Will the REAL witch please stand up...

Today was a gorgeous day in Salt Lake City, I don't know what the official temperature was but, it definitely felt like it was in the 70s. Since the kids are out of school until Tuesday(because of UEA, Utah Education Association, a time when teachers go to workshops) and I took off work yesterday and today so that we could spend some time together as a family, we decided (okay, I decide) that we would take advantage of a photo opportunity at Gardner Village which is decorated with different themed witches throughout the historical type village.

It was VERY busy today at Gardner Village and little did I know that Blade was scared of the witches and wanted nothing to do with them, even though he knew that they were decorations for Halloween. That frustrated me a bit and I was not too happy that Blade was not going to take advantage of this "photo op" and was not going to be in the pictures, hence the title "Will the REAL witch please stand up". I made sure that Nicole and Chay posed with almost ALL of the witches we discovered (don't worry, I'm not including ALL the pictures). Please tell me that you other Moms out there know what I'm talking about when I write that I was frustrated when all my subjects did not want to cooperate.

There was a scavenger hunt where we had to find certain themed witches and write down their location and when we found them all, the kids (12 and under) could go to the bakery and purchase a chocolate chip cookie for 25 cents. Dave provided the "solid" surface we needed so that we could write our answers down.

In the above picture, there is a cat chasing a mouse under the witch's skirt but I couldn't get the timing right and so you can only see the grey furball by the witch's foot which is the cat.

I used whatever tricks I could to capture some of the witches AND Blade in the same picture...

Proof again that I do indeed exist...

After we had spent time walking around the village and decided to head out, Blade became more comfortable with some of the witches and was willing to sit with this witch if "everyone" went.

Then he got brave and walked towards the "cowboy" one.

And what a relief when we found the outhouse...

As we were leaving the parking lot, Blade was already talking about returning to Gardner Village to see the Elves tomorrow. He heard me talking earlier about Elf statues being there at Christmas and I guess to him, everyday is like Christmas...


For some unknown reason, Blade decided that he wanted to grab Nicole's hair and whenever she tried to sit up, he would pull her hair again and yank her back. So, she decided that she would pull his hair so he knew what it felt like and would let go. However, in the above picture, it doesn't look like it was hurting either one of them.

"My first caramel apple since I got my braces off"

After seeing all the festivities today, Nicole felt like a caramel apple and I just happened to have all the ingredients we needed to fulfill her wish. It was simple compared to the caramel apple that Grandma described making at homemaking but it sure tasted good!