Happy Halloween from the Doxeys!

Ok here's the recap of the action...

Halloween Sugar Cookies. Liza, Julia, Magic. I single handedly ate 3 batches. They say if you dump all the fish food in the gold fish bowl the little critter will eat himself to death. That's pretty much how it felt. I know how a goldfish must feel. Incredibly tasty, but not good for you.

Design Mavens. It all starts with a plan. They sketched out their ideas on paper, debated all the options, pros and cons, and played with knives. Wildest pumpkin dreams soon coming to fruition.

The Art of the Blade. After discovering it's tricky to write on a deeply grooved pumpkin, their plans were set. Timing matters. With the humidity in the air and warmer climes, carved pumpkins have the lifespan less than half that of a fruit fly (about 2.5 days).

In "the olden days" growing up, we remember being able to leave these out for months in the cold. Trade offs, trade offs.

With that in mind, you can appreciate these photos more. A rare moment in time, when these puppies are looking the best they will ever look. Nice, ambient glow. It all goes downhill from here. We'll spare you the furry, moldy pics.

A 50s Family. Well, that's what we were supposed to be...with a little influence of punk rockers and hair band mixed in.


But that was all for the 30th. By the 31st, Nate had turned into Eddie Munster, John had turned into a multicolored greaser and I turned into Roy Orbison. Julia made some amazing poodle skirts for the girls. Phenominal stitching and quality.




Neighborhood Kids Party. It started with Mummy Pizza and witches brew at the Newman's two doors up the street. The spider fangs, alien blood, monster eyeballs, rat's blood, scorpion venom and pureed fly wings made it especially good. LOTS of neighborhood kids.


At dark, the party then flowed into the dry creek, where I had set up a CD player with 103 scary sounds playing. I almost had them all really, really scared when the 'hounds of hell' were bellowing. It was at that moment that they all saw my darn extension cord and my jig was up.

They eventually made it up to the swing over the creek and gave that a nice workout--in costume. After that, it was into our house for Halloween cupcakes, and then off to walk down to the most incredible haunted house we've ever experienced.

Some neighbors put on this haunted house that is OVER THE TOP. Click here to read an article about it. Seriously. Shoulder to shoulder on sidewalks for a block around. Nearly all of Cal High seems to be there, parents, kids, an organist out front playing scary music, fog blowers nearby (so there is fog about waist high all over)...and this is all at someone's house and backyard. Scary and fun.

Boo Fest Soccer. Nate played in 3 games on Saturday and John played in two (that = a lot of soccer for us). It was their end of season soccer extravaganza--where kids could wear some kind of costume and play soccer in it.

Here you see the last parent tunnel of the year. I'm sure you've seen these, but if not, just know that after every game the parents make a tunnel for the boys to run through.

They LOVE it. They love intentionally falling down in the tunnel so everyone will trample them in cleats and the parents freak out too.



John had a great season. He had two assists yesterday.


He especially likes that a boy's dad on the team owns Sconza Candy Company, so they got amazing baseball sized jawbreaker suckers.

Nate, The All-Star. Nate made the All-Star Soccer Team for his league this year. What this means is he gets to go be trained and instructed by some people that really are great soccer minds, and practice/play with the best for awhile longer. He surpassed my soccer knowledge long ago, so this is a good thing. We especially like this picture of "Nate on 5" from yesterday. He blew past the first two but one of the next three got him. Still working on "blow past two, then pass---b/c your chances of blowing past 5-6 are slim." Unfortunately, he won't be able to play in the All-Star game b/c we will already be in Utah for Dorothy's wedding.

Tradition, Tradition. We cruised up to Tom and Hil's for candy trading and candy inventorying after the festivities. Counting the time we lived in the Bay Area before, I think marks the 7th year we've done this. Always fun.

Gotta Go!