BOO!

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Kevin is so into Halloween. He has been decorating, plotting and scheming for months. We had a GRAVEYARD in our frontyard. A zombie on a string flew out from behind the rhodedendrons when kids walked up. We had scary music from the internet on a boom box. A fog machine. Spider webs. Motorized rattling bones hanging over the porch. Kevin, the scariest part of it all, sat unidentifiable on the porch, making it all go and scaring every child in the neighborhood except Paige. Here's a picture of Paige kissing her dad. Even PJ would not go near him with his mask on. She would just scream, "take it off" and hide. Paige loved it. Loved it all - when she realized after two houses that she was going to get candy at every house, she took off running. She wouldn't let me go onto porches with her. She is usually pretty shy, not that night. She was saying "trick or treat", "please" and "thank you" and when we passed other kids she said to each of them, "I love your costume! I'm Minnie Mouse!" She didn't want to eat each piece of candy as she got them, like Parker and the other kids. Just put it in the bag and go, she was on a mission.

Picking pumpkins

The pumpkin patch had a hard time this year with the topsy-turvy weather, some of the pumpkins were a little soft. Not exactly what you're looking for when you make a pie or set one on the porch. We persevered and did the triathalon - hay ride, cow train, long slippery hike - and found lopsided, bumpy perfection. Parker Jane and Kevin even "conquered" the corn maze - which is bigger and scarier than any I've ever seen in Ohio!

A fall weekend at the beach

One of PJ's friends has a beach house - lucky kid - and every so often we head down there with them and just relax. The house is right on the water and you can hear the waves crashing all night. They are just the nicest folks, even the children. If you think you need hot sun to to have a blast at the beach, come to Oregon in the fall and change your mind.

Argh Matey!!

We went to the first (annual??) Portland Pirate Festival, decked out and ready to pillage!! Well, Paigey passed out. Most folks were tongue in cheek, but a couple of peg legs weren't playing from the Johnny Depp handbook....Is that the guy from the Rogue bottle???