it wasn't busy so I got to walk around. I've gotten some good ideas and want to do a whole web page for the Peace Institute. Luckily I can do that as part of my job. I'm appalled at the pervasiveness of violent video games, however. I'm wondering what we can do to transform video games to peaceful tings, especially since they are becoming more and more realistic.
Last night was halloween, and we went trick-or-treating for the first time ever. It was cold, so Leila wore a turtleneck under her tutu, and pants over her tights. She collected candy in her little purse that she got for her birthday. (Actually, SHE calls her diaper bag her purse- funny girl.) We went with Benny, who was dressed as a frog, and his mom,our neighbors on one side, and Angela, the neighbor girl on the other. She's older than the little ones. It was fun to get to meet the neighbors. Some of them really go all out for the holiday with decorations. Angela's sister Amy didn't want to go with us because she was stirring a pot of smoke on their porch, dressed as a witch. Another set of neighbors had the yard all decorated and the man was hiding behind a curtain on the porch and making a hand puppet spider and an enormous spider in the tree move. Another neighbor recognized Leila from the grocery store where she gives her two stickers-one for each hand. I told Leila before hand that she was going to collect candy for mommy. I didn't want her to think she got to eat it all. She thought that was great. It took her a while to figure out what to do and she was saying "christmas" instead of trick or treat. (We've been talking about visiting Grandma and Grandpa at Christmas. They just left and she wants to see them again.) By the end of the night, though, she was muscling bigger kids out of the way to hold out her bag. I had to remind myself that she is only two and doesn't need to fill a big bag of candy or go all over the neighborhood. We just did our street. But I don't think I've been t-or-t since about 3rd grade when Davalin Atchison got me to dress up as a football player as a foil to her cheerleader costume which she didn't wear because it was too cold. And there I was as a stupid football player with a bowl on my head for a helmet.
Ali stayed home because he's been sick. (So has L, that's why she hasn't started at her new school yet. We didn't want to start her yesterday amid all the excitement of Halloween party and parade, so she'll start Wednesday. It's Benny's class, so that's fun.) We passed out candy till we ran out. H was reluctant to do so at first, but I think he actually had fun doing it and getting into the spirit of it all.
This has inspired me to think even more about this photography project I want to do with the neighbors. I have to get something going on that.