Happy Halloween 2009

What a busy day! The other day we drove past the Pearl Harbor shopping center and saw a sign for a costume contest in the morning. Since Danya's best time of day is the morning I thought it was perfect. So our day today began at 6 like normal and by 7:45 we were out and on our way to an adventure. When we got there we learned it would take place inside Chuck E Cheeses. Well that made the waiting game a lot more manageable.
When you walked in you registered and then you walked past the judges. They gave you a score and you then went and had fun on all the games for about an hour and a half.

Danya really liked the ones that moved. But she wasn't too picky if it had lights and buttons those were fun too. I was hoping I could get her into skee ball, but she just thought that was waaay to boring.
I decided to do a pencil sketch picture booth. For what ever reason there is a looong delay before the photo was taken and by that time someone didn't want to sit there any more, gee I wonder who that was. So we tried again.
Then came the winner announcements. Danya and I won 2nd place in the Parent and Child Category. The family who won first place had a pose all worked out for the judging. Danya was a bit clingy at judging so I was kind of surprised we got anything.
After the announcements we all made a big long line and trick or treated at some of the stores in the strip mall. It wasn't many stores but they all gave soo much stuff, that Danya had a very full Elmo bucket.
After the long walk we went home where Danya crashed and took a really long nap. She woke up ready to go again. Lucky for her we had plans to do just that.
As you can see she wasn't Cinderella all day. Later in the afternoon we went to the local strip mall to pick up some dinner and to trick or treat there too. She was Mulan for that adventure. It was very fun and she really enjoyed herself.
Okay so here is the story of Mommy's costume. Yesterday I got the idea to be the fairy godmother. I was wishing for a cape that I have for living history that I left in MN because it would be way to hot here. I figured I could just make do, but since I didn't have that option I began thinking. When I made Danya's costume I used a flat sheet, from a set that the elastic was wearing out of in the fitted sheet, for the lining. So as I sat there thinking about how I didn't have the money to go buy fabric for something so silly, I remembered the fitted sheet and pillowcases I just put in a bag for a donation. I rescued them and proceeded to piece together the robe using the pillowcases as sleeves. Then I ran to Walmart and picked up some dye and a half yard of pink fabric. I came home and dyed the robe and fashioned the bow. Then all I did was add my hoop skirt and Tada! The fairy godmother come to life!
All ready to go! The past few years we've had soo many kids come through that we were prepared for 300, we only had about 200 so we had some extra time to play.
Bibbity Bobbity Boo!
Just a silly cute pose. She wasn't especially cooperative when it came to taking her photo tonight with me so this is the cutest one we have.
After a while it was getting late and Danya was getting tired so she just plopped down on our driveway as we handed out candy to the last few families.

The Children's Garden

Last week Monday, oops I guess I should have posted this sooner, Danya and I went on a little adventure. When running errands a couple of weekends ago I noticed giant metal flowers from Kamehaha hwy. Curious as I can be at times I went to check out what it was. It is the University of Hawaii at Manoa Urban Garden. It's a great little mystery. It's hidden behind a storage area so that all you see when driving past is a field and the large metal flowers. The sign by the road is even hard to read. So after going online and finding out the hours and learning it was a free adventure we loaded up on Monday morning and went. When you arrive you have to sign in, in the office and sign some waviers. Then they gave us a Map and let us loose in the Children's Garden. They have lots of other gardens but those looked like the most fun for us. First we did the hedge maze. Danya thought it was a lot of fun, but had a hard time understanding what happened when she ended up in a dead end. Then off we went. At first I thought she wasn't really going to be into it because she seemed more interested in the white pipe fences, but she soon got into the idea of getting to explore. We went to the boardwalk garden first. This was a little nerve racking for me thinking of the boardwalk bog back in MN but no need to worry, the water plants were planted in large drums which were then dug into the ground. Very water efficiant of them. At the end of the board walk garden was a bench. Since I haven't been able to get Miss Danya to sit for a photo in a while I thought I would give it a try. Well no better luck here I'm afraid she just wanted to keep exploring and explore she did. Right next to the bench was a non functioning outhouse. I'm sure at one time they may have planned on having it work but not anymore. The scarecrow that was in it was completely dismantled and the whole inside was just nasty, Danya was not allowed to do more than open the door and close it, which she did for about 10 minutes. Then it was off to walk around some more.
The next garden we came to was the butterfly garden. It isn't quite what I expected but they had this really cool hedge tunnel which Danya ran up and down about 20 times. Naturally I ran up and down the outside for that whole time too just to make sure she didn't explore and get lost. The next few gardens were a fast walk through. First was the Sundial garden. It had a large sundial made from rocks and flowers, Danya looooves rocks so she spent a while walking around in the rocks listening to them crunch. Then was the animal garden where all of the plants have an animal in the name, like the flamingo flower. Notice the large shrub shaped like a giraffe. Then came the sensory garden it had lots of poky grass type plants, CD mobiles, and smelly flowers. It would have been really fun to read some of the plaques but not with a toddler. Next to this what the Hawaiian Alphabet tree garden but that wasn't interesting to her at all, instead she headed for the giant metal rainbow that marks the entrance to the Children's gardens.
This I have seen from the freeway and often wondered what it was. No gold at the end of this rainbow unless you count the priceless bundle of activity that is exploring there. I didn't try to match up the photos in this post very well. I posted this over on Facebook that same day and forgot all about the blog post I started. Oh well it's still fun a week later right?