Halloween 2009

TJ had a 5th grade project to complete this week. Didn't really work on it too much until Thursday night (due Friday of course). After a trip to WalMart to pick up a few more things, the Haunted House was wired and ready to go (around 10:30 pm or so). His class has been studying electricity. The kids had to wire the haunted house and decorate it for a project. Crazy, but fun. I even learned a little bit about electricity myself.

Kira Monkey, TJ football player and Douglas Vampire. Ready for some serious Trick-0r-treating. No trunks this year. We hit the pavement.

Kira getting ready to get some candy. She learned how to say the word "candy" just in time for the holiday. Her costume was adapted from the chewbacca one from last year. I just glued on a belly, a tail, a bow and some monkey ears. She wanted to bring monkey along, too.

Douglas was the scariest this year. What do you think of the professional make-up job? I wouldn't recommend the black eyes when you have church the next day. It looked like he was wearing eyeliner to church. He actually reminded me of Depeche Mode all day today (Sunday). He had a really hard time staying with us and kept wanting to run ahead. We could not keep up with this candy monster.

My cute Kiki monkey pointing to the neighbor's house and saying, "baby". She always tries to run over there to see the baby.


Douglas attacking the stash. The kids got quite a load. Their stash is now hidden so the constant candy devouring can be limited. The best thing about a sugar rush...

the SUGAR CRASH! I felt bad waking him up to make him wash his face and brush his teeth after I took this picture. He was pretty out of it. What a fun Halloween!

It was also a great day because we got our laptop back. A week ago, we ran some kind of microsoft security update, and our computer crashed during the update. It was a major issue. I can usually figure out how to fix computer problems, but couldn't get this one. I mentioned my dilemna at work, and the school secretary (also a parent of one of my students) piped up and told me to talk to her husband. He owns "Posh Electronics" and helped me get my baby back up and running (and save my data). Some things I learned from this experience:

1: Only install critical updates. Never install microsoft driver updates, and wait a few weeks to install new updates until the bugs are worked out.

2: Ask around for help before taking it in anywhere. Also, check forums online to see what other people have tried who have similar issues. I learned WAY too much information about computer problems people have, but some of it was valuable.

3: Avoid Staples support (they didn't know half of what I was talking about), Best Buy Geek Squad (EXPENSIVE). Take it to Posh Electronics (http://poshelectronics.com/). My second choice would be Superior computer.

4: We use our computer more than we thought. We're delighted to have it back.