Houston, we have a sidewalk!

For those of you who have been to our house in the last year or two, you know that we ripped out our sidewalk in anticipation of putting in a new one. We thought we knew what we were doing, but cement supplies ran out. When cement was available again, it was too expensive. We've had an empty ditch leading up to our house for over a year now. I finally decided to take an extra day off work over Thanksgiving weekend and put in a brick sidewalk. The bricks came from three different neighbors who had some extras lying around. Over the past couple of months, other people had offered to help, but they never came through. While Emo and the kids cleaned the house for Thanksgiving, I put in the sidwalk. It's kind of lumpy in spots, but it's better than having a ditch. Sharon came up from Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with us and got to walk on our beloved sidewalk many times.

There be Pirates!

Dexter has been cast in his school's production of "Pirates of Penzance." He will be one of the pirates. Rehearsals have already begun and performances begin in February. They have created a little website for their play at http://provonianpirates.blogspot.com/

I grew up listening to the music from "Pirates," so I'm very excited to see how they do with it. Listening to Dexter sing some of my favorites makes it hard to have to wait until February to see the whole show.

Halloween

Halloween...that wonderful holiday for trying out alternate identities or expressing your weirder side. With my hectice schedule, I went for a cheap and easy costume. I stuck nametags with different names all over my shirt (having an identity crisis). It got a few checkles and didn't get in my way at work so it was a success. Dexter dress the way he wishes we would let him (kind of gothic) and is a little disappointed Halloween is over. Dwayne (pictured) showed us what he would look like if he cut his long hair. Actually, he went to a party at his girlfriend's house and the afro wig made him look just like her brother. For school, he borrowed his Scout leader's kilt and wore it. Not really a costume, but now he's interested in making kilts part of their Scout uniform since he found it so comfortable to wear. The biggest challenge of the night was trying to keep things quiet so Emerson could get some sleep before work. I opted to put the bowl of treats out on the front steps to avoid constant banging on the door. It didn't take long for someone to dump the contents of the bowl in their treat bag. then I turned off the lights and got back to my homework.