A new tradition has begun!

We met up with some great friends at Pizza Port for dinner - all the kids dressed in their costumes. It was a large, fun group of people and the kids were, of course, adorable and TOTALLY loopy from the excitement of going trick-or-treating. The streets we chose to trick-or-treat on were within walking distance of Pizza Port so very convenient.

It was all great fun even though I tripped on someone's yard guard towards the end of our evening (you know those low, one foot borders). Their property wasn't lit and there were no street lights right there. Didn't even see it - if it wasn't me, it could have easily been someone behind me. I was holding Roxy and, though I did my best to break her fall, she still hit her head. And I practically landed on Dillen... who threw up. She always does when she gets hurt. Roxy stopped crying after I gave her a lollipop and Dillen was all better once she threw up (fortunately not all over herself). If Dillen's face bruises like I think it is going to, I have a feeling someone is going to want to call CPS on me tomorrow. We trooped on to about 5 more houses and called it a night.

All in all, I couldn't even tell you how many houses we went to. And I was thoroughly impressed with how well Roxy did. She tromped right up to the doors by herself, waited for no one and looked only at the person with the candy yelling "twick oh tweet!" By her third house she started running to the doors and was really good about saying "tank to" and "happy haween" (only sometimes with a little prompting). Dillen took trick or treating very seriously. She had a great time but stopped everyone at one point and said, "Listen up! Cinderella is now the leader!" and then promptly ran to the front of the pack. Again... she only wanted to be addressed as Cinderella the entire evening. OMG.

Their loot buckets are full.

Both Roxy and Sean fell asleep about an hour after we got home but Dillen is on a post-Halloween sugar high and is sitting next to me on the couch drawing on her magnet board and watching Sprout TV. Good times.

And just to throw a little late night spook into the evening, about 10 minutes ago I heard a noise on our roof. I thought 'I can handle this without Sean.' I told Dillen to stay on the couch, grabbed a flash light and went up the stairs. I'm already a little on edge because when we came home one of our child-carved pumpkins was gone... some kid prank no doubt. (Sean thinks it must be smashed out on the street somewhere - poor little pumpkin.) So, I turned the flash light on and shot it out the window, slowly moved the beam across the the back half of the house (which is only one story high so you can see that part of the roof) and THERE IT WAS... that damn raccoon that keeps leaving little presents behind for us. This was no punk kid in a rodent costume, either. It was the real, in the flesh, flea-bitten varmint. I told him to 'go away' and he looked at me smugly, scratched himself and sat down. Hmmph. I think he knew I wasn't about to take him on. I gave him the finger, turned the flash light off and went back down stairs.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Pictures coming soon.

Posted by sean at 8:38 PM | Permalink

Yesterday, we enjoyed the annual La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club's Halloween carnival thanks to Grandma Barbara - a surreal place to be after so much recent devastation in California. I had big plans of Dillen dressing as Dorothy and Roxy her Toto. But that idea was scrapped the day before yesterday. Dillen, even though she wasn't feeling all that great due to a cough, decided she wanted to go and she wanted to be a princess instead... and Roxy refused to be a dog. Gone are the days of me being able to choose what they wear on a daily basis let alone for Halloween. Fortunately, they were happy to choose costumes we already had in our dress-up closet (I was not about to go out and purchase costumes!). Dillen chose to be Cinderella and Roxy demanded to be Tinkerbell with a twist. Their personalities shine through in the costumes and accessories they chose to wear... note the sneakers on Roxy. She is so spunky. :) And Dillen, well... she would only talk to us if we addressed her as Cinderella. Such a princess.

Posted by sean at 8:33 PM | Permalink

...we had some fun with the girls.

First was a trip to the local Barnes and Noble on the 19th where we watched Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary) perform folk songs and sing Puff the Magic Dragon - to promote his book of the same name (with beautiful illustrations). It was a super-great time. Peter is a true entertainer and had all of the kids singing and laughing (as well as the adults!). Dillen joined the group of children to go up to the stage and she was chosen to sing the last few lyrics of the Puff song that closed the show. I was SO bummed my camera ran out of juice just 1 minute before this moment. It was priceless. Dillen was on Cloud 9 for being chosen and sang her heart out into the microphone which brought resounding applause from the audience. It made her (and my) night!

Roxy having fun with Dillen:

Roxy singing "Puff the Dwaaaagon... Puff the Dwaaagon" to a cute little boy she met:

Dillen, front row/stage right:

Then, on Sunday the 21st, the school that Dillen and Roxy will eventually go to was holding their annual Halloween Carnival. There were lots of game booths, yummy foods and rides. This one was the hit for Dillen for the day... Roxy, poor thing, was just too little.

Posted by sean at 4:36 PM | Permalink

We are back home (after being evacuated on Monday). The air is awful and soot is everywhere but - for the time being - our home is safe. We've been told by the City to prepare to go if asked again... all memorabilia boxes are still packed and at the front door.

Thanks to Grandma Barbara for taking us (me, Sean, two kids, two cats and a lizard) in!

Our thoughts are with everyone who is going through all of this.

An image from our back yard on Monday:

Posted by sean at 9:59 AM | Permalink

...and one stripe away from becoming an Orange Belt! :)

Posted by sean at 9:46 PM | Permalink

Roxy, do it... I won't tell...

Posted by sean at 7:35 AM | Permalink

I thought I was doing really well under all the stress of what is happening in our lives these days... but yesterday proved otherwise.

During the final stages of completing the toy room, a gentlemen knocked on the door and this was our conversation:

Man: Hi. I'm your plumber.
Me: Oh, great!
Man: My name is Duane.
Me: Nice to meet you... Duane.

After showing him to the bathroom that needed repairs I had to run upstairs to where Sean was working. I immediately had to cover my mouth because I couldn't hold the laughter back. Sean looked at me and asked what was so funny. But by this point, I couldn't even answer. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming and my face became paralyzed in a hysterical-crazy-woman-wacked-out-smile-look. I even felt my throat closing up. I actually fell to the floor laughing. At this point, Sean was completely amused but also thought something was wrong with me. He asked again:

Sean: What's so funny?
Me: The...plumber...his name...is...is...Duane.
Sean: So? I don't get it.

I didn't think I could laugh any harder but all of a sudden I was completely taken over by even more uncontrollable laughter thinking about how I was going to explain the hilarity of the situation to Sean. All I could do was:

Me: Knock...knock.
Sean: What?
Me: Knock...knock!
Sean: (now laughing) Who's there?
Me: (laughing out loud) Duane.
Sean: Duane who?
Me: (almost unable to even speak these last delicious words) Duane the bathtub please.

It was the best laugh I've had in a while. But though I still laugh knowing our plumber's name is Duane, it was a lot funnier yesterday... when I (obviously) needed to relieve a little tension. :)

Posted by sean at 9:03 PM | Permalink