Arrrgh! Trick or Treat, Ya Scurvey Dog!

Halloween. As a teacher, I'm trained to hate the idea. Let your children stay up late to knock on people's doors and beg for sugar products with no nutritional value. Unfortunately, I appreciate a mini Kit Kat as much as the next person, so having children who can provide them by working their first real job is a plus. Last year, Chase became wise enough to choose a costume idea for himself. Last year he was Thomas (see last October's posts). That one did not come as a complete surprise. This year, he informed us that he wanted to be a pirate. I'm not sure where that notion came from, if not from catching the last half hour of the second Johnny Depp flick 3 months ago. Anyway, he can be seen here with Dad, patiently waiting for the grandparent-parazzi to attempt in vain to take reasonable pictures of Pirate Number Two (I may have told five out of six readers already that this is most likely the only year I will be allowed to dress my kids in complimentary costumes). I also tried to take pictures of the boys together, but Hayden was not in a still pose mood. I failed to get a nice picture of the "pirate ship" grandma constructed from a wagon, a giant cardboard box, a broom handle and tag board. Very cute. Also, no one wanted to ride in it. We trick-or-treated about an hour before retreating to our much warmer home to answer the door. We cleared 300 pieces of candy by 8:00, and this time we only ate 10 ourselves. Here you can see the only good picture I grabbed of Hayden. It turns out that deckhands like burritos, which is handy when you need them to sit still for photographs. Since I actually ran out of candy this year, I have no choice but to raid Chase's Halloween loot. He's got three cavities, so I figure he really doesn't need it anyway. So happy Halloween to you and yours. So long, me mateys.