It's the annual Halloween blog!

That time is here again! I know you're all excited about the annual Halloween blog (if you are that interested, you can find the last 2 years' on my myspace). I was a little disappointed. There didn't seem to be nearly as many funny moments tonight as in the past two years. (And no, we don't have the time machine set to October 31st. In the Dayton area, they schedule "Beggars Night" for the 30th on years where Halloween falls on a Friday or a Sunday). There were a few cute moments though, so here they are--as usual, in bullet format. :)

--After a pack of 3 boys got candy from me, one looked in the other's bag (presumably to see what I'd given him, since I had a variety I was giving out). He stood there rifling through his brother's (friend's?) bag and finally the exasperated mother yelled from the sidewalk, "Diego, you're being high maintenance! Come on!"

--I had a few silly responses to the "What do you say?" prompts of the parents when the kid reached the doorstep. One kid said, "Merry Christmas!" and another just looked at me and said "Halloween." Not "trick-or-treat." OK.

--My favorite costume of the night was a kid dressed as Napolean Dynamite. He had the curly blondish fro wig, the big glasses, the "Vote for Pedro" shirt, and his jeans were tucked into his boots. I'm not a fan of that movie (I really want that 2 hours of my life back!) but it was a pretty good costume. I almost asked him if he liked my sleeves or if he would dance for the candy.

--My favorite parent of the night came up to me and asked, "Do you know where Trunk Drive is?" I told her I was relatively new to the neighborhood and had seen it close by on walks, but I wasn't sure which direction it was in. She said, "Oh, we're new too and now I don't know how to get home!" Turns out, she was using a firetruck that sat at our instersection for the first hour (they had the lights flashing and the firemen were basically glorified crossing guards who handed out candy and gave the littlest kids a thrill.) as her landmark to know which street to turn down, and when the firetruck left she had no idea where she was in the neighborhood. When I pointed to the corner and told her the firetruck (unless there was more than one!) had been sitting there, she breathed a sigh of relief and said she could find home now that she knew she was on the street from which Trunk branched off of. Random question: which is worse? Trunk Dr. or Gross Dr.? Seriously...who named the streets in this neighborhood?

--Tiny rant: As nice as it would be to have both parents go out with the kid and be able to enjoy it with him/her, I think it is totally unfair when both the mom and the dad take the kids out and don't leave somebody at home to give out candy. I think it is cheap and selfish. There. I said it.

--Mark was told today that he's allowed to dress up in costume for work tomorrow. (So now all my AF wife friends are thinking "what the heck kind of military is Mark in?!? My husband's flying helicopters in Iraq!" I know, I know. :)) Besides the whole handing out candy part, we're not really into Halloween so he's obviously not going to dress up. I did, however, suggest that he go as a colonel because we have a set of colonel rank that his uncle gave me upon Mark's commissioning (so I'd always "outrank" Mark. :) I guess if he one day makes general (psha :)) he'll outrank me then, but it turns out that it's pretty hard to find generals' stars in the military clothing store and colonel rank was the best Uncle David could do for me.

--Trick-or-treating was supposed to go from 6-8 pm. I completely ran out of candy at 7:30. The best part was that I ran out when a group of about 15 kids all came up at the same time. Actually it was 2 groups who reached the house at the same time--about 6-8 little kids and 7 teenagers. The little kids got to me first and I had the exact number of pieces for that little kid group and it gave me a little squeal of delight when I dropped the last pack of skittles into the bucket of a kid in a stroller and held the empty bowl up for the high schoolers standing behind the little kid group. I put on a sad face and said "Aww! Sorry guys! Just a few seconds too late!" but I was smiling on the inside. ;) Teenagers who trick-or-treat annoy me, unless they actually put serious effort into their costumes. These didn't, so I was perfectly fine with the timing of my empty bowl.

--I started with A TON of candy. A TON. I always had what I thought was a ton at Eglin, and I always gave each kid 2 pieces and ended up with some left over. I knew there were probably more kids in our neighborhood here, so I started out with a ton and then went out and got 5 more bags yesterday because I was scared I didn't have enough. Tonight, I started out giving out 2 pieces and hit panic mode at 6:45 and switched to 1 per kid. When I ran out and came inside at 7:30, I got all the empty bags and added them up. The grand total was 18 1/4 pounds of candy. That. is. rediculous.

So, that was Halloween. It didn't get much attention at my house this year. It sort of snuck up on me, so I never got around to getting a pumpkin, and I'm sure that if I had one I wouldn't have had time to carve it. I hauled a fake one with a little light bulb outside with me and called it a day. :) I didn't dress up (besides my pumpkin beret :)) and Fredo spent the whole trick-or-treat time in his crate, so he didn't dress up either this year. I didn't even get Sarah Beth a costume! I hear the gasp from all of you out there. Yes, babies in costume are very cute, but seriously...it was freezing and she wasn't going to sit outside with me, plus her bedtime was halfway through trick-or-treat time, so we just didn't even go there. She did stand just inside the glass door and play with candy wrappers for a while (and lick the door, which was hilarious but totally gross), so she got to watch the kids and her cuteness was admired by kids and parents alike, even though she wasn't in costume.