MONDAY
BY SARAH VANBUSKIRK
Celebrate fall’s bounty on the Hood River Fruit Loop. Be sure to visit: the Packer Farm Place for a kid-friendly corn maze, and Draper Girls Country Farm for U-pick apples and pears — and to feed goats. hoodriverfruitloop.com.
Get a jump on holiday baking by making and decorating Halloween-themed sugar cookies. For full spooky effect, pick up Wilton’s 18-piece Halloween Metal Cutter Set, $14.95 at amazon. com.
Take in the 15th Annual Pumpkin Regatta at the Lake at Tualatin Commons to see costumed paddlers in 1,000-pound pumpkins navigate a course around the lake. 10 am. tualatinoregon.gov/ pumpkinregatta.
DENISE CASTAÑON
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If your child’s costume requires any face painting or elaborate hairstyles, now’s the time to practice. Just about every store in town seems to carry halloween makeup, so head to your favorite store and stock up as needed.
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Time for a costume trial run. Don your outfits, complete with any finishing touches, to make sure everything fits, nothing’s missing, and that your little one is happy with his or her look. Better to fix any issues now rather than deal with a meltdown on the big day!
Make a bootiful lantern at Beaverton City Library’s Spooky Lantern event for children grades two to five. Registration required. 4 pm-5 pm. beavertonlibrary. org.
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Multnomah County Library offers frightnight-themed events all month long. Today, hear storytelling duo Anne & Norm spin spine-tingling tales and sing spooky songs at An OldFashioned Halloween. 5:30 pm, Holgate Library.
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Make snack time deliciously creepy with treats like ants on a log, mozzarella eyeballs, spider-web crispy treats and more. The internet offers thousands of gory-but-edible ideas. Start here: pinterest.com/ myrecipes/halloweentreats.
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Bite your way through dozens of juicy apple and pear varieties at The Portland Nursery’s annual Apple Tasting festival. October 11-13 and 18-20, 10 am-5 pm.
Run for your lives down the Wenzel Farm Fantasy Trail, a ghoulishly decorated wooded path. Pro tip: Visit during daytime hours with littles who don’t appreciate scares. Weekends (12 pm5 pm) or under the stars (7 pm-10 pm) nightly through October 30. $7 adults, $6 children 12 and under. fantasytrail. com.
Get out the carving knives and turn those pumpkins into jack-o’lanterns. Or try drawing faces on some of your pumpkins with Sharpies.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a bat mobile! Fashion one yourself at the Northwest Public Library. Participants will work with bamboo twigs, paper, wire and other supplies to make their own hanging masterpiece. First come, first served. 2 pm. multcolib.org/events/ bat-mobiles.
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Snuggle up with some great Halloween reads, such as Room on the Broom, By the Light of the Halloween Moon, Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt, Too Many Pumpkins, and, for older kiddos, the Harry Potter series.
Plan out your trickor-treating route and any meet-ups with friends along the way now so you’ll be good to go on the big night. Make sure you’ve got treat bags ready as well. Pro tip: Walk your route to take in all the spook-tacular decorations without the sugar high.
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Pay homage to the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest (celebrating 193 years young) at Fort Vancouver’s Old Apple Tree Festival, 11 am-3 pm, at Old Apple Tree Park. Festivities include a chance to get a cutting from this older and wiser apple tree.
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Check out the specialty varieties at Fazio Farms. They’ve got ghostly white, pie pumpkins and Wee Bee Little baby pumpkins. Don’t miss the corn maze either! Visit faziofarms.com for days and times.
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It’s alive! Drop off your third to sixth graders to create their own Frankentoy at Beaverton City Library, 4:30 pm-5:30 pm. Kids will take apart old toys and transform them into their own monstrous creations. Registration required. beavertonlibrary.org.
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Stop by The Lippman Company or any area costume or dollar store (or go online) to pick up decorations to get your house and yard into the creepy spirit. Think glow-in-the-dark eyeballs, big spiders, lots of webbing and ghosts.
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The Oregon Zoo’s Howloween event includes scavenger hunts, watching elephants stomp on pumpkins and celebrating national vampire (bat) week. Last two weekends in October, 9:30 am-3 pm.
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SATURDAY
OREGON HERITAGE FARMS
Take a trip back in time at Oregon Heritage Farms. Gobble up apple-cider doughnuts, slingshot apples at targets, and, of course, pick pumpkins. Daily in October, 10 am-5 pm.
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OREGON ZOO
SPONSORED BY
Take the littlest trick-ortreaters to the Portland Children’s Museum BOOseum! candy-free party. 11 am-3 pm. And when your big kids hit the neighborhood after dark, be sure snap lots of pics before all that candy kicks in.
CLIP + SAVE
Visit the Magness Memorial Tree Farm for its annual Vampire-O event. Participants new to this theatrical sport, which combines elements of tag and scavenger hunting, can take a tutorial on how to play. All ages welcome, but best suited for older elementary-school aged kids. croc.org.
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FRIDAY
Soak up the spooky scene in St. Helens as the town celebrates its status as the location of the 1990s TV movie Halloweentown with a frightful bevy of events, games, scarecrows and more. discovercolumbiacounty. com.
CITY OF TUALATIN
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Take your arts and crafts game to the dark side by making Halloweenthemed crafts, such as spooky hand puppets, Halloween paper chains and monster paper rings. For inspiration, check out: easypeasyandfun. com/halloween-craftsideas.
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Whip up some tasty pumpkin bread using this easy and delicious recipe from Foster’s Market. Pro tip: This recipe works perfectly as muffins, too, and is fantastic with a few handfuls of chocolate chips thrown into the batter. fostersmarket. com/pumpkin-bread.
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DENISE CASTAÑON
Dare to visit the ultimate Halloween cemetery, the Davis Graveyard in Milwaukie, where months of planning DAVIS GRAVEYARD create a killer undead graveyard spectacular. Best for kids who don’t spook easily. Check davisgraveyard. com for times.
DENISE CASTAÑON
Tap into the scary spirit by watching some spooky films, such as It’s the Great, Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Mary and the Witch’s Flower, Super Monsters Save Halloween, and Goosebumps.
Devour freshly made pumpkinspice doughnuts at Bushue’s Family Farm. Hunt for the perfect pumpkin, and enjoy everything from hayrides to decorating Dirt Babies (like homemade chia pets). Tuesday-Sunday, 10 am5 pm. bushuefarming. com/pumpkins.
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ANNE & NORM BRECKE - MIKE BICKNELL PHOTO
Your teens will love scaring themselves silly at Milburn’s Haunted Manor. This attraction boasts two haunted houses, The Dark and The Manor ($12 each, or $20 for both). Open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, plus October 30 and 31.) milburnmanor.com.
THURSDAY
Visit the original Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch for hayrides, an epic corn maze, an animal barn, food booths, rides on the Cow Train (weekends only) and, of course, pumpkin picking. Open daily, 10 am-6 pm. thepumpkinpatch.com.
Time to nail down your costume choices. Plan out your purchases, create a costume from items you already own or start making said costumes to avoid the dreaded rush or crowds in the last days leading up to All Hallows’ Eve.
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WEDNESDAY
PORTLAND CHILDREN’S MUSEUM
Mark down the days to the candy-and-costume fest that is October 31 with our calendar of spooky Halloween and celebratory harvest activities for every day of October.
TUESDAY
BUSHUE’S FAMILY FARM
SUNDAY