A Sad English Fish

Halloween 2015!  I totally forgot that it happened, but I wanted to document it quickly.  The Wife had this idea last year that we thought would be the cutest thing ever, and she followed through with great panache when preparation time came (you can read all about the process and see marvelous pictures here).

But we had some fun and cute times this year:

The Pumpkin Patch in Orem is a great time, just the right size for little ones, and free hay rides on select nights!  (Lesson learned: the Pumpkin Parade at the Riverwoods isn't turning out to be the best thing ever anymore, especially for kids this age.)

I dressed in my old favorite to attend my sister's orchestra's awesome Halloween concert (and my getup was appropriate as they played my theme song).  Any excuse to break out the uniform, right?!?

Hee-Haw Farms has also been a big hit the last couple years.  This was a tall[er than it looks in this picture!] stack of hay, where we could see the amazing pumpkin-dropping crane even better.

I'm still new to the in-office work-team culture, so I didn't know what to expect from their talk of the big Halloween fun, but we had a good time and there were hundreds of trick-or-treaters.  Our department even won 2nd place for our Dia de los Muertos-themed decorations.  My contribution was some artistic touches, including the bride and groom's sugar skulls.

On the day-of this year!  Nothing like waiting to the last minute.  This way they were especially fresh when the trick-or-treaters came and for the fun neighborhood block party across the street.

Clockwise, starting at the 6: Tintin, Snowy, Unicorn (geddit?) and Haddockbounding (his name and its origin is the inspiration for the title of this post).  I appreciated that my beard fit in perfectly with the theme this year.

Actual Halloween was a fun time, we were the first trick-or-treaters at my parents' house, which seemed to confuse little Tintin as to why we weren't just letting ourselves in, and it might have thrown off his stride since he wasn't quite as forthcoming in the knocking again for a little while (last year he had no problem whatsoever), but once he found his groove he was excited to knock doors, and then randomly sat down on the sidewalk or rock walls a couple times and was ready to head back home and hang out with the across-the-street neighbor kids whose parents were hosting an outdoor movie/fire pit, for which the weather was just perfect.  The Boy spent several days surrounding Halloween talking about it, so it seems he was much more into the festivities this year, like we thought he would be.  Next year I'm sure he'll be even more!

So it all turned out great, and The Wife's costumes for the little ones were just right, and even if no one really understood who we were (people guessed The Boy was a golfer or a "little Dutch boy" and that Baby was a bunny or a kitty or basically anything but a little white puppy), we knew who we were dressed as, and that if WE saw a family dressed in these costumes we would have thought it was awesome.