The Killer Bee

Happy Halloween, Everyone!

We had a great weekend, although I have to tell you, I'm exhausted!  On Friday night, we went over to a co-worker's house for a happy hour of sorts.  They have a young Golden Retriever with a lot of energy and another co-worker brought over her French Bulldog puppy.  Charlotte adores all animals, but has a bit of an obsession for dogs these days (or, as she calls them, pup-pehs!).  These two dogs were rough housing together and at one point, they knocked Charlotte clean on her back.  Her head hit the pavement, everyone gasped audibly, and I think I was more upset than Charlotte.  Soon enough, thankfully, her sobs subsided and she went back to dancing around the living room (apparently she loves dancing to Metallica, who knew?).

Last night, we went to another co-worker's house for a housewarming/Halloween party.  Chris and I did not dress up because I couldn't convince him that he'd have made a great Will Schuester. Charlotte made a killer bumble bee though.  She even won two votes for best costume.  We had a fun time, and I won the Human Bingo because I'm uber-competitive and had no shame asking young children to sign my Bingo card: Ever danced to the Monster Mash? Great, sign my card!  Have you ever wanted to be a Ghostbuster?  Please initial here.

Today, the weather was perfect.  It has been raining the past few days, but today it was warm and sunny.  Charlotte had another tumble though.  She fell down our steep driveway and scraped up her nose, lip, and chin.  Poor thing.  She was happy and ready for Halloween after her nap though.  And I had an evil plan in mind.  We've lived in our house for 5 months, but we haven't really met any neighbors with kids yet, although I knew they lived behind and on the side of our house.  So I decided I would go Trick-or-treating with Charlotte and meet some neighbors at the same time.

Well, we hit the jackpot.  It turned out, the neighbors directly behind us were having a get-together of sorts with all of their neighbors -- we could hear the kids playing in the backyard.  The wife invited Charlotte and me inside, and we got to meet a bunch of new people.  They have two kids - 9 and 5; the neighbors next door to them (whose house also backs up against ours) have an almost-4 year old boy and 3 week old girl; the neighbor across the street from them have a young boy.  It was great.  And this house was drop-dead gorgeous.  It's the same model as ours, but they completely remodeled it two years ago and my mouth dropped seeing their amazing new kitchen.  I quickly called Chris over, and he headed over to see the really cool covered patio they installed complete with canned lights and a ceiling fan.  At that point, the kids were getting ready to trick-or-treat, but the neighbors were so nice, they let Charlotte be in their little picture of all the kids in their costumes.

It was a lot of fun, but chaotic to actually get know everyone given that the kids were itching to start their nights.  So we all said we should get together again soon.

Okay, so enough about me. Here are the pictures you've been waiting for!  Our little honey bee, who never stops moving to get a decent picture.

The little bee on the attack

Trying to pick up the Pumpkie, as she calls it

Backside view, complete with a stinger

The toddler bee

Walking down the steps

This video was taken on my phone, and isn't very good, but you can clearly see how much fun Charlotte had tonight!  The neighbors were nice enough to give Charlotte a glowing necklace, which she then used to torment Tandy.