It is 11:30pm, Halloween Night, and I am writing to you from my desk at work. No, I haven’t been here all evening. After the kids went to bed I hopped on my laptop and managed to destroy my e-mail directory. I am up at work trying to recover files from my last backup. We’ll see how things go.
Tonight’s trick-or-treating wrapped up a week-long Halloween celebration that began last weekend. Last Saturday, Susan and the kids attended the Yukon Community Center’s Halloween festival. Monday night was the “Mummy and Son” outing, also held in Yukon. After a few days off we hit the ground running last night at the high school’s Haunt the Halls, where kids get to trick-or-treat inside the school. Today during school hours Morgan had one Halloween party and Mason had two (one at school and one at Open Door after school). Morgan also got to trick-or-treat the underground tunnels at work today during the annual Haunt the Tunnel event, where employees bring candy and hand it out the daycare kids. Like last year, even before official trick-or-treating began this year the kids already had a giant stash of candy.
After work today, my sister Linda and my nephew Griffin, my Mom and her husband Jack and my Dad all came over to take the kids trick-or-treating. Susan’s mom, sister and nephew all stopped by for a bit, too. One of the things they say keeps kids out of candy while trick-or-treating (yeah, right) is to eat dinner before going out, so Susan made some Chicago-style hot dogs, Rotel Cheese Dip and some Mac and Cheese for everybody to chow down on. After dinner it was time to go trick-or-treating!
Dad and I took the golf cart out tonight, partly because dad didn’t feel like walking and partly because I suspected it would come in handy when kids decided they didn’t want to carry things (or got tired of walking themselves). Susan picked up a couple of flashing red LED lights at Wal-Mart earlier today — they’re intended for bicyclists, but worked great on the golf cart. The kids (Mason, Morgan and Griffin) led Linda, Mom and Jack door to door asking for treats as dad and I (flashing lights and all) rolled behind. Susan stayed back at the house and handed out candy.
I’m not sure why but our neighborhood had a pretty good participation rate this year, even better than last year I think. Rarely did the kids have to skip more than one or two houses to find one with their porch lights on. When we started there weren’t many other kids out in the streets, but as the night went on more and more kids showed up.
Mom and Jack made the first block and called it a night. We recruited Susan for the second block, regrouped, and headed out again. By the time we neared the end of block number two the kids were done. For the last leg of the tour Dad and I crammed Mason, Morgan and Griffin onto the golf cart with us and cruised back home amid shouts of “Taxi! Give us a ride!” from mini-ghouls and ghosts walking the streets. Once back home Mason and Morgan divvied up their plunder as everyone else headed home for the night.
Tomorrow, November 1st, starts NaNoWriMo. It also starts a recommitment to my diet. As a kid I always heard horror stories of kids being forced to smoke a whole pack of cigarettes after being caught smoking. I’m trying the same approach, with Halloween candy. After about 20 packs of Smarties, at least as many handfuls of candy corn and god knows how many Reese’s and Kit Kats, I think I’ve had my fill.
That’s it for Halloween night — and good news, it looks like my e-mail just finished restoring! A good night, all around. I hope everyone else had a safe Halloween!
Halloween is just as much for the parents as the kids! I loved watching them and have some great pictures I’ll share later. I just poop out quicker than they do. I’ve done the same thing with the candy (we didn’t have too many door-to-door ones, so even after throwing handfuls in their buckets, we still have abunch). But this morning I figured out how much I could lose in the almost 4 weeks til Thanksgiving, so I’ve decided to really hunker down and give it my best shot. Can’t fasten any of my pants after a few months of eating everything I could get my hands on! Last thought… I got a jump start late last week on my writing. Then read it and thought it sounded like a third grader wrote it. Starting over! Mom