Halloween

It was a long, sugar-filled, nonstop day. It's 11:20 p.m. right now, I still haven't packed for our trip to Texas that starts tomorrow night, and here I am blogging.

There are so many more pics I wish I could publish, but I'm too tired. Here are some highlights.

The fun started with the annual newsroom trick-or-treat. Lexi was a cowgirl who thought she was a horse who said "neigh" to her cowgirl hat and cowgirl boots.

The hat stayed on for approximately as long as it takes for me to eat a Reese's.

When we looked at this pic of Annie later, Lexi said, "That's Norton's friend!" Indeed.


Coolest big kids ever -- Brett and Casey.

Coolest little kid ever (next to Harrison) -- Kyle

At home, we skipped going door to door and decided to hand out candy instead.

Lexi was wayyyyy into it. "Where are the kids?"

After bedtime, I was off to Oeno, where I got to be one of the judges of the costume contest. Here are Lori and Brian, who might have won if not for the awful misfortune of knowing three of the judges.

Life is Golden. And black. And hot pink, apparently.

And then the whole high school barfed --- AT THE SAME TIME!

Carrie! She'll come back to book club! PUT THE SWORD DOWN!

Oh, yes. They wore matching earrings.

The costume contest judges.

The costume contest winners -- The Woods family.

The Furminator

At the advice of several dog owning friends, I purchased The Furminator tonight. It's a really inexplicably expensive dog brush that supposedly removes the undercoat as well as the .... outercoat?

After about 15 minutes of brushing, I did get a lot of hair out. But Norton might just have an unending supply.

It could have been my imagination, but I think the pug looked a few pounds lighter when we were done.

Trunk-or-Treat

Tonight, we had a date with Harrison and Maddy. Amy had a school dance to attend, so she loaned us some friends for the evening .

We started with dinner at Red Robin, where there were balloons and burgers to go around.

Did somebody order a Harrison sandwich?

Then, per Amy's advice, we put on our costumes and headed over to Harrison and Maddy's church for Trunk-or-Treat. For the uninitiated, it's like trick-or-treating, only in a parking lot, and the candy comes out of decorated car trunks.

Taking inventory.

Afterward, we came back here to play. At the moment, it's 9:01, an hour and one minute past Lexi's bedtime. She and Harrison are having a flyswatter fight. Every toy we own is on the ground. And Maddy and I are cuddled up watching "The Jungle Book."

Almost as good as 'Christ breast pieces'

I'm not sure what's more disturbing -- the fact that Lexi is already doing school fundraisers at age 2 and a half or that the candles she's selling come in this scent.

I think they meant 'chicken'

Spotted this description of pollo asado on the menu of a Mexican place I'm reviewing.

Can't say I've ever had pollo asado made that particular way.

Farewell, GCK

This weekend, Lexi and I drove down to Garden City to help mom and dad pack for their impending move. We did more hanging out than packing.

It started with a bonfire. The soon to be ex-house is out on the middle of a prairie with only about 15 other houses, and the neighbors are all pretty close.

Close enough to burn jumbo tumbleweeds together.


The next morning was the garage sale. Lexi broke the tacky little elephants she's playing with here. And someone still paid $1 for them.

This morning, Lexi helped Grammy cook waffles.

Mmmmmm. Waffles.

Pancakes for dinner

Tonight, Amy invited us to meet for dinner at IHOP. It's one of the Mairs family's favorite weeknight activities.

Great table manners, Lexi.


Same to you, Harrison.


Maddy, age 5. Too hungry to be messy. Plus, she's leaning how to "set an example."

It really DOES pay to know a pro

Photo by Jaime

Dale is 5... times 12

The other fun party we went to on Saturday was one celebrating Dale Goterberger's 60th. LAL went all out for this one. Catering, bartender, even an outdoor tent.

The fashion forward couple.

Under the big top.

Dan took this one himself. Can you BELIEVE that?

We think perhaps Lori purchased these crunchy fall leaves and spread them about the back yard for atmosphere.


Travis and Lori's Dale video was among the highlights of the evening. "Ya ready hon?"

The guest of honor. And Dale.

Maddy is 5

We helped Maddy celebrate her 5th birthday on Saturday at Eastborough Park. This was one rockin' party, complete with a pinata.


Lexi was a little too shy to take a swing at the pinata, so she spent her time lovin' up on her Toddler III friends, including Maddy's bro Harrison.

Lexi and Hannah hugged at first sight.

It's good to have friends.

Rockin' Robin

...well, more like Bluegrassin' Robin.

Tonight, a bunch of us met up at Botanica to watch our pal Robin Macy, who was performing an outdoor concert. It was a nice night out, which made our picnic of fried chicken, deviled eggs, pesto pasta, rolls, brownies and Red Zin taste even better. And of course, Robin, Kenny and crew sounded great.

Among the attendees were Kerri, Carrie, Bon, Dick, Jaime, Carter, Deanna, Molly, a friend of Molly's and a very nice rabbi.


Carter got a shout out from Robin during the show for his mad recording skillz.


We ran into lots of people we knew, including Denise Z. and her man Dwayne, Suzanne and Randy, Tara G. and Diane and Kerry McCartney.


Bud was even there. He still hates me, but he loves my brownies.

New clothes

I ordered Lexi some new fall clothes from Old Navy, and they finally got here.

I thought she looked so grown up in this little outfit. What a looker.

Norton, too.

Mixin'

Tonight, we had a little SPJ mixer over at The Anchor. And although I don't have any real scintillating details to report, I did like the lighting in the bar and got a lot of good party pics!

Here's an overview of the group, which included people from several different media organizations, all bonding over meatballs and mushroom caps.


SPJ Prez and mixer organizer Molly hanging out with Bon and two girls who are 2 cool 4 school -- and nametags.


Teresa, trying her best to listen to the Sunshine Coalition spiel while Carrie and Jerry help me screw off.

Travis, a soon-to-be SPJ panelist, practicing his casually disinterested look.

THIS is the scariest dad on the planet????

Meatballs ROCK!