I Have Pictures!

Happy Halloween - one day late. I had to get some photos of Brendan in his zombie costume...yes zombie. It was Bill's idea to do the skaterboy with injuries, but the whole time, Brendan really wanted to be a zombie. So he ditched the skateboard and helmet at the last minute. Thankfully, all the wounds and scabs we'd made applied to both. We bought a tshirt and jeans at Goodwill for $5 and Brendan had a great time distressing them with his knee pads and a utility knife. And he carved his first pumpkin. He has newfound appreciation for the intricate carvings he tried to have me do all those years.

You gotta love that compound fracture. We broke a chicken bone in half, carved down the ends to a diagonal, stuck them on the arm with band-aids, put a stocking over them for good measure, and added a bunch of fake blood. He got lots of great comments about it. Still, he lost one piece on the walk around the neighborhood, and backtracked to try to find it, with no luck.

It was wonderful being back in a country that does Halloween in a big way. We went to the grandparent's neighborhood to trick-or-treat, and EVERYONE was out in force before it was dark. Brendan tried to wait, but he couldn't help himself. I took one shift and Bill took another. In all, we were out about an hour and Brendan got enough candy to last him til Easter - at two pieces per day.

Bill's mom says she had 126 trick-or-treaters (she counts the candy). By far, the most popular costumes were princesses for girls and pirates for boys. But there were lots of transformers and Disney character thrown in. I love it. Brendan said it was his best Halloween ever!

Hope you had a great time, too.

Morning has Broken

This morning was the type of morning that the English live for, especially after a long dreary winter; except it autumn in Texas. It was clear and cool and dry, and about 56 degrees F. It was so cool I had to pull on some track bottoms and a jacket to take Brendan to school. I didn't even break a sweat during my half-hour walk (well I got a little moist on my back). My face still turned red, but it didn't have sweat dripping off of it. This is why I love Fall in Texas.

Brendan and I spent some time in the pumpkin patch at the Methodist church we attend after Sunday service and got a photo of him, like I used to do every year. I got out of the habit when we took our RV trip around the US and when we lived in England, because I couldn't find a pumpkin patch there. Of course this one is man-made with pumpkins hauled in from another state, but we made the most of it. We spent some time looking for all the characters in A Pumpkin Named Jack. We couldn't find Lumina, or Big Max, but we did find Munchkin, Sugar and several pretty passable Jacks, none as awkward as I imagine him.

Brendan has decided that his Halloween costume this year will be a skaterboy who's had too many accidents. We've made fake wounds, scabs and scars and he and Bill are trying to make a compound fracture out of chicken bones. Happy Halloween!

Ohmygosh!

Here I was extolling the virtues of nature in my last entry, and yesterday, when I was outside - BAREFOOTED, Bill was blowing the leaves off of the patio and from under the trailer, and out crawls this... this... thing. It as huge (actually about 8 inches long)! It had huge pinchers and came at us like it meant business. EEK! I was up on the picnic bench like a stereotypical woman who's seen a mouse.

After I got over the initial ICK! factor, I wanted to capture this creature. I had never see one before and as I read about it later, I found out they're very rare, which makes me sorry that we killed it. But we couldn't have that thing crawling into the trailer!

It is a Giant Redheaded Centipede. And if ever the saying, "everything's big in Texas" applied, this was it. At first, we only saw it's prey - a giant green caterpillar that was writhing in agony. When we discovered the centipede, it crawled right over and started sucking the guts out of it's paralyzed victim. This centipede has a nasty sting. If a human is bitten, the are would swell, but go away in about three hours, according to the man that let one bite him on the finger (idiot!). Another entry said it could be fatal, especially to kids. Either way, we played it safe and kept our distance. I only hope there were no babies!

BTW - I found a picture of the fox that I talked about in the last entry. Its a gray fox. Pretty! I'll stick with him.