Aimee starts to regret bringing me to chemo...

So, Aim didn't realize that being blogged was part of the deal when she agreed to drive me chemo this week.

I'll make it up to her somehow. ;-)

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Otherwise, things are all going well. I'm totally recovered from my endocscopy, with just a bit if a sore throat to remind me. I'm NOT looking forward to doing the PREP for the colonoscopy on Monday, but I'll survive. Stay tuned for the news on that one, but I expect a nice boring weekend after chemo, lolling around in side-effect land. Prep on Monday, colonoscopy on Tues, and then I'm taking a week off to recover!!

And all is well!

No silly pictures, but all done, and all is well in my tummy. And in my esophagus, and my small intestines.

No polyps, no nothing, just a healthy line of stomach sutures. Yay!

Next week, we get to do the exam from the other end and see what the colonoscopy says. I can't say I'm thrilled about having it, but at least then it will be over.

Now home to rest...

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Endo time!

Off I go to my endoscopy.... Stay tuned for the updates later!

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it's new drug time at chemo

I'm sure I have things to say about this.

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Here's a lovely photo of me getting the first treatment with my new weekly drug, Topotecan. It's a far better picture of the shawl Lloyd got me for Christmas, which is a beautiful example of a type of special weaving called jamawar, long practiced in India but nearly lost to the years. The Indian government has helped get the craft started again, and these incredible colors and patterns are the result. There's your obscure history lesson for the day.

Its really far more fun to start the blog post from my lovely Android phone, which allows me to sort of post photos (which is a no-no on the idiotPad) and then finish them on the idiotPad.

However, das idiotPad feels a strong need to help tonight, much more than usual and is making me want to extract its spell checker with a dinner fork.

And I am tired and in pain so there will be more tomorrow.

Everyone pray for those Australian flood waters to go down down down down. My thoughts are with you, and with anyone who could suddenly find themselves in the path of a wall of water.

It is scary out there, so please take care of yourself & yours, and then do what you can for others who might need help too. I think that's a good philosophy, no matter where you are.

Be kind to one another.
I hope you are all sleeping warm, tight and loved tonight.

Joy!

Do you know what this is?

*These* are fully packed boxes of Christmas crap, all ready to be dragged out to the garage. Luckily, that part isn't my job. My job is DONE! No Christmas decor all over the house for the whole year!

Triumph.

Now I can read and knit for the rest of the day without the slightest bit of guilt. I kinda spent the last two days in bed, exhausted from the last time I did some work around the house, so that guilt was piling up...

But now I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. Utterly exhausted, but pleased.

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{Hey, where'd the picture go?! Ah, well, it was just a photo of packed plastic crates anyway.}

Giggle for the day

Seen in the Signals catalog - world's funniest onesie.

The picture is hard to read; especially since I managed to put it on here sideways, and I have no way of fixing it. It says:

Inside me I've got:
world peace
2 rainbows
light from 4 stars
green stuff
milk
some dog hair
and
a
raisin

I find this funnier than hell, but the price is no joke - $24.95 for one organic cotton onesie. (Signals.com if you want one)

Not a lot going on here, but the Christmas tree is down. I worked on cleaning up the house Mon & Tues and felt dead to the world yesterday; so I rested. I think I feel worse today, but I have to work on getting the rest of the Christmas stuff out today. I swore I would not have it still out for the whole year this year, and I'm not breaking THAT resolution!

But, I'm running out of time, because starting next Tues, January becomes that giant medical marathon I mentioned before. Once all of that starts, I suspect I won't feel like cleaning much.

My doggie girl is feeling better too. Yay! The urine culture said she actually had an e. coli infection. We had to change antibiotics, so now she's really on the road to recovery...as soon as she digests that rawhide we let her have last night!

I hope your new year is starting off as well as mine is so far. A healthy doggie and a clean house go a long way toward keeping me happy!

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The Princess Pea & the Pee

This is the face of a (spoiled) old girl with a bladder infection. My poor love! Luckily she's been on antibiotics for a few days and she's getting better.

Today is the REAL first day of the new year - the first day of SCHOOL! Muhahahahaha!!!! And, I have the entire week free of appointments, so I have lots or time to start taking down the Christmas decorations. This year, they're coming down if it kills me!

I love having the week to clean, get things in order, and feel like I'm starting the new year fresh.

I also love the BloggerDroid app making it possible to shoot a photo on the phone & blog it instantly! The idiotPad doesn't have a camera, and of course, doesn't allow me to use Blogger properly, much less put up photos. Yay for 'droid technology!

Android 2, crApple 0

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Mmmm...

So, I got this incredible book for Christmas - "The Illustrated Cook's Book of Ingredients; 2500 of the world's best with classic recipes," & reading it is almost torture. I want stinky cheese with almonds & apricots now. And fresh mozzarella with heirloom tomatoes. And fresh coconut. And snow crab. And Chinese food. And! And!

