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As usual, we attended two Halloween parties this year. Alyssa volunteered to do a post about the Chick-Fil-A party, and it fell to me to do this post. Our youth group had a party at church, which included a costume contest, and that is what I am writing about.

Alyssa has been attending youth group, even though she is in fifth grade still. Because she was not officially a middle schooler, she decided not to go all out with her costume. Her end result was a black cat with white paws.

After much thought, I decided to be a three-tone grisly bear.

I have a cloth hump, Styrofoam cup nose, pipe cleaner ears, foam claws, cloth tail and glove paws. While at the party, I held a stuffed bear that had a fish in its mouth. He was my cub.

Ashley decided not to go with the animal theme. She was a barrel shaped traffic barrier.

We got a large plastic barrel from a friend of Dad’s, cut of the top, flipped it over and cut a hole in the new top. She spray-painted orange stripes on it and added a real barricade reflector (that Dad had in college), which she rigged to flash. She wore an orange sweater, orange and black ski mask, plastic orange sunglasses and a hardhat. She wore a pair of Dad’s old work boots and his old pants.

Both she and I were trying to hide our identities. The reason for this was that we had apparently won so many times that we were no longer allowed to win… unofficially. We made sure to arrive at different times so we did not look like we were together. Also, neither of us spoke and we avoided each other during the party.

No one could tell who she was (except the youth director). The other kids followed her around, asking questions she would not answer and trying to guess her identity. The work boots threw them off but they found out she was a girl when they pulled up the ski mask and saw her hair. I was not as successful, but confused a few people for a while.

After a few games (none of which we could participate in, because of our costumes) the contest was judged. The rules of the contest were simple. The costume has to be creative, original, and homemade. There were three third places (each for different attributes) a second and a first.

I received third place for most work put into the costume, and Ashley came home with first place! The prizes were $10 of iTunes money, and $50 dollars at Walmart, respectively.

Alyssa can’t wait until next year (when she could potentially win) when she will be a– wait! It’s so secret even I don’t know! I guess you’ll just have to wait until next year!

Back in 2007 I did a post about Fish for the Fun of It. That was the second to last year I could be involved, but we went again this year for Alyssa. Fish for the Fun of It is an Orange County Parks and Recreation program. Three Saturdays in a row there is a fishing tournament at three different Orange County Parks.

The first Saturday we arrived at Barnet Park and found out favorite spot from years past, out on a little island across a board walk. As we were walking across we spied many brim, large and small, swimming about. We figured with so many fish it would be a good spot.

Over the two hours of the tournament Alyssa (the only one allowed to fish) caught four brim, each a little less than an ounce and a half. She was very excited because she caught one almost as soon as the tournament began.

The next week the tournament was at Blanchard Park. This park has a large spillway that many people like to fish off of. We arrived early enough to stake a claim on the bridge with our camping chairs.

The bridge was not quite the hot spot it had been last year, but Alyssa managed to catch another brim with no help at all.

On the down side of the spill way there were a pair of alligators. They were both six (or so) feet long. They live there and we have seen them for the past couple years.

On a side note, the fishing tournament happened to fall on Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The third park was Bear Creek, and is the closest to our house. Unfortunately Alyssa did not catch anything. After the tournament was over Alyssa allowed me to try my luck. I managed to land a brim.

As we were leaving we were told there was another family fishing event in Winter Park the next Saturday. Ashley and I were scheduled to be on a Leadership Retreat with the youth. The rest of the family went, and had a great time.

At this tournament there were no prizes and everyone (including adults) could fish. You could also keep any fish you caught. The three of them caught 8 catfish and a brim. They gave the catfish to a man who was going to eat the fish he caught.

At this tournament they found out another was to be held in Ocoee the next Saturday. It turned out to be a founder’s day event where the first fish you caught earned you a ribbon.

We snagged a spot in the shade, but we had little luck. Ashley managed to catch a lizard that was scampering over everyone, though not with a fishing pole. At the end of the day our only catch was one small brim.

It was a bit disappointing, so when we came home we decided to try in the pond two doors down from our house. We had received fishing poles in previous years and had some extra worms from the morning, so we had plenty of equipment.

We fished until it became too dark for the fish (and us) to see the bait. The total ended with four fish caught by Ashley, four by me, and three hooked by Alyssa. All were brim of many different sizes. I didn’t even know there were that many fish in our little pond!

Ashley had only been allowed to fish in the tournaments for two years before she was too old. Neither of those years was she able to catch anything, so these four fish where the first she had ever caught. They were also the biggest of the ones we caught that day.

The next Saturday we tried again in the pond. However, the leftover worms had turned to mush, so they did not make very good bait. We tried with frozen corn and that worked only a little better. The day ended with a lot of bites and only one catch.

We had fun though, so we tried again on a Saturday afternoon. The corn was working better, and I caught two more brim. Alyssa landed four, one of which was the biggest we have caught from that pond. Ashley hooked a couple, but they all got away about a foot from the bank.

We have not had an open Saturday for a while, but we plan to fish more in the future.

Ahoy thar it be the Pirate kid this time. I’ve just returned from plundering Light Night’s candy and eaten some plus made up a song, it goes like this.

A rollicking band of pirates we
Who tired of tossing on the sea
Are trying our hand at a burglary
For all of Light Night’s candy

Can you guess what we were for Halloween?
That’s right, Pirates.

Apparently pirates were very popular because we met one in the parking lot wearing Ashley’s costume (with a gun) and his infant sibling had a wagon made into a pirate ship.

Then at the party there was another kid that was wearing her costume and a few more wearing pirate costumes.

There were lots of games and music, so you couldn’t hear anyone talking to you. Towards the end there was a costume contest, the winners for the 4th and 5th grade: in 1st place The broke businessman (AKA Conner Rose) in 2nd place The artist (AKA Kirsten Lindemulder) and in 3rd place The Texas chainsaw massacre (AKA I don’t know who) then after that you could play some more games, but while I was waiting in line for one of them a lady went running after a ping pong ball for the game and she clunked her head into mine. After that I had to sit with a bag of ice wrapped in Ashley’s sash so that I didn’t freeze my head. Then Amber went to get more candy.