There were two reasons that I scheduled S~’s party on a Friday. The first one is that it seemed silly to have people come from out of town and then have them hide out until the surprise on the Saturday. I figured that if we had the party on the Friday, then we could extend the party into the rest of the weekend (which we did). The other reason was that the Saturday was HALLOWEEN!!! enough said…

So, the day after the party (see below) I had invited everyone who was here from out of town to a sausage sizzle at the beach.  My very generous friends who live RIGHT THERE allowed us to use their grill which was so convenient. It was a a blustery day, but the sun was out so everyone took advantage of a great day on the beach.

Days like this are truly a gift for S~. From time with family & friends, playing rugby on the beach to jumping off the wharf, it’s the sort of time he lives for. From my perspective it was a great day with family friends. It was so lovely to see the marriage of old and new friends. I should have been tired, but I was on such a happiness high.

As I mentioned above, it was Halloween, so at about 3pm I headed back to the house with the kids. My nephews got right into the swing of things,

 

as did Anne and Gran.

 

Well, trick-or-treating on our street was a treat. However, it was madness from the candy distribution perspective. Since we are one of a very few streets in town that celebrate Halloween we were not prepared to receive the 400+ visitors we received. Fortunately Australians are okay with loose candy. You can give a kid a gummy snake here and they are happy. At one point I had to raid my baking cupboard I was doling out two M&Ms to each kid!!! Incredibly some teenager said, “Yum, thank you,” and he meant it!

I am happy that my street is so hard core about Halloween & I’d like to think from a Halloween karma perspective that I am forgiven for running out of candy TWICE. But man o man am I already looking forward to next Halloween. I promise I will make up for this year.

Although the candy was done the party went on…. for more pictures  of Saturday click here.