After finishing the office we transformed the old office into Katie's pre-teen hideaway. She's totally thrilled with the results even though it took her a few nights to get us to being alone. And yes, it is that pink.
This Halloween season we decided that just one candy-gathering frenzy was not enough so we went on THREE such frenzies in the space of one week. The first frenzy was our Ward's Trunk or Treat, and this year I decided to give back instead of just taking. I set up our van, Clifford (as in Clifford the Big Red Van) and handed out treats. After a few rounds, Muscle Man (that's what Zach insisted on calling himself) came back to help me with the heavy candy. I'm wearing a SuperMom tshirt and red cape. See...I'm the mom of SuperBoy. Get it. Yeah.
In between the candy frenzies our kitchen decided to hold its own water frenzy by bursting a pipe under the sink. We got to it within 20 minutes we think but by then there was an inch of water on the ground. We spend one hour at 2am and every towel we had in the house mopping it up. The insurance people declared it a level three catastrophe and proceeded to tear apart our kitchen. Within 6 hours my old, but functional kitchen was demolished. The wall repair is covered. The floor repair is covered. But the cabinets are supposedly recoverable, at least the fronts. We disagreed, but lost out. We decided we'd move up our kitchen remodel by 5 years and do it now. We'll update you later on what unfolds.
Yes, that's a foot of drywall cut out and removed from the entire perimeter of the kitchen. We had SIX industrial dryers and a dehumidifying making our house even noisier for two days.
We did have fun with the industrial blowers, however.....
So the next candy frenzy was at Intel, where Troy is lucky enough to still be employed. They have Trick or Treat cubicle to cubicle event where about 75% of the employees on two floors decorate their cubes and set out candy for employee's kids. Most of the cubicles are unmanned and the kids just grab a piece of candy from a bowl and move on. No "Trick or Treat" or "Thank you" needed. We timed one row of cubicles. It took them 71 seconds to hit 11 "houses" and get candy. Now that's Intel Efficiency!
Zach checking out the view from the third floor at Intel.
Katie as Punk Rock Girl.
Every year we get a photo in this very spot. It's the last stop. It contains chairs, a drinking fountain and a restroom. We take care of immediate business and then set up our family photo. We then wait for a nice employee to walk by and ask them to snap our annual Intel Halloween Photo. We've been going every year since they started. Katie was 5. See, we do have traditions!
Okay. It's now OFFICIALLY Halloween night. It was great weather and since we didn't have a kitchen we ordered pizza, invited my family over and ate out on the driveway. We handed out candy too, but only had about 20 trick-or-treaters. Oh well, all the more for us! It was fun. So from Left: Katie, Punk Rock Girl; Kristen, Katie's BFF as Cleopatra; Claire, Disco Miniature Golfing Queen from Phineas and Ferb (Google it); Zach, Muscle Man, and Emma, not-so-evil Green Witch.
Katie went out for more trick-or-treating with Kristen but Haylee showed up so all was well. She was a cute Pink Pirate.
The welcoming committee: Claire; in hat; Nate, purposely hiding; Troy; Bob; Gramma Z; Grampa Z.
And there you have it. Another week and another blog post which only about 5 people, mostly family, will read. I do this in lieu of family history and call it good......
