Treats in the Street: The Recap

So we went. I can't say that we conquered... but we went. All in all it should have been a great time: the weather wasn't too hot (last year we practically melted), the air was not smoky (considering almost all of Southern California is on fire), and it wasn't as crowded as it was in the past years.

Kael doesn't like interacting in crowds. He's good at Disneyland because we're just getting on rides. But if you asked him to interact with crew members, he would become mute, deaf and blind. Anyway, back to TorT... he wanted candy but not enough to say "trick or treat." The first few times he mumbled it and then he finally said he didn't want any candy at all, just to avoid saying it to complete strangers, with hoards of people waiting for their turn. Malia was a growth on Dad -- she did not want down at all. Totally understandable as this is her first real Halloween. Given some of the costumes out there and how small she is, I'd want to hitch a ride on someone too.

We came in with the Harris's and ran into the Bickmeier's. We tried to meet up with the De Mattia's but never crossed paths. I think the Kendall's were there too but I totally forgot to call them once we got in the Circle because I was trying to get Kael to relax and enjoy the evening.


Malia and Dad. I can't believe she actually wore the ears. She was not happy at having her nap cut short and was quite upset as we got ready to go. I bribed her with a bag of Pirate's Booty but even that wasn't enough to let me draw on her face. I had to sneak in a whisker one at a time, which explains why they are sort of crooked.



Kael and Westin. aka The Fireman and the Peacock. Westin looked SO CUTE in his costume. But nothing prepares you for the next picture...



The Mai's and the Harris's. This picture is really to let you see Westin and Rylan dressed as peacocks. Individually they were both very cute. Together, though, they were street stopping. It was awesome! I told Char she should of told us both kids were peacocks -- I would have dressed up my kids too and we could have been a flock! A herd? A gaggle?



Getting in line for a treat. The lines amaze me every year. It literally wraps around itself in a circle. These kids would wait and wait and wait... for a single piece of candy. The businesses really have to ration out the candy to make sure they have enough so in the beginning the kids get a gum drop, a jolly rancher, a sweet tart. Towards the end is when they start giving out hand fulls.



The boys: Westin (peacock), Kael (fireman) and Josh (Optimus Prime, minus the mask). Look at those genuine smiles.



Group shot: Malia, Rylan, Westin, Kael, Josh and Kaitlyn.
Malia once again is trying to take off. Have you noticed almost all of her pictures since she started walking are of her trying to go somewhere?



Kael and Westin in front of the old fire truck they call Alfie. I don't know why it's called Alfie. It just is.



Whenever I see this picture I have to laugh. I have 4 shots of Westin either pecking himself with his beak or trying to get the beak off his face. Whatever he's doing, it was really funny.



Cute shot of Malia and her most favorite person in the world. Not to be mistaken for the person who nurses her 3-5 times a day, who wakes up with her in the middle of the night whenever she needs me, who feeds her every meal, who changes 95% of her diapers every day, and who rescues her from her brother. No, not that person. This is her favorite person.



This is Malia saying "shhh!" to the MC at the costume parade.

Halloween is next week so we've got a week to work out the Trick or Treating kinks. I'm passing out glow bracelets at home so I guess it's really Truong's problem. hee hee!

Gearing up for Treats in the Street

Every year Old Towne Orange has a really cool event for kids called Treats in the Street where they close the Circle of Orange to traffic and set up booths for vendors, food and music for kids to go trick or treating. All the businesses hand out candy and there's a school band, the fire truck, hay rides -- all the fun stuff for kids to do. And it's always packed. There's a line of kids that form a complete circle, hitting all the businesses for candy. It's crowded and noisy -- and really fun. You see kids wearing really cute costumes but it's the adults who dress up that really are something else. Last year was the year of Stars Wars so we saw a lot of Storm Troopers and Darth Vaders. There was the Superman Family. Cousin It. You pretty much see a little bit of everything.

The kids are still napping (it's almost 4:00pm) so I'm going to have to wake them up if we're going to make it. This poses a huge problem: Kael is an absolute beast when he doesn't self-wake from a nap. TorT is from 4:00pm to 5:30pm and if he wakes up at 4:30pm, get dressed, get in the car, find parking... it'd be a miracle if we made it in time. BUT if I wake him up, I run into the issue of him being so foul tempered that he will refuse to wear his fireman costume. Same goes for Malia and her tutu. On a good day I may be able to convince her to wear it for a little while. Get her in a bad mood and she's liable to rip the thing off and run around in just her leggings.

It's 88 degrees out right now, a little smoky from all the fires. Not the best of conditions, especially since Kael's costume is a heavy cotton (turnout pants and coat). Poor kid - I hope he doesn't roast in there.

From the mouth of Kael

You know how when you see someone all the time you don't really see them change? Whenever people see Kael they always comment on how he looks and acts like a boy now, instead of a little boy or a toddler. Sure, he's four, but in the grand scheme of life, four is really just one year more than three, and at three he was still fully embracing toddlerhood. How much difference can one year really make?

Well, let me tell you: A lot.

Some of the stuff he says crack me up. They are so funny and insightful, and reminds me of how wonderfully simple life is to a 4 year old. Like when he wondered what it would be like to sleep on clouds because that cloud right there looks really soft and fluffy. Or when he asked if ghosts knew they were scary, if they meant to scare people, and that maybe if they stopped saying "boo" all the time, more people would play with them.

And then there's the stuff he says that comes back to bite me on the a$$. Like when I asked him to please hurry up and put on his shoes, what's taking him so long?? And he responded with a "Mom, you have to learn to be patient." Or when I don't allow him to do something and he tells me "Mom, you're not using your listening ears. You better start listening or you're going to get in trouble. I said I wanted xyz."