I'm sure you get the point.
So anyway - Happy New Year! One of my myriad resolutions is to become a far better (aka more prolific) blogger.

Given that the month of January alone will bring 3 chemo sessions, an endoscopy, a colonoscopy, several visits to the lab and probably at least 1 root canal, I'll either have tons to write about or no energy to write it. We shall see.

Despite the rough start, I'm convinced 2011 is going to be an improvement over the past year. If nothing else, I'm going to live past my January 26 "expiration date," and that's no small thing, right?

Right.

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

FINALLY...sheesh. The whole season so far has felt pretty BLAH, like it's August or something. Just nothing there, bad or good. I never, ever would have guessed what it would take to turn things around for me. It was really something rather small-ish, and one of the last things I personally EVER would have asked Santa to bring me: another kid.

Yup, you read that right.
See, the child in question is one of nature's most perfect species, The Grandchild.

Then again, she is also a pretty damned sweet, smart, adorable and perfect example of that perfect species. ;-> NOT that I'm biased or anything, because I am absolutely not.

But anyway, Lloyd decided that since he was down visiting with his Dad, brother and other relatives down in Jason's neck of the wood, AND since Jason, Chrissy & the kids would be coming here on Thursday for their Christmas visit, he'd just bring Juliet home with him. Somehow or another, it was just the thing. I'm apparently incapable of keeping my holiday blahs in place while she's around.

They're going home after dinner on Xmas eve which kind of bums me out, because I love watching her and Wyatt open their gifts. But, it will be good for them to have Santa come to their own house this year too. Earlier today she asked me, in the most pleading, wheedling little voice ever, if she could open just one of her presents while she was here. I got a huge kick out of watching her reaction when I told her that unless her mommy had a problem with it (there's a very valid reason why her mommy might might need her to wait on one of them) the she got to open ALL of them. Serious grandparent moment there!!!

She is just such a happy little being that I guess it rubs off. She bops around the house, playing here, torturing a teenaged uncle there, and telling me that she likes doing chores. Well, chores not including helping Anna clean her pit. Juliet said the same thing we're all thinking - " I just don't know where to start!" before she gave up. Luckily, she likes making cookies with me even better, so I've been finding ways to keep her occupied and feeling " useful." Tomorrow will be a heavy baking kind of day around here.

I'm just glad I've slid further over from Grinch to Who on the official Who-ville Christmas Spirit Meter, which I totally just made up right now. I was feeling pretty Grinchy there for a while.

Christmas IS coming, whether we want it to one not, and there is still lots to do to get ready, but I'm up an elf, so I have more help than usual.
Ho ho ho!

And the result was....

(the results of the CT/angio performed this afternoon are....). NEGATIVE for any blood clots, which is what they were looking for, and shows no changes to all the other random stuff in there.

This means YAY, Good, Happy Day, skip and single a jaunty little tune.
I'm going to sleep as as soon as humanly possible!!!

Update!

Well, there is sort of an update that I have to squeeze in here before it's time to leave.

I saw Roni yesterday, Dr. Mazj's PA. (physicians assistant) That's normal, as I see one or the other of them the day before each chemo. 

In telling her what had been going on since our last chat, I had to tell her about some chest pain incidents I'd had a few times. I know from what the doctor told me that these pains had nothing at all to do with my cancer - they were allergy/asthma/flu kind of pains associated with a cough or congestion, or were very obviously part of an anxiety attack in progress.

But, I had to tell her. She had to tell Dr. Mazj.
::sigh::

SO, instead of JUST having chemo today, I am having an angio-CT, and THEN chemo.  Grr.

I'll let the Internet explain:
"CT imaging uses special x-ray equipment to produce multiple images and a computer to join them together in multidimensional views. In CT angiography (CTA), computed tomography using a contrast material is injected into a peripheral vein to produce detailed images of both blood vessels and tissues."

Yeah, that. Other than the IV, it's painless. Hopefully, it will use the same CT machine I've been thru before, which will make it non-claustrophobic as well.

Despite all of that useful knowledge, I am still more than slightly anxiety-attacked about it all. I don't have the slightest idea why, but there you have it.

The results of all of my scans come back fast, and I'm usually getting them done down in Chico. Since this is being done right there at the hospital, I wouldn't be surprised if he had the results tomorrow when I come back for my Neulasta shot or even sometime during my long chemo day today.

Needless to say (thanks to the wifi at the hospital), I will have he results posted up here just as soon as I get them. If there is anything noteworthy to add this afternoon, I will make sure to get it up here, so watch this space!

Happy sleepy jingle-dogs!

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'tis the season, part 2

And, after setting an alarm for eight am, so I could get up and out early to do my final bits of shopping, we realized that our plan (out @10; shop in Chico, eat lunch, head up he mountain for 2:30 gastro appt) had a huge, Labradork-shaped hole in it......that would be the Labradork, who has to stay in her kennel/crate while we're gone. So far, four to five hours is about the limit we've attuned her to, and the above plan works out to something like six or seven. The new plan is to go shopping after my appointment, and dinner instead of lunch, which leaves me with several hours this morning to spare. My darling husband has the enviable ability to go (back) to sleep just about any time, any where, for any reason, but I do not, and thus am curled up with a dog in my armpit and a tablet on my lap.

