Happy Halloween 2008

I may have wanted to capitalize on the momentum of yesterday’s meetings but I had one of those “little of everything days” where no much was accomplished work-wise. I was very jazzed about the second meeting yesterday and also very jazzed about how my daughter bounced back in her softball game. Last night we decided to take advantage of a coupon the children received as part of their running in the school’s 5K race. This week was “Red Ribbon Week” at their elementary school and for some reason the school decided to celebrate this one week after the official Red Ribbon Week? Anyhow each day represented something as being drug free like Monday where they wore their clothes backwards or Tuesday where they wore their coolest sunglasses as shading out drugs. On Wednesday it was a real 5K race after school and each participant received a coupon to a local restaurant.

As most families and people in this economy our finances aren’t the greatest but there was cause for celebration and saving something on the meal did help. We had a very nice dinner as a family and it is very apparent this economy is in the toilet (sorry to be so blunt). In the Mexican restaurant were us and three other families that was it. There wasn’t anyone at the bar and for a Thursday evening it was dead to say the least. This didn’t affect our time or our meal as everything went very well.

This morning I was back at the gym for more running and there is no doubt I am addicted to running but as I read in the Cycling magazine this could be a good thing as long as it does not take over my life. That is what gambling did and things weren’t so good which lead to those horrible consequences but running a few times a week shouldn’t be harmful as long as I have balance in my life and today was full of balance from start to finish.

I did the little of everything today and was pretty much at home this afternoon as the children came home early. They had a half of day today and my wife still aren’t sure why they had the half day especially on Halloween when trick or treating doesn’t commence until early in the evening. However; they seemed to need the afternoon to just lounge around especially my daughter. I came home and stayed downstairs and I didn’t see my daughter until later on in the afternoon as she just stayed upstairs doing not much of anything saving her energy for trick or treating.

The time came for trick or treating and after two years of missing this holiday it was my turn to take the children out. My wife and I have had this tradition for as long as the children have been alive as one of us takes them out while the other stays home and doles out the candy for the trick or treaters. Of course my wife was so kind to let me go since I missed the last two years but I could tell she wanted to take the children as well. We have always toyed with the idea of just leaving the bowl of candy out and using the honor system. We haven’t done this but next year maybe the first because going out with the children was the way to be.

We live in a community filled with children and there are a few houses that decorate for this holiday along with one “haunted house”. The Haunted House was in our old neighborhood and right around the block from where we used to live. I have driven by and also rode my bicycle by the old house since we only live two blocks away but I haven’t taken the time to walk through the neighborhood until tonight. It seemed all the people trick or treating were in the neighborhood to see the Haunted House as the block was filled more than I remembered. It was also sad to see that so many houses were either vacate or just not participating in the holiday most like due to the economy.

We went out with very dear friends of ours which included “Rudy”. It is always good to see Rudy and he holds no grudge from the near death run I took him on a few months ago. We walked around our new block and headed over to the old neighborhood so the children could go through the Haunted House. Three of the four children walked through the Haunted House as my son didn’t want anything to do with it and was satisfy to stand on the street waiting for his sister and friends. Apparently the Haunted House was scary for the girls as I heard a few screams and they couldn’t stop talking when they emerged. It was good fun and we made our way to the old house to see how things changed. As fate would have it when the children rang that particular doorbell the door was cracked open only to hear, “we ran out of candy” and the door was closed.

No, we didn’t get a glimpse inside but I did see an old neighbor who was extremely nice and cordial. The evening was great and we reconvened at our dear friends’ house to take inventory of the evening’s goodies. The children made out very well collecting a little under 100 pieces of candy and smiles all around. It was a wonderful Halloween 2008 and I almost forgot to mention that my daughter was a football player and my son was “scream”. The photos are posted on my Facebook page.