tricked. treated.

here is my favorite halloween story.

when i was on my mission, i served in the eniwa branch. the eniwa branch put on a big halloween party every year. and, for being in japan where halloween is not really a thing, it was a pretty great halloween party. and every year for the past 10 years they had been decorating the church gym with a banner that said, "happy helloween."

so amazing.

usually, as has been well documented, i actually hate halloween. you might say that to me it is "hell-oween." but, this year we sort of got into it.

for starters we put out pumpkins on the front stoop. we didn't bother carving them but that turned out to be just as well because the squirrels gnawed big chunks out of them and did our work for us.

then we went to the ward halloween party (no offending banner, alas) and AWD even baked a pan of corn bread to contribute. luckily we were really late and only half of it got eaten because it was delicious.

on saturday, my company hosted a carnival for the surviving family members of service members who have died on active duty. AWD and i volunteered to be clowns. (correction: i volunteered us to be clowns.) it was about a 5o/5o split between kids who loved us and kids who ran away. we are counting it as a success.

and tonight we are sitting home, willing trick-or-treaters to come and take this candy off our hands, watching "it's the great pumpkin charlie brown" and having a grand old time.

happy halloween!