It is Halloween and my grandmother’s birthday. We are down in Houston to celebrate Halloween with the family here. Liesl and her cousins are all in matching themed Halloween costumes today.
Oreo, Liesl and I slept in a bit this morning. Everyone was very snuggly. I was awake for a while but didn’t want to get up and wake everyone else up since they obviously needed their sleep too.
Once I got up I went straight from sleep to getting paged out with server outages, again, at the office. It ended up being a very busy morning trying to keep up with server issues. We had one right after another. Not a fun way to start a Sunday.
Once things finally settled down and I had a chance to take a shower, the family packed up and went to Waffle House.
This evening is the trick or treating in Houston. This isn’t Liesl’s first Halloween but it is her first time going out to trick or treat. She loves candy so this should be a lot of fun.
We got the kids all dressed up – the girls as dancehall girls and Garrett as a cowboy saloon patron – and headed first down to Texas City so that Uncle Joe could see his nieces and nephew in their costumes.
Then it was off to Beth’s house where the neighbourhood kids were all gathering for the mass Halloween migration that was about to happen there. I’ve never seen a suburban Halloween trick or treating event before. This is nothing like what anyone that I knew ever did back home in New York.
There were probably twenty or twenty five kids all out ready to trick or treat. A scary sight for any would-be candy giver to have to contend with this motley assortment all at once. Overall the trick or treating was very quiet and there were very few houses in the neighbourhood giving out candy but this one, massive moving mob of children and chaperons was a sight to behold.
Liesl didn’t know what was going on at first but Madeline took her by the hand and showed her out to take her felt witch candy bag up and say “trick or treat” and hold the bag open. The delivery of free candy into her bag was one of the most exciting things that Liesl had ever seen! She caught on in a wink and was dragging Madeline along from house to house rushing to run up and get her candy.
Liesl tried hard to say what she was supposed to say, saying “trick or treat”, repeatedly as she approached a house but getting so excited that she would often just say “Candy!” once actually confronted with the candy delivery process. She would always remember to say “thank you” – but often not until she was some way away from the person who had given her the candy.
Liesl was quite the trooper walking all over. She did great. She was, by far, the littlest trick or treater of the group and definitely a favourite. She was so adorable and so excited about the whole thing. She really had a wonderful time and we got a lot of good pictures even though we were in basically total darkness the entire time.
Towards the end Liesl was getting tired and decided to ride between houses, they tended to be few and far between that were offering candy, in her stroller and just get out to go up and ask for candy.
After the trick or treating was done we packed up and drove over to Joe and Britt’s house to see Aurora, the new little Boston Terrier puppy that they got just a couple weeks ago. Aurora is so tiny. I’ve never seen such a young Boston. She was very sweet and just loved having people come to visit her.
We couldn’t stay long, lots of driving to do tonight. We left just after nine and got on the road to get back to Dallas.
The drive went fine. I was really, really tired on the way back but fortunately had my book, In the Wake of the Plague, to listen to on the drive which helps quite a bit. Dominica was able to nap for over half of the journey and Liesl was asleep for a good portion of it so that worked out very well for them. I am going to be exhausted tomorrow.
It was one thirty when we pulled into the parking garage and two by the time that we got into the apartment (yes, about half an hour to get from the garage to the apartment once you deal with the dog, toddler, packing, broken elevator, etc.) We were really, really tired when we finally got in and went to bed as quickly as possible.
I finished reading my book today. Now I am starting Stuff White People Like.