Happy Belated Halloween

This neighborhood REALLY gets into Halloween. What a great place for Teo to spend his first one. Kids started stopping around about six, and an hour later, I had to take the dog out for a walk. It was so fun to work our way through the neighborhood, greeting the herds of little ones in their costumes. Their excitement was infectious, and many of them stopped to check out the baby or the dog.

"I know a dog named Rocky! He is skinny and very old!!!" one Jedi told me through his missing front teeth.

"Is that a Westie? My best friend has a Westie!!!" a young princess announced.

Before I knew it, my little trio was encircled by at least ten children, all shouting and jumping around. They shared the most random information with me, and a few moms took pictures of all of us. When the dog started growling and the baby started crying, I decided it was time to go, but it was fun chatting with them. Kids are awesome.

One other neat thing about this 'hood is that people sit out on their porches and front yards in folding chairs, some of them with little fires going. At least two or three houses were cooking hamburgers and hot dogs, huddled around their mini grills. For a moment, it made me so happy to be back in the US.

We hurried home and spent the rest of the evening out on the front porch, handing out candy and enjoying the unseasonably warm evening. By quarter to eight, Teo was ready for bed, so we stuck out a bowl of candy and headed upstairs to calm down from the night's excitement. That didn't work out so well, as the dog felt the need to bark at all the trick-or-treaters, but eventually he went to sleep and we closed up our first Halloween together. When I stepped out on the porch, the candy bowls were empty.