Halloween in Antalya

 11/1: We arrived to our place (Los Suites) about 2:30pm and were immediately glad we would be here for an extended stay. We were on the top level of a brand new building finished in May (thankful to not have people above us!) and it was very clean and modern. We settled in, the kids picked their rooms, and Bob, Simone, and I went to the grocery store around the corner.

While we were in Garmisch, Simone was planning for Halloween (I had no idea how much she loved Halloween and how much she would miss celebrating it at home). Her idea was for each of us to pick one of our names out of a hat (just not your own) and to dress up as that person on Halloween. I do not get as enthusiastic as my family does about Halloween, so I was not initially excited about her idea. Boy was I wrong! It turned out to be SO SO much fun! She also found all these Halloween treats that she wanted to make while we played Halloween bingo that she created. That is why she joined us at the grocery store so she could pick up all of her ingredients for her Halloween treats (Oreos and pretzels to make spiders, Clementines and cucumbers to make pumpkins, apples, pb, and marshmallows to make teeth, and bananas and Nutella to make ghosts). She did a great job at being flexible with her ingredients when we couldn't find exactly what she wanted (substituting cucumber for celery, and dabs of Nutella for chocolate chips).

The kids agreed to celebrate one day late, as we were in a hotel yesterday and it would've been trickier to get items from each others' bags without them knowing. It was really nice to be in a large apartment where we had a kitchen, laundry, and room to spread out again. We got some HH snacks and drinks out while Simone was in the kitchen preparing the spooky treats. We had SO much fun playing her bingo and dressing up as each other - we laughed so hard!

Bingo cards she made during our car trip to Antalya

 

You chose a treat to eat when you got bingo

Probably self explanatory, but: Quinn as me with my coveted vest, travel backpack and bag of medicine for any ailment, Simone as Quinn - her blonde hair looked perfect the way she had it coming out of Quinn's hat because his hair is currently blonde-tipped, Bob may have had the hardest task of becoming Simone, but he did well! Especially squeezing into her sandals...and of course I'm Bob, directing us where to go in his coveted Badger shirt :-)

We were excited for the next phase of the evening too - about a month ago Josie reached out to us to see where we would be now, and we arranged our schedule a bit to accommodate a visit from her. She was in Tunisia for work, and arranged to come to Antalya to stay with us for a few nights before traveling back to the US. Bob and I kept this a secret so we could surprise the kids when she arrived.

We enjoyed an easy dinner together, the kids played some Mario Bros, and we finished the night with some Hearts and Quiplash. It sure was fun to see Josie and add someone to our mix after just being the 4 of us for the last 5 months!