Tag Archives: Elk Meadows

2026 Halloween Recap

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It was quite the Halloween season.

Sloan and Beau pose with their cousins, Johnny and Mik, at the Mead High School trunk-or-treat event. Halloween 2026 was awesome for the Reser family.

In addition to trick-or-treating on Saturday night and their own Halloween parties at school, I took Sloan and Beau to eight different public community Halloween-related events over the course of a week and a half.

Because when you buy expensive costumes, you have to get your money’s worth, right?

I made sure Sloan and Beau maximized the time they had in their costumes.

But in all honesty, I just love this time of year and I love doing fun things with my kids. It also helps that this Spokane community is incredible and puts forth such a strong effort to serve the youth.

Spokane does so much for Halloween and I really enjoyed the chance to enjoy it with my kids.

This blog post would go forever if I broke down each event we attended so I will save the quick recap just for Halloween weekend. But I did want to mention one theme from this spooky season: haunted houses/mazes.

Sloan, Beau, my sister, and cousins wait outside a haunted house entrance. Beau had me hold him while Sloan didn’t go in.

Some of the Halloween events we attended offered haunted attractions which were very subdued to a horror-seeker like myself but a first test for someone like Beau. For the most part, he loved them and wanted to go again. In a couple other instances, he wanted me to hold him. Sloan? She stood outside the door and said “NO WAY.” 😂

Sloan preferred to refrain from the haunted house attractions. This photo is of her with two classmates.

I can’t express how nice our Halloween weekend was. On Friday we attended the St. Mary Catholic School Halloween Carnival/Trunk-Or-Treat. It was fun to watch our kids run wild with their classmates while also getting the chance to catch up with our fellow-parents/friends. Our school community is so awesome.

Beau does the cake walk at the St. Mary Catholic School Halloween Carnival in his t-rex costume.

After the school event, we headed to Red Robin for our Halloween evening. It was relaxing to sit down with my family after a busy day at work and enjoy delicious hamburgers. The main reason why we chose Red Robin was because everyone who showed up in costume received a free sundae. We told Beau he couldn’t go inside with his t-rex costume so he opted for his Stitch outfit.

Sloan and Beau show the sundaes they received for wearing costumes at Red Robin on Oct. 30, 2026.

On Halloween night I took Beau trick-or-treating for the first time in our neighborhood. It was our initial experience because before this past weekend, the ‘hood was in different stages of development. With it now pretty much completely built, it made since to stay on our home turf. In our neighborhood the houses are built pretty closely together so Beau could quickly go house-to-house. Or should I say driveway-to-driveway? Pretty much all neighbors set up shop outside as burned fires, grilled food, played music, and handed out LOTS of candy. Beau’s treat bag was practically full after only hitting up a fraction of the Elk Meadows houses.

Beau approaches a house that had a makeshift library set up for children to take a book (yes, they had candy too). The trick-or-treat vibe in Elk Meadows was outstanding.

With Beau not wanting to haul his bag around any longer, we returned home to pass out candy with Sidney and Sloan. Like our other neighbors, we stayed outside in our lawn chairs and distributed candy to the throngs of costumed kids/teens that walked up our driveway. It was a perfect family activity for the four of us to do. After we hit the 200 mark of trick-or-treaters—even though we had more candy to give out—we decided to head inside and close up shop.

It was a lot of fun handing out candy with Sid and the kids on Halloween night.

But just because we stopped handing out candy didn’t mean we ceased celebrating Halloween. We heated up frozen pizza and watched “Hocus Pocus” together. Once the sugar highs wore off, we turned off the movie with about 30 minutes to go and headed upstairs to bed.

I hope everyone else had a fulfilling Halloween. If we had the pleasure of hanging with you this month, thanks for being part of our spooky season. Don’t Blink.

The “Shattering” Of A Neighborhood

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In August 2023, we moved into a brand new neighborhood. In fact, we were one of the first families to move in on the only street that was developed at the time. More than a year and a half later, our neighborhood has grown a lot and is nearing the 75% completion phase.

This is our new home by D.R. Horton.

It didn’t take that long after we settled in our house that a neighborhood Facebook group was launched. If you have ever had the “pleasure” of being part of such a virtual community, you know what comes with it: drama, drama, drama.

Our group is filled with constant posts about dog poop pick up, package theft, and property lines…you know, probably the same stuff that inundates your neighborhood page, right?

Sidney and I never post or engage with the page, but we do get our popcorn every now and then.

But one unique re-occurring issue our neighborhood tackles is amenity use. Our community boasts a basketball sport court and a really nice pickleball area with two courts. If you know anything about the insane popularity of the latter sport, it probably goes without saying that the pickleball courts are in high demand. And believe it or not, they are in such high demand that countless people who don’t live in our neighborhood like to use them.

Sloan usung our neighborhood’s pickleball court.

Unauthorized use by non-residents of the pickleball area and basketball court is by far the #1 hot topic issue of our Facebook group. Each day it seems like neighbors are trying to solve the problem. The solutions are pretty predictable and re-used by now: make our neighborhood a gated community, post signs, install fences around the courts, require people to sign up for usage, hire security to roam the areas, distribute access cards to community members only, etc.

Beau riding his trike on the basketball court.

Well, over the weekend, something happened that really caught the ire of our neighborhood and increased the urgency of pursuing one of the above options…

Our basketball hoop backboard was shattered on Saturday (photo courtesy of Elk Meadows resident).

How sad is that?! Our nice basketball hoop had its backboard shattered over the weekend. Of course, people jumped to the conclusion that “outsiders” are responsible for this unfortunate incident. Is there proof? Of course not. But it is always easier to blame someone, correct?

Okay, let me retract my sarcasm for this paragraph. Seeing the backboard shattered was jarring. I couldn’t imagine my childhood basketball hoop meeting the same fate. What happened was destructive and removes a really cool resource that our neighborhood offers. How do we proceed now?

I took this photo on Sunday. Better not try to bank it off the glass!

Sidney and I were both in the camp that the public playing on the basketball court didn’t bother us too much. Our opinion was that it is better for people to play on the court instead of engaging in other risky activities. Does this incident change our thinking? Again, we don’t know if non-residents are even to blame.

But perhaps there should be some layer of protection. We would move if a gate was installed at the entrance to our neighborhood (even when they aren’t broken they provide no deterrence). Not a big fan of private security either. From my vantage point, maybe some type of surveillance system would be the best route. If people know that cameras are watching, it will most likely keep them honest.

By later Sunday, the remaining glass—both still attached to the backboard and all the pieces on the ground—were removed.

Am I going to offer that suggestion on our neighborhood’s Facebook page? No sir! I don’t find that outlet to be very productive. But maybe I will find some other way to voice my opinion. Until then, I hope the backboard can be replaced. Don’t Blink.