Italian Capers

and Happy Halloween! Here's a big thank you Nanny-o for all you did to make this Halloween special for the girls- and My Man. The costumes were FABOO-lous! When we opened the box with her hand-made Sour Grapes dress, H could not stay on the ground. She was jumping up and down with excitement! I am not sure Z understood the entire ordeal, but she does now- when candy talks... Getting them ready for trunk or treat reminded me of the Halloween preparations we had when I was a kid. There was always an element of experimentation with some portion of the costumes. This year, since we didn't have any spray-on colorants for making H's hair purple, I dyed it with food coloring in the bathtub. All seemed logical- blue and red make purple....I figured my biggest challenge was deciding whether to make the concoction for frosting or for egg decorating- the choices given on the back of the box. Turns out there was a bigger challenge- the red dye seemed to "stick" to her h

....the Air Force sends you. Here is our new house. We live in half of a duplex- the part on the far right in this picture. It's really a huge house split in half. The neighbor with whom we share a wall is a teacher and has lived here for 12 years. We are very happy here and I haven't once missed Campagna. I can't believe we ever fit into our former place. Although we changed from country mice to city mice, it's so much quieter- go figure. Personally, I find "the country" to be really noisy! Our street is not busy, we have a fenced in yard, there are sidewalks, and we are 2 minutes' walk from a gelateria- what more could we ask for? The angle of the driveway is a real clutch killer, but we have gotten used to it. Every time we pull through the remote controlled gate and go down the driveway, the kids hold up their hands and scream like they are on a roller coaster. Hilarious. Here we are having dinner on the front porch- awesome!