Halloween

We had a good Halloween this year. It was funny. Usually Emily announces next year's costume before we even finish trick-or-treating and never deviates from that. This year, she went through three different ideas before settling.

The festivities started at work with both door decorating and costume contests. We fixed up our lab door and tied for third place (although, since there were only four entries we didn't exactly jump up and down about that). Oh well, we got a $20 gift card to Cheddar's, so we'll do a little lab trip for some appetizers later in the week.

Here's our door decor...



and our costumes...



Friday evening, Emily's school held a Fall Festival complete with food, dancing, face-painting, games, and cookie decorating. Emily had a blast introducing us to her friends, and it was fun seeing teachers and students in their costumes. Emily was Princess Leia this year...



I just liked this picture...



We spent Halloween night over at our friend Alston's house just like last year. Her birthday is on Halloween, so she had some friends over to celebrate and hand out candy. Her street is THE place to go trick-or-treating in San Antonio, so it works out really well to go there. It's really a lot of fun.

Here's the calm before the storm. Later, there would be hundreds and hundreds of people out. I know someone down the street from Alston who hands out full-sized candy bars every year. They had about 500 bars and ran out shortly after 8pm!



Randy decided to play Darth Vador to Emily's Leia, and it was all fun and games until he sent a small child screaming into the night...



This was just one of the many parties that go on in this neighborhood...

A Challenge

Over the past few years, our schedules have gotten rediculously busy and increasingly so. We seemed to sort of hold it all together for a while, but now things are almost out of hand. It's so bad, in fact, that in the past two weeks I've cooked all of about four meals at home. And I'm tired of this. So, I've issued myself a challenge to not eat out a single meal for the next month. It's expensive and unhealthy, so obviously I should reap some positive benefits. I'll keep you posted.

What happens when we have down-time at work...

Progress

Randy and I have moved together six times now. Up to this point we've always been able to unpack and settle in in just a few days. That was before our schedules spun completely out of control got busy. It's taking a lot longer this time, but that's okay. We've been taking it on room by room. We started with Emily's room, then the kitchen, then dining and living rooms and our bedroom. Last is the black hole of doom office.

We did Emily's room first figuring that if she had space to do her thing it would be easier for us to take our time with the rest of the house. Seems to have worked out well so far. The only thing we haven't done is re-paint her room. The current color is okay but kind of blah for a kid's room. Emily wanted pink, but I nixed that. She then settled on purple but now is saying green, so we might give it a couple more weeks and see what happens. I'm fine with either. It really comes down to picking out the actual color. In any case, here's her room so far...







Bonus pick: Emily and Sparky passed out together the night we moved in...

Still alive!

We got all moved into the house last weekend and are LOVING it!! The one thing I didn't think about was how much time I actually needed to get everything settled. I really should have taken a week off of work. Oh well. It'll get there.

So, things we love--SPACE SPACE SPACE!!, letting Emily and Sparky make as much noise as they like in the house, just shoving Sparky out the back door when he needs to use the bathroom, THE BASEMENT!!, THE GARAGE!!, did I mention the space??

Things that need to change--the paint (some of the interior colors are really dark). That's really about it. We just love love love the layout and the SPACE and the location. We're really excited, and I'll shut up now.

It's official!!!

We FINALLY closed on the house this afternoon. YAY!!! I don't want to raise my blood pressure by going into all the gory details, so let's just say that the past week has SUCKED but everything worked out well in the end.

Next step is getting moved in. Our computer decided to crap out last weekend, so between that and the packing and unpacking I probably won't be able to get any posts up until next Monday. Stay tuned...

And the saga continues...

We were scheduled to close on our house last Friday, but collective incompetence on the part of everyone but us in this drama led to a delay to...today? tomorrow? Wednesday? We'll see. The movers are scheduled for Saturday morning, and most of our belongings are packed away, so as long as we get to move on time I care not about the rest of it.