Anna

Happy Halloween! We have survived Hurricane Sandy/Frankenstorm and all of its pouring rain and howling winds it brought with it earlier this week. Thankfully, we didn’t suffer any damage to the house or cars, and didn’t even lose power. Unfortunately, some of our friends up north were not as lucky — we’re keeping them in our prayers, and hope that they’ll be able to regain a sense of normalcy back in their lives as soon as possible.

We have nothing planned for actual Halloween Day today, as we got all of our festivities out of the way this past weekend before the storm hit. Here are some photos from our Halloween activities this year!

 

 

 

 

Because Mio was sort of a Tinkerbell-esque fairy this year, I decided to wear this dress — it’s a vintage Betsey Johnson dress that I bought at a thrift store a couple years ago, and Dan always calls it my “Peter Pan dress” whenever I wear it. Instead of buying a costume, I figured I’d just wear it to be Peter Pan-ish this year. 😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday afternoon, we took Mio to the Air & Scare event at the Udvar-Hazy Center, which is the annex to the  Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. It was actually one of the first places I took Dan for a date when he first came to visit me in DC several years ago, when it had just opened in 2003, so it was fun to revisit it again after almost a decade. The Air & Scare is an annual event they hold at the museum, where kids can come in costume for safe indoor trick-or-treating and participate in creepy crafts, spooky science experiments, and other Halloween-themed activities. There’s storytime for younger kids like Mio, and opportunities to take photos with Star Wars characters all around the building!

 

 

Mio is too young for candy, and I knew that if we let her trick-or-treat, she would most assuredly put the candy in her mouth, so we avoided the trick-or-treating stations and just explored the museum and other activities. Between the permanent aerospace exhibits and the Halloween-themed activities, there was plenty to see!

 

I think the main attraction for Dan and I was seeing the retired Discovery space shuttle up close! We weren’t in DC yet when it made its final flight over the area back in April of this year, and we just missed the Endeavor space shuttle flying over California right after we moved away last month, so I had felt disappointed that we missed both opportunities to see the shuttles. Thankfully, one of the perks of living right by the nation’s capital is that a lot of such historical sights are open for viewing and can be easily visited. We stood in awe as we got to see the retired orbiter, which has made 39 successful missions in over 27 years of service as the oldest of the surviving space shuttles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night, we put Mio to bed and entrusted her to my parents in case she woke up in the middle of the night (which she never does), Dan and I went off to have some more grownup Halloween fun at our friends’ party! The theme was comic superheroes, DC vs. Marvel. We had a great time seeing a lot of our college friends again and catching up with them! 😀

 

 

 

 

Lastly, we also carved pumpkins as the weather got crappier into the weekend and we were cooped up indoors. Dan is always the skilled carver, so his is the awesome creation in the middle, but my sister Miwa and I also carved our own mini-pumpkins. Mine is the Angry Bird on the right.