Saturday, November 10, 2012

Day of the Dead

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Our local natural history museum has a wonderful Day of the Dead celebration. We went last year with Ally’s friend Erik. This year we met up with some of our Guatemala Girl friends.

We have been talking about the Day of the Dead since this summer when our cat Bryce died. Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in Latin American countries, mainly Mexico that honors our ancestors. The idea is that the dead rise up and visit on November 1 (the day after Halloween). So you have a party to greet them and leave notes for them to let them know you miss them and are thinking about them.

It was a beautiful sunny day and Ally was thrilled to be going to the event and seeing her friends.

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Beautiful flags greeted us as we walked in.

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Ally went right away to the altar and wrote a message to Bryce and put it in the basket. She remembered last year that I wrote a note to my Grandma Mimi and we talked about remembering family, friends and pets who have died. Becky and I arrived a bit earlier than our friends so Ally would have the opportunity to do this.

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When Rosa arrived we made tissue paper flowers and the girls got their faces painted with Day of the Dead themed pictures.

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They colored masks.

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decorated sugar skulls and fancy hats

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We met up with Gabi and Alice and the girls all made a noise-maker/rattle.

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Rosa’s mom Julie look so silly with the hat, the rattle and t he mask all on her at once!

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The four girls; Gabi, Alice, Ally & Rosa. We missed Roxie.

When we were done inside the museum Ally asked “to go to the special place” I had no idea what she meant, but she remembered the museum courtyard we had a picnic at with Erik last year. So we all went there and the girls climbed a tree, ran around and played for bit before we all went home.

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Such a fun day!

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