Happy Halloween!

Finally Halloween is here and Colin can trick or treat! He has been super excited for this night ever since we put up the Halloween decorations weeks ago. Our house...

The way it works here at Lajes on Halloween is at 5:30 PM they lock all the drive through gates to the housing area. Then from 6-7 PM it is trick or treat time for the Americans with US ID cards, the gates are all locked to come in unless you have ID. During this time we took Colin around the neighborhood and he was on a mission this year. Last year he understood the process, but he still wanted to eat a lot of the candy right when he got it. This year he had more of a sense of urgency and realized if he saved the candy to eat later, then he could get to the next house faster, and end up with more candy in the end. So we were able to cover almost our whole neighborhood in the hour Americans had to trick or treat.

A house in the neighborhood decorated up...

Colin and the girls next door, Anna Sophia & Emma, AKA Captain America and Cat Woman.

Once his pumpkin was filled and it was almost 7 PM we headed back to the house to prepare for the stampede. Here is Colin showing off his loot...

If you have never lived at Lajes you cannot possibly begin to imagine the insanity known as Halloween at this base. As a show of hospitality to the local nationals we invite them to come trick or treat from 7-8:30, after the American kids are done. If you invite them, they will come. Every single person on the island that is. I had been warned, and I was a little scared. This is the entrance to our housing area prior to the gates opening to the Portuguese...

I had a laundry basket full of candy ready to go and as I was getting it ready it occurred to me how insane this was. I weighed my candy out of curiosity...28 pounds! We had 28 pounds of candy to give out! Colin was READY and very excited to hand out candy. The first few kids that came by were American stragglers heading home, he was so cute and polite telling them "Happy Halloween!" and "You're welcome!"

Then the masses descended and it was crazy! It was a mob scene in no time! I could barely keep up dropping ONE candy into every bag fast enough. I didn't dare give away more than one per person because everyone had a bag for candy, kids, adults, babies...everyone! This was taken in our yard during the craziness, I am somewhere in the mob passing out candy!

In the end, our 28 pounds lasted about 45 minutes! We finished up before 8, Colin had a blast, and the Lorax costume was a hit. I am ready to pack up the Halloween now and move on to Thanksgiving!