Rocktober!

The year is running away from me again, I just can't believe that we are already more than half way through Rocktober, yes it's Rocktober since we have been listening to "Nova" radio.  The weeks just seem to be flying in and along with it, the cold weather.  This is really a busy time of year, both socially and work wise, although our Christmas party has been cancelled at work, or shall I rather say postponed - seems less than half of the company can commit to the same week-end, so it has been pushed out till the end of January, and looks like we are having it outside of Ireland which should be fun!

Well Halloween is just around the corner and this year for some reason there seems to be a lot more going on, Em has to dress up for school on Thursday, then they are having a Halloween walk at a park near us on Sunday, the whole of next week while she is at daycare they are doing Halloween stuff and of course a party on Friday.  And of course then there is the real Halloween on the 31st, so this year Halloween is 10 full days for Em - wish I was a kid in this day and age!

And after Halloween it will be the mad rush towards Christmas, which will be very quiet for us again this year, but I actually prefer it that way.  So that is what is happening in Ireland at the moment, not anything too exciting!

But I am looking forward to putting my new camera to good use at the Big Halloween event on Sunday, and my friend and I have decided we are going to dress for the occasion too, now just have to convince D!

Samhain, Haunted Forest & Fireworks
·                                 Start Date: 24 October 2010
·                                 End Date: 24 October 2010
·                                 Venue: Marlay Park
·                                 Time: 5.00pm - 9.00pm
·                                 Price: Free
·                                 Save to: MyDublin
Visit Marlay Park in your Halloween costume for a spooky walk through the haunted forest! Made bigger and better for 2010 the haunted woods are not for the faint hearted with spooky characters, scary noises, the eerie fog and strange sights.

The haunted trail through the woods will be open from 5pm to 9pm so visitors can enjoy the spooky woods in their own time either before or after the fireworks.

One of the highlights of the evening is Marlay Parks own special fireworks display which launches into the night sky at 7.00pm - this can be viewed from the fireworks viewing area is in front of Marlay House.

The observance of Halloween, which dates from the dark ages, has long been associated with thoughts of witches, ghosts, devils and hobgoblins. Today, many of the young and “young-at-heart” take a more light-hearted approach and the colourful festival has become family-oriented celebration.

Pumpkin Cancer

A week after Halloween, our Jack O'Latern was struck with Pumpkin Cancer and we had to put him out!!!

Halloween Banana

Terri this is exactly what he looked like, except he had an umbrella in one hand and a 6 pack in the other.

Halloween through the years ...

Halloween

Emily went to a party tonight so I was quite dissapointed that we never got to go "Trick or Treating", but at least we still had the kids come round to our house.  I had to go and pick her up at 8:00 PM from the party and of course they were all hyped up on sugar!  But it was so weired driving along the road and seeing people everywhere dressed up, I guess this is the first time I have ever been out driving on Halloween.  Going up Milltown road there was a guy dressed as a Gladiator walking down the road, with not a care in the world as if it was his normal form of dress.  Lots of girls dressed as witches and cats, and I saw some hippies too - then on the way home from Sonny's house we stopped at the spar in Milltown to get a bottle of water and there were 4 guys going in to buy booze, they were all dressed up but for the life of me I can only remember the one dressed as a banana as Em made such a fuss over him, laughing and pointing ha! ha! a banana ;) it was fun, I think next year we will have to go to town and see all the party goers! 

Derrick carved a pumpkin for the first time in his life and honestly did quite a good job I thought, we didn't get to go and see all the houses decorated, but maybe in the morning we will take a walk, all in all it was a good day - hope you had a good halloween.

Oh yes I was going to tell you about the party Emily went to, well Sonny and her were both at the creche in Milltown from the time they were a few months old, then when they left in July last year to start school, Sonny went to a school in Ranalegh and Em of course went to JS, so they have not seen each other for about a year, his mom invited Em over and they went to a party at Sam's house who is another kid that was at Creche with them from a baby and ended up with a few kids Connor and Shay who were all at creche with her, so she had an absolute ball.  I think she has just had the best week ever.

