Rob and I went downtown to check out the Halloweeners on 6th Street. This is Austin's version of West Hollywood, CA where they close off 6th Street and thousands of people walk around to look and to show off their costumes. There were some fun costumes but all were pretty tame compared to WEHO since Austin's such a "family friendly" town. There were many families still there with their kids until about 11pm. We had fun walking around and taking in the sights!
Allie... Pretty Fairy...
Haley - Beautiful Vampire Princess
Emily - The Animated Kitty
Ben (Captain Jack Sparrow) - Anna's son
Anna and her monster of a husband, Rey
Emily and her friends, Michelle (Mouse) and Abby (Britany Spears)
My nieces got dressed up in their costumes, gettin' ready to go get candies in massive amounts to be consumed as quickly as possible... The two little ones, Haley & Allie got dressed and ready and we waited outside for Emily and her friends to finish getting dressed. The street was buzzing with excitement and all of the neighbor kids out and about, showing off their costumes, some already trick-or-treating. Some of the parents decided to put out lawn chairs on the street to take in the excitement and party atmosphere. I waited until the girls were off to "get candy" then went inside to get myself and Rob on our way out for us...
We didn't find out until the day before the Voter Registration deadline for Austin so we looked for alternative ways to register, maybe on-line or a specific place we can go to register in person... no such thing so we printed out the form found online, filled it out and then had to snail-mail it. We crossed our fingers that we made it in time since it would be postmarked with the deadline date on it. A couple of weeks later, we received our confirmations! Yeh!!! We were relieved to know that we can vote!
My nieces' elementary school had a Business Fair today! Ben, our friend Anna's son, and his classmates had to make products of their (within reason) that they can sell at the Business Fair. All of the proceeds of this sale would go towards their class trip or something to that effect. Ben and his mom, Anna, decided to make little Pac Mans. They decided to make Ms. Pac Mans as well... you know for the girls to have an option to buy as well. Anna started making these pac mans for Ben, which became really elaborate... much more than necessary, especially selling them for only a $1.00 a piece. She got wooden balls then painted them yellow, drew little eyes, noses and lips to the faces, drilled holes on the side to glue in the arms, glued little plastic hands on to the end of these arms, glued legs to the bottom, then added the hand-sewn little shoes with stuffing in them. The Ms. Pac Mans got bows on top of head and on the shoes which got "bedazzled" with little jewels glued to them. Even with all this extra, she decided that they also needed to have little houses. The printed out a layout of the houses where they'd be cut and folded with flaps to be glued together, etc. and all this was even double sided! She probably spent a fortune on the toner, not to mention all of the other little parts she bought to put these little guys together. But the price was set, they were sold for $1.00 each. She had a few wooden balls that were larger so they were sold for $1.50. I told her she should have charged a bit extra for the "houses" since when I helped her cut out these boxes/houses, she had only printed half of what she needed and was running out of toner. I guess she printed the rest. Rob and I stopped by at the school to check out the Business Fair. I also wanted to get a Pac Man and a Ms. Pac Man for myself since they looked so great and it took alot of our time and effort to make them. By the time we made it to the fair, Ben was sold out of the Pac Mans, only had Ms. Pac Mans left... and only about 6 in total left from the 100 they made! Awesome! He was the best seller at the fair!!! But because of this, I was only able to get Ms. Pac Man... oh, well... but look how cute she is!!!
Here are the girls in front of the Jungle! We stopped by after Haley's play performance. No pictures from the play since it was wayyyyyyy to dark in there for any of my pictures to actually come out. One of these days I'll have a real camera with better flash and zoom! Sigh!
Rob put up this teddy bear on the right... :)
Our friend Anna and her friend, Iris were requested to help out at the kids' school (due to their history of dedication and creativity on other volunteered projects) to get ready for the upcoming book fair by helping them transform the library into a jungle! I'm proud to say I helped out by cutting many of the leaves and the grass blades. Rob helped by putting up these wonderful decorations. I was bummed that I wasn't feeling well on the day when they put everything up. I was so looking forward to helping them with that since I love that kind of stuff... But at least Rob was there representing both of us that day. Here's the outcome results of everyone's hard work. Anna's truly amazing! She puts 150% on everything she does!
Andrea (Left) and Allie (Right) posing after the dance
Andrea and Allie posing with their teacher 
Allie after the dance, changing out of her dance shoes 
My youngest niece, Allie, had her dance rehearsal. The actual performance isn't until next May but they were having a somewhat of a dress rehearsal to get the little ones used to performing in front of others in order to decrease the chances of stage fright, etc. Her and her best friend, Andrea, performed together. It was very cute. She actually did well and danced all of the moves but then it was only the few of us family members there to witness it. We'll see if she actually goes through with it in front of a real audience. The very cute videos are on my YouTube page. Go check it out.
Emily, my oldest niece, and her band mates performed in the Fall Festival. Her school and two other middle schools brought their bands together and performed a few songs each. Emily plays the euphonium as pictured with a friend of hers after the performance.
Mucca Pazza
Running thru the audience
On the ground, still performing
Interacting with the audience
We went back to Maker Faire so we can help out Candice & Jeffrey a bit more since we felt like we didn't help them out enough yesterday. The passes they got us were good for the entire weekend so we took advantage of it. Good thing we went... they DID need our help. I think we earned those passes and we got to help out Candice & Jeffrey. Very nice people. 
Inside one of the areas. This is where they have the rodeos but not this weekend... I just like this shot because of the time of day, the sun coming in through looks like there are lights on outside.
Spider Ironwork
Burlesque Dancer on Glass Cups
Part of the Biker Zoo
Peddaling to make the guitars play 
These fish and lobsters conduct, dance and sing!
Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It's for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. It involveds: Arts • Crafts • Engineering • Food • Green • Music • Science • Technology. They also have booths, stages and workshops set-up to teach you how to make, design, craft or develop all kinds of things such as : Robots • Rockets • Bicycles • Alternative Energy Devices • Electronics • Crafts• Circuit Boards • Sustainable Food • Musical Instruments • Wood Working• Knitting • Eco Modding Cars • Kites • Special Effects • Sewing • and more...
