2 November 2008

Hip hip hooray for Brandan's medical practice! His group was voted "Favorite Medical Group" in our newspaper's annual Readers' Choice awards. The only prize is mention in last Sunday's newspaper. Brandan also received the highest rating for patient satisfaction this quarter. That award comes with a $50 gift certificate.


The firewood we ordered was delivered this week. We have no idea how much wood we'll use and we don't have a lot of room for storing it, so we started with one cord. Abe helped Becky stack the wood alongside our garage. He liked testing his limits and carrying the big pieces. The wood is madrone, a common hardwood in our area. The trees have red bark and wonderfully twisted trunks.


Halloween was our big event this week and it was our best Halloween ever. Four kids equals 4 times the fun. The rest of the photos are from Halloween, starting with Sophie in her costume. She dressed up as Night Rider (not to be confused with Knight Rider.) Night Rider is a villainous character made up by Sophie who commits all kinds of terror as she pursues her main objective, destroying Tom, the man who jilted her. Sophie has written short stories and a musical starring Night Rider. This whole thing took waaaayyy too long to explain, so Sophie would just say "Evil" when she was asked what she was.


No need to guess here-- Abe was Spiderman. He loved the padded muscles on his costume.

Helen changed her mind nearly hourly in the weeks up to Halloween about what she wanted to be. Luckily, we have lots of dress-ups and could stay flexible. She dressed as a princess for visiting Brandan's office (scored lots of candy there) and for watching the school parade. . .

. . . and as Pippi Longstocking for trick-or-treating. Helen thought if she said "Trick-or-treat" first, she could take candy from our bowl of trick-or-treat candy by the front door. Just wait, Helen-- when you're an adult, you don't even need to say "Trick-or-treat!"

Gibson was a monkey.

He went headless most of the time, but Sophie coaxed him into his hat for one photo.

We all went to school for the Halloween parade. A band of fifth graders, including Sophie, played salsa rhythms to accompany the parade. Sophie played the go go bells. The bells are 2 metal cones that she hit with a stick.

Here's a photo of the band- lots of percussion instruments.

Here's friendly neighborhood Spiderman in the school parade. Surprisingly, the werewolf behind Abe is named Ava. Abe says she has the best growl ever.

In the evening, we went to our ward trunk-or-treat and then trick-or-treating to a few neighbors. We were home by 7:30 pm. The kids poured their loot out on the table to gloat over. The 4th pile between Helen and Sophie is the contraband candy-- stuff Helen and Abe got that they are allergic to. Becky let them swap it out for candy they can eat in our trick-or-treat bowl. Not that they need more candy, but it makes a raw deal seem a little more fair.