All Saints Day

Hello!

Did you have a happy Halloween?? I hope you did. Ours was nice. My cousin Mackenzie and my mother joined us. I had made spice cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing and a pot of tea. Mackenzie likes my favorite jasmine tea, so I made that, but I have some other teas that might have gone better with the cupcakes. Mom brought tons of goodies. Abbie is currently wearing her new Halloween pajamas, and Grant got a shirt with a bat. Plus, she brought canned corn, a giant frozen roast, hot chocolate, cereal, goldfish crackers, and tons of "extra" Halloween candy.

We watched Young Frankenstein. Fun. And mom and the kids played with the window clings she brought for them. We ordered Chinese for dinner, and I had an apple pie for dessert with some yummy ice cream. Josh had just ice cream, in fact. Then, we played Scrabble until it was time to put on costumes. Josh was Torry Holt at work, and was going to go out as him, but changed his mind at the last second and didn't wear a costume.

Abbie had a white turtleneck and white knit tights under her ballerina costume, and Grant wore his new bat shirt under his giraffe head costume. Mom stayed to pass out candy while the rest of us went out. We only went to a few houses. Mr. Danny, our friends, the Keiths, Mr. Bob, Mr. Major.... The Cole's house, his mom surprised me by asking me if I would like to watch Cole's baby sister Joey for $50 a week. I told her to come by Monday (tomorrow) and we'd talk about it. At first, I couldn't believe my luck, but now I have lots to consider before our discussion.

At this point, we ran into Bree and walked together with her. After 3 more houses we went back inside, and Bree and her daddy came in for cupcakes. Then they went on to more houses, and we settled in. Mackenzie beat me at Guitar Hero, and then we put on The Curse of the Ware-rabbit. We took turns passing out candy. The kids were all nice and polite this year. One girl, who must have been 9-ish, told me some perfectly horrible Halloween jokes. Loved it. And everyone commented on Brother's wonderful pumpkin. The thing is....we have several pounds of leftover candy. The last movie was the other Wallace and Gromit one, A Matter of Loaf and Death. Mackenzie was enjoying it so much that she asked for a copy.

I hope they had a good time. We did.

This morning Junsei and I were the only two "instructors" at beginner taiko practice. He played shime, and I played all the parts of Isami Goma over and over and over and over. They all thought I was funny, hopping from one side to the other so that side of the room would know it was their turn to play. And I have to say, playing Isami is much more fun than playing Renshu Taiko. After class, there was a man who wanted a better explanation, and Junsei was trying to lock up, so when I came home, I wrote a detailed "songsheet" with diagrams and everything, and it took me almost 2 hours. I'm going to try to email it to him, but if that doesn't work, he'll have to wait until next Sunday to get it.

Did I tell you that Josh and I stayed up one night and watched The Proposal? Cute writing. I liked it pretty well. I'd watch it again. We want to watch the copy of Serenity that Brother gave me pretty soon, too. The kids have been watching Kiki's Delivery Service in Japanese this week. It's cute. Very harmless, and slightly less numbing than Totoro.

This week: performance practice for taiko, Parents As Teachers visit, meet with Stephanie the neighbor about watching her daughter. I think if all of the scheduling part of it works out, I might propose a month's probationary period, in case the personalities aren't a good mix. (And in case I don't find her reliable in payment/pick-up times, etc.)

Ah! I must go. Have a wonderful evening!!!!!