Halloween is a big deal

All our kids were so excited about it, it made all of us get excited too. Actually, Kelly was already excited. If we didn’t even have kids in our neighborhood we probably would have still dressed up and done something. But since there are lots of kids and we spend so much time with them, we have a good excuse for how into it we got haha. I think Kelly started talking about it in her class at the beginning of October, they even had a countdown chain that they took a loop off of everyday. My Kindergarteners were pretty excited as well, even though they didn’t really have a concept of when Halloween actually was (everyday of October is Halloween apparently). The Wednesday before Halloween, we took the Kindergarten class, minus two students, to a fall carnival at Tara’s church in Decatur. They got to go on pony rides, do rock climbing, jump in a bouncy castle, and of course get candy for playing pointless games! I hung out with Marlen and Stephanie, two of the sweetest and best-behaved girls in our class. All the girls wore princess costumes that Tara bought them, and the Crystian and Brallan (pronounced Brian, I love the Hispanic spelling haha) wore GI Joe costumes. They were all so adorable.
Sometimes I feel like what I am doing is so ridiculous, walking around a carnival in a pretty rich, nice area, with two bilingual Hispanic kindergarten girls who live in a trailer park. Someone referred to me as their mom, and I just felt like laughing at the whole thing. Who does this? Seriously, so many of the things we have been doing are things I wouldn’t ever have done at home, and that so many people just don’t have the opportunity to do. That’s a great thing about Mission Year I guess. Tara jokes about how her goal is to take videos of us doing the most random things possible. So far we have video of me and Chelsea driving a Bobcat bulldozer, some of us hitting piñatas, and some of us hanging out in an Emory University frat house, with 50 plus or minus children in costumes making a mess of themselves with college students helping them.
About the frat house thing… So on Saturday, Halloween, we got up and did devos and then rode to the church where we do the afterschool program with some of the older girls to make penguin ornaments for Tara to sell at a missions conference thing. The girls made them, with our help (I was in charge of the hot glue gun assembly line) and then we went back home to prepare for the afternoons Halloween shenanigans. Rachael, Andrew, Joseph, and I left at about one with the 5th graders , because there were too many kids to take all at once. So we went out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant near the college. This was another one of those weird situations that make me laugh and wonder what the heck I am doing. We are in the restaurant with 10+ 5th graders, eating Mexican food and watching soccer on the tv… in Spanish. I took a great video there as well.
When the other van loads got there they picked us up and we went to the fraternity. The kids carved and painted pumpkins and caused general havoc and destruction before going trick-or-treating with the students. It was really fun, both the kids and the students had a great time. And we had a great time because we didn't have to watch all the kids constantly. They were the college students problems haha. All the kids, especially the older boys, got a crazy amount of candy.
Afterwards the 5th graders had to wait to go home, becasue of the same van probem, so we went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood surrounding Emory. It was a really nice, wealthy area, and it was weird for me... taking our kids there felt so out of place and really made me sad. Those people probably have never experienced the things our kids have, their worlds are so far apart. It made me think a lot. Our kids noticed too, mentioning how nice the houses were and how rich they all were. At the same time though, I don't think they really understand the difference between their lives and the lives of the kids who live in there, in that beautiful, safe neighborhood. Kinda ramble-y, but these are the things I am thinking about lately.

I didn't really edit this post, so sorry for the typos and weird grammar. My Sabbath is too precious to spend time spell-checking haha. Love you all.