Although earlier in the day, the forecast had called for evening thunderstorms, the weather turned out to be cool and only slightly overcast. We handed out a candy to the early birds and then turned out the lights and went out on our own candy-seeking adventure.

Yes, as you can see, all of the children were in costume. The Oldest wins most creative costume -- not because of his homemade beard, but because he was not your average pirate, but Mad Dog Morgan, pirate captain in The Voyage of the Arctic Tern, an epic poem that Justin is reading to the kidlets for bedtime. The younger girl was too young to understand trick-or-treating last year, but this year she thought it was the best thing she'd ever heard of. We did have to reign her in a bit as she started walking up to people's houses, sticking out her hand and saying, "Give me candy!"

Halloween always makes me a bit grumbly, but I do like getting out and seeing the neighbors and the children had a blast. Naturally after they were in bed, we proceeded with annual raiding of the candy bags "Mmmm, dark chocolate!" and other candy reduction measures were taken that should result in there being better candy at my husband's office for a month or two.