Once in a Blue Moon: Halloween 2020

2020 brought a special treat this year.  Halloween fell on a Blue Moon!  According to the internet, the last time that happened was 76 years ago.

This picture was actually taken at Red Butte Gardens during their Bootanical event, not on Halloween.  It's also not an actual moon.  But we actually did have a really nice time.  The whole family went to see the lighted display on a Monday evening and had the place practically to ourselves.  It's such a different experience at night and really well done.  We especially enjoyed watching the dance performance groups, who seemed to enjoy us being there too since Annika danced right along.

To get into the Halloween spirit, we swapped our meatloaf for a rather grotesque footloaf.

Disturbingly realistic with its onion toes.  Crazy thing is, this was perhaps the tastiest meatloaf I've ever made.  I plan on saving the recipe to see if we can't make it look a bit more appetizing next time.

Annika dressed up as a witch for her class Halloween party.  Eli was Harry Potter, but I forgot to grab a picture.  Note all the different Frankenstein drawings on the fridge.  After learning how to draw them at school, Annika gave us art lessons with very rigid instructions.  Papa Kay was nearly kicked out of the class for not following directions, but she let it slide in the end.

The kids could have gone as punk rockers.  This is what they looked like on Crazy Hair Day a few days prior.  Just for the record, that hair glitter is hard to get out!

Little witch gets some exercise by running down the hill at Popperton park.

Big girls like to play too.

Halloween dog pile!

Halloween 2020 looked quite different from prior years due to Covid concerns.  A statewide emergency alert was sent out to every cell phone on the 30th, letting Utahns no that transmission rates are high in nearly every county.  Case counts are escalating (2292 on Friday) with positivity rates rising as well (18%).  Definitely a frightening Halloween, but not in the way we'd hoped.

Eli was still able to get together with his friend Sohum at Sugarhouse park.  

Meanwhile, Annika thought feeding the birds and climbing trees was a great substitute for her cancelled Girl Scout bridging ceremony/Halloween party.

Extremely resilient, she said, Mom, this might be the best Halloween ever!  I don't think I'm going to frown at all today.  By the way, on the 31st she wanted to be a black cat.  Can you tell she painted her own face?

Meanwhile, Talia, Brooklyn, and Jason played in the Halloween Hat frisbee tournament.  The tournament directors tried to make the even safer by dividing into small groups and insisting that the players must wear masks the entire time. 

Brooklyn and Jason's team went undefeated!  Congratulations, Buttermilk.  Brooklyn played with the head Krakens coach, Sean Graff, and scored several times.  The only downside is that she wanted to stay to the end to play in the finals.  I needed to pick up Talia earlier and Jason was already gone, so she ended up walking home from Riverside Park.  In cleats.  Ouch!  That's four miles.  She's nearly as sore today as her forty year-old father who only played a couple of games, but doesn't recover quite as quickly as he used to.

While Brooklyn was winning the tourney, Annika, Eli, Talia and I were at Reservoir park carving pumpkins with a couple of neighbor kids, the Orme's (all masked, of course.)  I wish I had some action photos--it was a picture perfect, warm afternoon.  You can see a couple of our finished pumpkins to the left of Justin and Brianna's in this photo.  

Speaking of Justin and Brianna, we headed over to their place for a final Halloween celebration in the backyard. 

Chili, cinnamon rolls, and oh-so-much fun!

Grandma Susie and Grandpa Charles also joined us for the celebration.

Hunting for candy.  Why save all the fun for Easter?

Brooklyn made a very sophisticated Ravenclaw.

Talia's rocking the Dorothy costume, with Toto in hand and ruby-red slippers.  Note the pirate with Harry Potter glasses behind.

As for Annika and Ruby, they'd been planning for weeks to be matching black cats.  It wasn't until I looked at this picture that I realized Annika had her shoes on the wrong feet!

Last but not least, we even got to go to a few homes for some masked and gloved trick-or-treating.  All in all, it really was a delightful Halloween.