Candy bandits, Halloween thugs, Spirits of the Night----they were really cute! Actually October 31st, 2007 probably made Halloween history for the Galer family. Not only were all costumes completed before Halloween, trick-or-treating was almost all completed before dark (thank you for the extension on daylight savings!) two neighborhoods canvassed and the intake of delectable chocolate treats was large enough that children were easily coerced into parting with Reeses, Almond Joys and M&Ms without us having to sneak them on the sly. And, as you can see from the picture the weather was mild, for Rexburg, defined as no wind, no snow and temperatures above 30 (at least when we began). Highlights included watching the adorable and fearless sea monster who quickly followed his big sibs to doorsteps begging for treats, happy to consume them still in their foil and paper wrappers. The best spook awards went to the two seemingly stationary monsters seated outside of one house that suddenly sprang to life when Harry touched their arm, and the spook alley at Atkinsons, scary enough to bring Elliott to tears. And the best quote of the evening was from Owen, who, wearing thin on formalities dispensed with the traditional 'Trick-or-Treat' salutation to simply asking, 'So, what kinds of candy do you have?' The evening ended with our tradition of sharing a fabulous bowl of Helene's split-pea soup with the Benevidez family, at our house, bread and salad, but, come on, who are we fooling? The main course of the evening (the early evening, late evening and the next morning) was CANDY! Harry has shown forth much fiscal savvy and self-control as he sold his candy to Scott for $5 after eating a few favorites claiming (a bit unbelivably) that he didn't want to get a cavity!

I have 3 e-mail accounts. I set the last one up on my own. I check my e-mail daily and I even respond to personal messages in a timely fashion. I know how to forward e-mails, do bcc, cc and I'm pretty certain I know what a jpeg is. I've uploaded pictures to wal-mart and my cell-phone is usually charged. I even learned recently how to answer my voice-mail. Things really got crazy this week when Scott set up my facebook page, complete with questionable political views on my profile and a dreadful and unapproved photo of me after the RUSH triathlon. Honestly all of this is a little empowering for this stay-at-home mother of four with a lapsed teaching certificate. So while I usually defer to Scott to lead my hand through cyberspace today I decided I was just going to do this blog thing on my own.

Here's a little photo of my children outside the remarkable Salt Lake Public Library this summer. L-R: Owen (4), Harry (7), Elliott (1) and Madi (9). They're all really adorable, especially when captured in the quiet stillness of a photograph, although I think you can sense just a bit of their energy. Their gain in energy seems always to be my loss!

This morning after a 5:15 run I hurried to get everyone ready for school---dropped Madi off at the Middle School for Fiddle Club, ran Harry and Owen to the Book Fair at the elementary school, bought books, dropped Owen off at Preschool, ran back to the middle school to hear Madi fiddle for a little Halloween concert (she's quite the virtuoso) and then back to home to dress-up Elliott for the Halloween story time at the library, back to the preschool for their mini-bake sale (4 pumpkin cookies made by a bevy of chubby preschool hands and 4 quarters later) and then off to the storytime with two little boys. Home to clean up the morning mess and take a breather until 5pm. The dawn of Halloween. We plan to trick-or-treat in two neighborhoods which means I'll be on candy elimination patrol for the next couple of days. We've got one sea-monster, two jedi-warriors and 'Red' from the movied Hoodwinked in tow. Photos to be posted---soon.

So whether you enjoy reading this or it's just a little page of our family's story I'm looking forward to keeping up this newest dive into the technology pool.