Skull Boy and Buffy Girl.

Ryan and Katie have recently discovered the greatness that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With that in mind, it's not surprising that Katie's rock star costume from last weekend transformed into a Buffy costume by the time Halloween rolled around.

Ryan, who wasn't too eager to pick a costume for the elementary school festival now that he's a middle schooler, picked a creepy mask for the big night o' Trick-or-Treating.

(Maybe I shouldn't have said PICKED.)

The kids hit our neighborhood and then headed to a bigger subdivision with LOTS of candy.
We rounded out our evening at Nana and Papa's house. Loaded down with goodies, both kids posed for their traditional portrait shortly before collapsing in exhausted heaps on the living room floor!

Happy Halloween from ChaCha Dub!

How could we live up to our reputation as crazy cat people if we didn't dress our cats for Halloween! (This lasted, oh, about 30 seconds!)

Who won the Nebraska-Texas game?

In honor of this week's opponent, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, we feasted on roasted corn on the cob!

Another football Saturday: Children of the corn edition.

Scenes from our next-to-last tailgate for this season:

Perfectly seasoned steaks

Some corn shucking

Our Section 1 buddies

A grill full of goodness

Double the pleasure

Roasted corn (to symbolize the impended torching of the Cornhuskers)

Roast 'em, Horns!

COOK 'EM, HORNS!

Texas hospitality

With temps in the low 70s, we FINALLY had some good football weather for our tailgate. The pleasant breezes, combined with the best food ever, made for a wonderful gathering. But joy of joys, our friends from New Jersey were in town for this one! These extra-special guests made this tailgate especially memorable.

Greg and I first started getting season tickets (with another Texas Ex) WAAAAAY back in '91. As the seasons passed, we lost and gained football buddies as friends graduated, gave in to their Longhorn addictions, or moved. It was the love of a great woman who took Greg away from our wild-and-crazy group and to the Big Apple. Since making the move, Greg hasn't made it to Austin too often. I hadn't seen Greg and Dana since those glorious Rose Bowl days in LA in January '06, so it was absolutely fantastic to see them this weekend!

I can't wait until the next reunion. Next time, how wonderful would it be to have K&D and Wall with us, too? In spite of our residences in New Jersey, California, Amarillo, Houston, Breckenridge, Fort Worth, Mansfield and good ol' Austin, our group has stayed in touch thanks to email and our common love of the Horns--and each other!

Game 9: Yet another nail-biter.

It was another close one for our guys! Nebraska's having an AWFUL season, but we managed to make them look good.

(If you look inside the first O in Longhorns, you can see the ball on its way into the Cornhusker's hands for a successful 2-point conversion. This brought the Huskers to within 3 points of the Horns.)

As was the case in the K-State game, Colt was under attack all day. The Nebraska defense just hammered him, and he had very little time to get rid of the ball. On one play, a late hit knocked him out of the game. Chiles came in and ran a zone-read that ended up with Jamaal Charles gaining 25 yards. Our rubber-made QB McCoy returned to the game the next play and ZOOOOM! Even though little cartoon birdies were circling his dazed head just minutes earlier, Colt ran for 24 yards. Then JC finished the drive with another long run for a touchdown, and we were back in business. Two more long runs for TDs sealed the deal. Whew.

Texas 28, Nebraska 25. We never doubted!

Unbelievable!

Perfect score!

Ryan: King of Strikes!

Fox Festival.

The Halloween fun continued tonight! It was time for Katie's school festival, and this year, the students got to wear their costumes. So I introduce to you...

ROCK STAR KATIE!

Tons of kids were at the festival for games and food.

We all had a good time, even if Ryan and Katie preferred hanging out with their friends instead of these goofy old folks:
P.S. - I'm thinking the festival planners won't be selling confetti eggs next year! Oh, the carnage!!!

Date night!

We've been super busy lately, so it took a week of planning to finally get our long-overdue date. Brett and I ate a fantabulous meal at Italianni's, a spot we used to frequent back in our early-marriage apartment days.

Then we headed to the local multiplex to see Across the Universe. If you love Beatles music, you really ought to see this one. Just hearing the Beatles' lyrics in that film's context helped me hear them for the first time all over again. (Does that make sense?)

Our night out was a wonderful way for us to decompress and enjoy each other's company!

Carve-o-rama.

Tonight was our small group's annual pumpkin carving party. This year both Ryan and Katie wanted to carve their own jack-o-lanterns.




Of course, there was plenty of carving going on, but the kids (big and small) played games, too:
They really enjoyed "Ghosts in the Graveyard":

By the time it was getting dark, we were ready to check out everyone's handiwork:



(Do you see the moon in the one above? It took me a while to see the man in the moon in the negative space there!)

The creations were so impressive! I can't get over the intricate detail in the jack-0-lanterns.


Baxter supervised the festivities:

Prizes were awarded, and once again, we were reminded how blessed we are to have our small group!

Our creations: Ryan's, Katie's and mine.

(Mine is supposed to be the UT Tower, but my freehand architectural rendering doesn't match my fanaticism for my school!)

This one is Katie's spoooooky ghost.

And Ryan's just batty for his pumpkin!