Vermont 2021 {10/27: Halloween Party}

We knew since we'd be traveling on Halloween that we wanted to do something fun with our friends to celebrate early before we all left to head home. We planned a little Halloween party for the afternoon of Wednesday the 27th. The kids dressed up in their costumes, we played some Halloween games, decorated caramel apples, and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and ate chili and cornbread muffins. It was a fun and festive time!

Costume picture on the porch.
Tradition!

Cal is an olympic gymnast (she was going
to make a silver medal, but then decided she
didn't want one at the last minute).

We watched a youtube video on how to do
gymnast hair. This was the best I could do
without hairspray or bobby pins ;)

Sam was a police officer.

He even made up, wrote, and cut out
these little tickets to fill in when he arrested
the bad guys. (Adorbs!)

Timmy next door was a police officer, too!

And Zachary was the robber.

Timmy has the bad guy in hand cuffs 
and Sam is ready with his pen to write
that ticket.

All four Halloween-ified kiddos.

The first game was pin the spider on the web
and they all got to draw their own spiders
on construction paper circles to start.

My kids were NOT great at this game - ha!
They wouldn't trust Gregg when he was pointing
them directly at the door with the web
and wandered all over the living room to place their
spiders.

See Cal's purple spiders off to the left on the wall
and on the wrong door? and Sam's
orange ones off to the right on the wall and the lamp?!

It's caramel apple time!

Donuts on a string - classic!
(and these were Cold Hollow cider donuts, to
boot - lucky kids!)

Cal made a game where everyone decorated a lego
mini figure head (she drew an outline on pieces of paper)
in a halloween themed way.

And then everyone just sort of went to town with the 
art supplies making puppets and other crafty things.

Lovin' Charlie Brown.

Vermont 2021 {10/25-10/26: Owl Art, Blanchard Grandparent Tour}

For our art project on Monday the 25th, we decided to make little owl pictures from coffee filters (I found them in the cupboard, and since we didn't have muffin liners, which the instructions said to use, we adapted ;). We read a book about owls, listened to Halloween music and arted away. Fun morning!

Cal's rainbow owl matches her stuffed one
at home!

And Sam got in on the rainbow owl goodness, too.

Gregg's parents flew into Boston on Sunday night and drove up to Jay Peak for a quick visit Monday evening. They stayed in a hotel in Montgomery, then met up with us for breakfast in our condo on Tuesday (26 October) morning. We then headed out for a little highlight tour of northern Vermont. It was a very similar loop to what we did when Laurel and Bret and fam came up a few weeks ago.

We first went to South Hero to the Island Line Rail Trail, where we walked out to the end of the line (where the bike ferry would have taken us across the gap, had it been running) and then back to the cars. We made a stop at Ben and Jerry's (though we didn't get any ice cream since we have so much in our freezer already!) and Cold Hollow Cider Mill (yes, we did get more donuts, of course!). 

Next was the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, which we drove by last year, but have never been inside of. We stepped in and visited the gift shop and admired the pictures of the family in the hallway. Then we did a quick loop around Stowe to show off all the places Gregg knows so well from so many work trips here (including a drive around the Inntopia office parking lot). 

We headed over Smuggler's Notch to get us back to Jeffersonville, then retraced our drive back to Montgomery. We stopped at Sylvester's for sandwiches and soup from the deli, which we took back home for dinner. The McClungs came over for ice cream again, and it was fun to introduce everyone before Paul and Kim headed back to their hotel for the night. They left Wednesday morning to head down to Connecticut to hang out with the Farrers for a week or so, but it was fun to have them up here and to show off a bit of the state to them.

It was a super soggy sort of day, so the views
were not what they could be, but luckily
the grandparents were game for all our
stops, even in the rain.

The playground at Ben and Jerry's was much less crowded
on a rainy Tuesday than it was a few weeks ago on a holiday
weekend Saturday during peak leaves!

I didn't visit the graveyard on our last stop
here, so I made sure to take a peek this time.

I love how clever the flavors, the names, and
the epitaphs are on these!

Our third stop at Cold Hollow and our third bust on
being able to see them squeeze apples into cider! Rats!

If this doesn't scream Vermont to you, then I don't know
what will!

It was fun to be inside the lodge that I had
read about earlier this year in Maria's book.

I loved all these pics (there were so many!) of the
family in the hallway.

Isn't she the cutest?

I didn't buy it, but I was tempted!

Sam conked out on the drive back, so
I waited with him the car while the rest
of the crew got food. I just had to document
the little drool droplet on his cute little chin.
Poor, tired guy!