The Big Halloween, Housewarming, Birthday Bash

Well the preparations started on Friday, both D and I took the day off. I spent most of mine at the shops getting stuff and then popped into M for a cuppa and home to start the soup.

D helped me peel and grate all the vegetables (like a good husband should), then I cooking at about 4, while D put up some decorations. D then picked up Em and of course we did the whole trick or treat thing that you read about in the last post.

So Saturday morning and up with the sparrows, D and M off to dancing and Drama and I started to move furniture and just get things orderly for tonight. Finally at about 6 pm I went up to get dressed, by this time I was already wrecked from all the preparation, convinced Emily not to wear her party dress but to put on the nurses outfit (she looked so cute).

So I opened my bottle of Pink Champagne that Trish had given to me when I left my last job, now order of events the first guests to arrive were, The ice hockey player, prisoner and the 2 schoolgirl FBI agents, next was the Joker & the pirate girl, then the She & He Devil, then the bird watcher and the GO GO couple, and so it went on, it was so great that everyone had gone to so much trouble to get dressed up. However, I must have forgotten to tell Catherine that it was fancy dress, sorry Catherine. Lisa looked lovely in her 1920's outfit.

I spent most of the evening in the kitchen chatting and baking pizza, but it was fun - Siobhan arrived dressed up as a Devil witch and I did not even recognise her when she came through the door, so it was decided that she got the prize for being the least recognisable person at the party, you will have to come and fetch your champagne Siobhan.

Eventually Bob,who looked like a very convincing Pete Docherty Cormac, Vera & Declan arrived by this time I had already had to much champagne, Bob spent the evening scaring the bejaysus out of the poor kids, but they kept coming back for more. I thought the kids would probably just spend the evening watching DVD's in our bedroom, but they had more fun than the adults. The state of the house the next day would prove it.

By about 12:30 everyone started to leave except for the die hards, I remember that most of my South African friends had left by about 1:30 and at 2:00 in the morning the Irish fellas were outside round the fire singing "NEIGHBOURS" on the top of the voice, Tam had the good sense to call two cabs and get everyone out the house, thanks Tam.

Well Sunday morning we woke or should say were woken by Emily at 9:00 am, by the way she passed out at 12, so we crawled down stairs nursing the hangover and started to clean, wash and do everything, it took D and I 6 hours to clean the house!!! But well worth it, we won't be having a bash like that for a long time to come.

Thanks everyone for all the gifts, I think we have enough wine to last us for at least a year! Till next time goodbye.

Trick or Treat ...

Do we teach our kids to beg from a very young age? Emily was so excited about going trick or treating, we also done the house up this year and I bought loads of sweets for the kids who would come to our house as well. D really got into the spirit of things and put on his costume in the hope of trying to frighten some trick or treaters, but most of the kids just shook their heads and as they walked away muttered something about the weird guy under their breath.

Well it must have been the coldest night of the year, but at least it wasn't wet, so Em and I trekked around the neighbour hood. I taught her to look for the houses that had their lights on and also those with decorations, if the house was in darkness or only one small light on, then you knew there would be no treats there. Well Em had two small bags and I had another and I tell you something, the generosity is something else - after about 15 houses the bags were full. We noticed the kids that came to our house had huge sacks, but "HELLO!" how much can one kid eat? I ask you!

It was actually amazing most people who are in the spirit of things are really friendly and some houses really go OTT with decorations, the best one we saw was a house up the road, that was dark and full of bushes and inbetween there was a tombstone with all kinds of messages around, and Em was not one bit frightened at all. But by 7 o'clock she was tired and cold and just wanted to go home, so we did but it was a good halloween.

This is Halloween

House Warming - Halloween Party

I wanted to tell you all about our house warming party, we decided that the 1st of November would be a great day to celebrate and we could do a joint celebration of D's birthday, Halloween and out House warming - it's going to be a fancy dress and I am already so looking forward to decorating the house. It will be our first Halloween that we will be able to decorate the house and hopefully have kids come to our door trick or treating. I have already bought some decorations but hope to get lots more, Emily is so looking forward to it as well!