Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

 

mmmmm, bloody, severed hand :)

Sean's favorite time of year has come at last.  Time for ghosts, goblins, ghouls, zombies, and legitimately scaring little children :)  We brought out our Halloween boxes on Oct. 1st and started decorating right away.  I think this may be the only holiday where I won't have to beg Sean to put up the lights or even have to worry about decorating the porch myself.  He did it without anyone asking him too...now if I can only get him to act this way with other things in life :)

Apparently, I didn't take as many pictures of the inside as I'd thought.  Now that we have our own house to decorate, our Halloween collection definitely doubled in size this year.  Thank you to Heather and mom for going out to Kohl's and Michael's and picking up the decorations!  Everything turned out great :)

On Halloween weekend, we had a Spooktacular party at Sean's work.  For this event, Asher was a monkey.  When we originally put on his costume, we were afraid he wouldn't go for the head part of the monkey.  Once we stood him in front of a mirror and he saw himself, he loved it and stopped messing with the costume.  Yay! At the event, Asher was able to go around to the different offices and go trick or treating.  He grasped the concept of trick or treating really fast!  He started taking handfuls, putting them in his bag and then going back for more, the little glutton!

Then on Halloween night, Asher was a robot alien.  Yes, I know, two costumes may seem a little excessive, but they were on such a great sale last year - $5!!! - that I couldn't help myself!!  So robot alien he was!

Like I said, he picked up on the trick or treating part very quickly and loved every minute of it!

Afterwards, he didn't even try to eat the candy, not that we let him know what exactly he was grabbing at the time.  That would just have caused one too many meltdowns :)  But we did share some with him in the spirit of Halloween.

As for Sean and his joy in scaring the little children, have no fear, he had his moment!  If any of you remember from last year, we have the bowl with the hand that "grabs" you when you stick your hand in.  Well, that certainly made a few children jump.  And that, along with the popping up, shrieking vampire, the howling ghost that moved back and forth overhead, scary scarecrow and scary doorbell there may have caused a few tears from the children.  Definitely two for sure - sorry little ones!!!  One child in particular had been waking up in the middle of the night in the weeks prior to Halloween, waking up her mom and telling her that Mr. Sean's scary doorbell and hand are giving her nightmares....sorry guys :)  A little dose of fear is good, right?? Sean thinks so...

Sean trying to scare the little children.

Overall, it was a great Halloween.  Thanks everyone for making it happen!  Until next year!

Montenegro & Croatia

This past weekend, we took a road trip to Montenegro and Croatia with a couple of other families who are excellent travel buddies :)  Sure we all had our moments of frustration, but who doesn't when there are husbands, oops, I mean kids along! ;)  It took about 5 hours to get to Kotor, Montenegro, our home base for the trip.  We were told it would take between 2 1/2 and 5 hours to get there.  It would have taken us only about 4, but one of those hours was spent just getting out of Tirana, which could be done in 20 minutes on a good day!!!  Oh traffic, how I despise thee!!  

The drive was gorgeous.  Some of the roads were narrow and windy, but we made it to our destination with only a few (three) missed turns.  This is what happens when you don't have a map other than a zoomed out google map that only shows the main cities :)  I miss you GPS!!!  We were the ones leading, so there was definitely some pressure to navigate well.

We got to our apartments, which were open and aired out when we arrived.  We had an ideal location in the small town of Kotor.  Were were right along the water, with a wonderful view of the bay.  We then went out to dinner, and upon our return home we were struck with such a horrible smell of sewage that actually made it hard for us to get to sleep. Blah!  Nothing we could really do about it.  Apparently, when it is really windy (and boy was it windy), the smell of sewage gets blown up into the houses.  Here are some views from our place...

View from the terrace above our apartment.
We saw a pirate ship!!

The next day we walked around Kotor in the morning, and loved everything we saw.  This is definitely a town we was to come back to!  There was a walled city that we explored and had just a great time!

Asher running free!  He loved to run around and explore.
He had a great time :)

One of Asher's favorite distractions is to feel stone walls.  

I'm not sure what the fascination is, but he loves doing it!

We went back home for naps and lunch, and then drove to Budva to check it out.  Unfortunately, I forgot the camera in the car... And of course there were sooo many great shots.  Sigh.  Once out friends get their pictures up, we are going to borrow them for our blog.  So instead, you get a picture of our walk back to the apartment and us eating lunch :)

It looks like the cruise ship is driving down the road!

These things are massive!!!
 It definitely got me really wanting to  go on a cruise....
we shall see!

Asher and Tate swinging on the swings at a park in Kotor

Lunch on our terrace, with our gorgeous view!

The next day we were off to Dubrovnik, Croatia!  On our way, we took a ferry to cut the time of the trip down.  Asher slept through it :)

 I attempted many times to takes pictures as we were driving up the coast.  There were only a few of the many that turned out.  This was a view of Dubrovnik as we drove towards it...

 

We made it!

 

  

The stairs went straight up!  We wanted to climb them, but we had the stroller, so we didn't.

Asher making himself at home :) 

Hmmm, how does this thing work?  I want to try!

Getting some help from daddy :)

 

If you can climb it. He will find it!

Inspecting the step.

The whole lot of us enjoying lunch and it wasn't pizza or pasta - huzzah!

Just relaxing in Dubrovnik...no big deal :) 

 

 

 At the end of the day, we had our gelato fix before to took off.  Asher was a huge fan of that decision!  It was a great day of seeing a beautiful old city.  I'm so glad we were able to make this trip!

 Driving back, I tried again to take pictures of the beautiful coastline and got a couple decent shots.  I hope this portrays just how magnificent the view was!

Our final day there, we stopped back at the castle in Kotor, since the kids started melting down before we saw all of it on our first visit.

Sean sporting the University of Utah pull over, since he forgot to pack something warm.

Sean actually made friends with a cat!!

Well....maybe not.  I'm thinking it was just because he was holding food. 

Boo!

There was one thing on this trip that continued to hold Asher's interest no matter where we went.

Can you guess what it was?

Pigeons!!

Pigeons in Dubrovnik.

Pigeons in Kotor!

Pigeons in the park!

Pigeons near the water!

I love pigeons!

Dance pigeons!  Dance! Entertain me!

 On our way out I took some final pictures of beautiful Kotor.  This time the sun was shining and the water was sparkling.

Asher & Dad - My most favorite boys in the world!

 

The coastline on our drive home :)

The cops pulled us over twice, but when they saw that we were Americans they let us go, haha, excellent!!  Despite some restless nights due to smells, storms, and fierce winds that kept banging a door open and closed all night, this was one of the greatest trips we've taken, and some of the most beautiful sites we've been able to witness.