Happy Birthday and Happy Halloween!

We started our week yesterday by celebrating Dave's 34th birthday. He got the royal treatment starting with home-cooked breakfast including 2 of his favorites: French toast (made with real French bread) and turkey bacon. In the evening we had a special dinner, requested by the birthday boy, of chicken and pasta with garlic cream sauce and garlic bread. We thought the extra garlic was a great idea to ward off vampires on Halloween night. Then we had homemade pumpkin swirl cheesecake for dessert. Mom joined us and we had a really nice time dining and visiting. Dave got a new gray hoody which was needed desparately as his old one is wrecked, and he also got the brand new game Uno Attack. We didn't have any C batteries in the house so we haven't tested it out yet, but it's sure to be a blast.

Then later we picked out designs and carved our pumpkins for Halloween night. We each finished our pumpkin and previewed them separately in a dark room with a candle lighted inside before we showed each other our handiwork. We were fairly impresssed with ourselves. Dave's is the oh-so-scary jack-o-lantern face at the top of the post. He did his free-hand. I, on the other hand, used a pattern for my haunted house.

So tonight we got all the luminaries burning, queued up the CD, turned down the lights inside the house, set up our pumpkins and got dressed up for our trick-or-treaters. Dave was The Fonze and I was a witch. Lucy and Abby got to wear their special t-shirts, and as usual they were a huge hit with all the kids.

Unfortunately, one pumpkin luminarie was trampled and smashed and another knocked into the bushes by the very first kids to arrive. I was a little ticked off because the perpetrators were girls somewhere between 14 and 16 who not only did not apologize, but they made no attempt to clean up their mess or retrieve the fallen soldier from the bushes. I held my tongue as they walked away down the street casting anxious glances back at me. The rest of the night proceeded pretty smoothly, although Dave and I grew weary of our costumes and traded them for lounge wear shortly after 6:45.

Altogether we think we had around 30 to 35 children/teens. A few kids hoodwinked us and came back a second time for more loot. And when one teen brazenly asked for a second piece of candy, Dave told him, "Next!" We decided it's a good thing Halloween is only one night a year given the large number of unsupervised, poorly-mannered teenagers who take advantage of the night. So, the porch light has been turned off and the pumpkins have been brought in for the night in case of any late-night stragglers with bad intentions. Tomorrow I'll set out the Thanksgiving decorations and get ready for the next holiday.