
How do I know I’m getting old? All of my friends’ halloween parties started at 6 last night. And we didn’t go to any. My husband picked me up from FSI with the kids already in costume, but fast asleep.
We went grocery shopping, and then came up and rushed to get the house picked up for trick-or-treaters. Our building has a sign-up for families with toddlers, so nobody has to go out in the cold. Also, we could do it when it was still daylight out and get the kids to bed at a decent hour. Whoo000o!

As soon as Grace realized that she was going to be able to roam free around the building this evening, she took off! In fact, most of my time out with the girls was spent chasing Grace and asking Jasmine to please wait to ring the doorbell until I catch her sister.

We ended up hosting several toddlers (and their parents) in our house. We picked up a lot of stuff we’ve been storing at my parents’ place last week, including some playground equipment we bought from another family when we learned that we’ll have a yard in Jerusalem. And when the kids saw it when we opened our door, there was NO STOPPING THEM.

So the kids ran around like chickens with their heads chopped off, and the adults enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine (or sparking water, in my case) and shared stories of moving, the Foreign Service, and language training. Who needs to finish trick-or-treating when you’ve got alcohol, good company, and a slide for the kids?