Halloween!

It’s Halloween!  The big night is here!  But, first things first–we still had to go to work and school today.  It was a pretty regular day for the kids, although I did dress them up in festive gear.  🙂  They had an impromptu game of balloon keep-away before school.  Brandon and I had a special day, since Halloween is pretty important at Red Hat (the very first release of Red Hat Linux came out on Halloween, and has henceforth been called the Halloween Release).  The company puts on a Halloween party for employees, with all the C-level executives dressing up in themed costumes and putting on a skit.  This year’s theme was Austin Powers, and they brought the house down!  Hilarious.  Then there was the annual costume contest for employees, which featured a Despicable Me minion, Bender from Futurama, and a pretty spectacular Iron Man who took first place.  Then we watched The Show.  It was certainly better than the average afternoon at work, especially with the two complimentary drink tickets per person! 😉  The party was held at the Lincoln Theatre, which was a change this year.  It did help with the party atmosphere, being at a nightclub.  🙂  Brandon and I snuck out early and stole a little time for ourselves away from work and the kids (shh, don’t tell them!)

Soon enough, it was time to pick up the kids.  I carved our big pumpkin into our traditional style, while Brandon picked up the kids.  When they got home, we took a couple pumpkin photos, and then got the kids into their costumes.  We struck out into the neighborhood, the kids a marauding band of candy pirates..  No, not really, actually I was exceedingly proud of their good manners and saying “thank you” at every house.  We do need to come up with a word for a Halloween Humbug, though, because way more than half the houses didn’t answer their doors (even though we could tell they were home!)  That was okay, though, the kids certainly made off with more candy than anyone could eat before Easter!  Also, we noted a surprising trend of giving out full-size candy bars.  Is that a thing now?  In any case, Mommy is totally calling dibs on the Mounds bar. 😉  It was nice to meet some of our neighbors, and they all seemed to really like the kids’ costumes.  Kendall always inspires oohs and ahhs from the ladies, and Brian gets the “whoa, cool!” treatment from all the folks who recognize his costume.  I got a kick out of the “Boo, Y’all” sign at one neighbor’s house.  After going door-to-door throughout the whole neighborhood, the kids were pretty tired and we headed home.  Brian felt the need to do the candy dump-out and sorting right in the garage, so that waylaid us for a bit.  We listened to the New Wave Halloween CD as is our tradition, and let the kids have just a couple pieces of candy, but then we were off to dinner and bed.  We did surprise the kids with our finished Lego Haunted House!  It’s a pretty spectacular creation, and I’m glad we’ll get to enjoy setting it up every year.  Whew!  I’m almost glad that October is over, it is one exhausting month!