We've been late to school the past 2 weeks. I'm convinced we live in a black-hole of time that prevents us, making it impossible even, to leave the house before or by 8:00am. I find myself pulling out of the garage between 8:06am and 8:08am -- that's way too late. I'll never make it to music time (8:15am) . Heck, I'll be happy to get there before Kael's class is settled into storytime. Of course the year that we move him to Fairmont is the year that the city started construction on building an overpass over the railroad tracks. It's quite an involved project that's supposed to be completed May of 2008. That's what the sign board reads. In reality we all know it'll be late summer/early fall before they are done. And all the construction is at the ONE intersection that I need to cross. My other alternative is to drive completely around and behind where I need to go and loop back around to get to school the back way. This is what I'm doing. However, this requires that I stay on the highway to hell (91) a bit longer.

When you couple the road woes I face with trying to get Kael to eat breakfast in 20 minutes -- it's a losing battle. I don't think he's EVER finished a meal in 20 minutes. Not even in 40 minutes. I used to be able to get him to pick up the pace a bit by telling him that if he doesn't eat faster, we're going to be late to school. I tried that tactic yesterday. And this is what he said (in a very world-weary tone of voice that I would expect from him when he's in his teens, not when he's 4): "Mom (a huge sigh), we're always late to school." (Add the eye roll and head shake.) And he turned around to continue eating his Kix, one ball at a time.

It was that moment that he truly turned four to me.

No evacuations... yet.

Thanks for everyone's phone calls and emails. We're still here and hopefully will still be here tomorrow. In case you haven't heard or read, there are some really big fires down here. Malibu and San Diego are the two largest fires but it's the one in our backyard (the Santiago fire) that's worrying me because while it's moving away from us, it's really just behind the hills behind our house. Fortunately for us (not so fortunate for those folks who live in the Lake Forest/Portola area) the winds are blowing south-southeast. As long as they continue to blow in that direction, we will be OK. The fire has burned about 8,800 acres as of this morning and it's about 30% contained. It's pretty unnerving to hear all the fire helicopters fly right over my house.

From what I read we sent some fire trucks and equipment up to Malibu to help with their fire and now the Fire Authority is working on getting those people back home to fight this fire. Right now we're experiencing peak winds of 77 mph, 89 degree weather, and a 7% humidity level. And it's supposed to be hotter tomorrow (90 degrees).

Isn't it almost Halloween? What ever happened to autumn weather?!

Apple Picking with the Bickmeiers

Today we braved the gale force winds to head back to Oak Glen and go apple picking with the Bickmeiers. Truong wasn't as thrilled as he would have been if he'd gone, say golfing, but he was a trooper and took one for the team. Malia was a little pistol this morning and refused to sit in the car seat. Since we couldn't go anywhere otherwise, we sort of wedged her in and strapped her down before she wiggled her way out. Needless to say she wasn't a happy camper. Couple this with her falling asleep in the car about 15 minutes on the road, it made for a really off morning for her. She almost never sleeps in the car so she must have really needed it.

We went to a different ranch this time as our "usual" ranch was closed. Turns out later, they were just late and opened at 10:30am instead of 9:00am as posted on their website. It caused a moment of concern as we promised the boys they could apple pick apples from an actual tree. We ventured a little further down the road and came across a smaller ranch but at least they were open. We picked a small bag of apples (one each for each boy) and wandered around the ranch a bit. The actual apple picking took about 15 minutes tops and since we paid $5 for parking, we were going to stay and fully take advantage of the $5 parking.

I asked if there were other things the boys could do and was told that they could make their own cider. This sounded promising so we decided to try it out. But there were some tour groups ahead of us so we would have to wait about an hour before we could hop on. To kill some time (interesting choice of words) we decided to let the boys try their hand at archery. Yes, ARCHERY. As in a bow and a sharp, pointy arrow. At $1 for four arrows (we did this twice) we quickly saw how much money could be wasted here and moved on to the next activity. Luckily there wasn't anyone at the Knife Throwing booth so we wandered down to the cider press. After fielding a bunch of questions from Kael and Josh, Bromey (the very nice cider press guy) let the boys hop on early, ahead of the tour group. It was very cool. Luckily, I had $26 when I went to purchase the tickets because it cost $26 for both boys to press their own cider (2 gallons total). That's $13 a gallon. I can tell you that I will be enjoying every last drop of it.


First we had to fill up (2) 5-gallon buckets with apples. It takes 1 bucket to make 1 gallon.





















Next you have to wash the apples.

























Here are the boys washing the apples. They must have gotten their water from the Arctic North because it was effing cold!

Josh is trying to warm his hands while Kael helps by using his one finger.






When the apples are "clean" (they were washed really really fast because we were afraid of frost bite kicking in) they are tossed in the grinder. There's a large cheese cloth lined bucket at the bottom to catch the apple pieces.





When all the apples were ground up, Bromey put the lib on the cheese cloth covered apple pieces and locked the press in place.












The nectar of our labor.

























The Dads get to work pressing the cider.




























Pouring it in our 2 $13 per gallon containers.

And that, folks, is how you make cider!














I'm glad we went - we had a great time. The kids really liked it because it was so hands-on and Kael really gets a kick out of drinking something he made. With Josh being so anti-fruit, I asked Dennis if they had concerns of Josh now not drinking any apple juice at all when he realizes it's made from actual apples. I just got a dirty look so I guess they hadn't thought about that.



Kaitlyn enjoying an apple.




























Malia gnawed on hers for a couple of hours.

























Kael and Josh apple picking.

(No trees, animals, parents or small children were harmed in the taking of this picture.)










The girls are ready to rock and roll on to the next activity.








Truong: "Be one with the bullseye. Feel the arrow move through the air..."





















Erin is very brave to step in front of the boys for this picture.























I put my finger where?!

























What the boys really thought of today.