Halloween Tricks and Treats

For Halloween Dan and I drove to Spring to be with the grands. It was a Halloween full of a couple of tricks and an abundance of treats.

I'll start with the TREATS:

* Fall was in the air, the sun was shining, and the rural route we take to get there was as beautiful as I've ever seen it.

* Both of the children were still in school when we arrived at their home, so we enjoyed a rare child-free lunch, at a restaurant, with Kelsey.

* When the children got home from school, we got to watch the pumpkin carving. Robert didn't want anything to do with it, after he saw the slimy "guts" of the pumpkin, but Clara was into it all the way this year. She was the designer, drawing the face on paper and taping it to the pumpkin as a pattern, so that it could be carved. She did a great job, and it was a classically handsome Jack-o-Lantern in the end.

* Grandpa and I brought homemade caramel corn and some Halloween treats for the kids. Included in their treat bags were some funny nose/glasses and some scary vampire teeth, which provided a few minutes of fun and giggles.

Clara and Kelsey show off their matching Halloween nails.

* It was fun watching both children donning their Halloween costumes. As you can see, Clara was Miss Piggy, and she got to wear some Miss Piggy make-up for the special occasion. Miss Piggy's side-kick, Kermie (aka Robert) put in his appearance, as well.

* That evening we drove to the home of their friends, Glenn and Becky and their two daughters, Leah and Kate, where we had a pizza dinner before trick-or-treating. Chris came there, directly from work, so we got to spend the evening with him, as well.

Look at my candy!

* We spent the night in Spring and drove back home this morning. Although the first half of the trip, today, was through a dense fog, the last half was once again in beautiful fall sunshine.

No Halloween is complete without a few TRICKS as well:

* We had hardly begun our trick-or-treating when Miss Piggy, running off to the next welcoming door, tripped and fell. Tears flowed profusely, but she recovered in a few minutes and, sans piggy nose, continued her trick-or-treating successfully.

* A mean little TRICK came when Dan backed our car out of Chris and Kelsey's driveway. The driveway has a little bit of a tricky angle to it, which Dan didn't quite accurately maneuver. We came down off of the curb instead of the ramp of the driveway. The curb caught the bumper and ripped it out from the body at the right front. He ran it to the Mercedes shop, where they removed a part of the plastic wheel liner that was broken and scraping on the tire with every left turn. We were, therefore, able to drive home safely today. Soon after getting home, Dan took his little red "baby" to a body shop for an estimate. We are calling this estimate a TREAT, because it was not nearly as high as we had feared. The major parts are salvageable and just need to be reattached. Whew! All''s well that ends well.