Other than getting ready for Christmas, and trying to reduce my festivities to a manageable level, there has really been very little to update all y'all on. I thought I was done shopping, until I realized that I wasn't. That was a serious downer, considering I had done every bit of it via the Internet and one husband-dispatch to Target. I personally haven't set foot in a single store other than CVS in close to a month, and I was quite proud.

Toning down the celebration feels almost like more work than not toning it down would have been. I have to make a thousand decisions about what stays, what goes, what I do myself, and what I pass off to a kid. The kids really are used to me doing most things, or me and Anna; so I have to constantly consciously remind myself to force the boys to get off their computers and get involved. Thankfully it hasn't been hard - they've been pretty willing to go along when I tell them that after dinner, the three of the are going to finish the tree, period, end of story. I just can't do it now, and passing the job along to the three of them feels simultaneously good and like a huge loss. Well, mostly it feels like cheating.

I keep saying I have to enjoy every holiday I have as much as possible, but I just can't get up much enthusiasm for celebrating. Then again, I don't have much enthusiasm for anything except sleeping, and here I have the morning suddenly free, and I'm typing instead of snoring. Figures. Then again, again, there is a man, a cat, and three dogs in this bed, and not a hell of a lot of room left to stretch out! When we got this nice big bed, we thought we'd finally have enough room...instead, we added a dog. They need to make a bed size bigger than king, and call it "Pet" or "Dog" size - like a Cal King plus another double or something.

Anyway...
I have no idea where I was going with this, or if I was going anywhere.
It's probably time to wrap this up and check in with the rest of my life before its time to get ready to go visit my latest new doctor. (as if I needed any more, right?)
As always, I will try to keep this more up to date, and as always, I will probably fail. It's worth a shot! I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season. I'm trying to do that too!!

'tis the Season!

'tis the season for absolute exhaustion, is what it 'tis the season FOR.

Could someone please remind me how I used to do all this stuff AND have a job and something of a life? I once remember going to three Christmas parties in a single day, and now I'm doing great if I can make it up the stairs three times in a day.

Anna is, as always, being an incredible helper and head elf, wrapping, decorating and anything else I ask her for help with. I just can't keep up with her, and like every other occasion that comes around these days, *this* Christmas is the one where I have to stop, sit down, and reevaluate absolutely everything I'm trying to do. And, inevitably, cut what I'm trying to do in half, then half again........and probably in half again.

And as I write that, I realize that it is 12:54--- and that I have to get up early in the morning to go shopping, (because I discovered that I am definitely not done shopping for my head elf) and THEN head up the mountain for an appointment with a man who will probably want to stick things up my butt. Yep, I made an appointment for that privilege. Gastroenterologists have the best jobs.

SO, more later. I just wanted to drop in and let everyone know I'm still alive! Chemo this week, whee!!
Stay tuned.

No fair!

Absolutely not fair!

I went to see Andy yesterday, and now I have until Monday "off." (since going to doctors and dentists js basically my "job," I always feel like days we can stay home are like days off work.)

SO, what happens when I have four free days in front of me? C'mon, you all know the answer to this one: I GET SICK.
Of course!!!

I woke up at four, or some other ungodly hour, shivering so hard my teeth were slamming into each other, chattering. I had to put a wad of gauze in my mouth to bite on and not break my remaining teeth. Bundled up in a robe and hat and popped some ibuprofen to break the 100.4 fever. Oh, what joy! When I woke up again around seven, I still had the fever, but the shivering had stopped. Another dose of ibu and naproxen, and the fever finally broke around 8. Thank god, because if I have a fever of 100.5 or higher, I have to go to the cancer center or ER - chemo rules. I just missed it this time.

So now I have a congested everything; am dizzy as hell; feel kind of like I'm hung over; have a sore throat and a cough; have massive body aches, like you get with the flu; and have a major seeing-spots kind of headache.

Why?

What did I do?

Could someone out there please speak with the-powers-that-be and get this stopped?

Hello winter!

Dude! All of a sudden it is COOOOOOOLD around here!

Leaving for the dentist this morning marked our first time scraping frost and ice off the car before we could go anywhere. Everything on our side of the street was white and gorgeous, covered in frost.

Not too many updates of any importance...

Thanksgiving was nice, with Dad and Chris up. Chris helped me cook, and that was a very welcome thing. We cooked, we ate, and we even took a trip out to an indian casino. It was nice to get out of the house a little bit, but it did wear me out. Even with all Chris' help, I still managed to over-do it, and landed myself in bed for a couple of days afterward. Ah well.

The Venofer infusions I was getting (iron) weren't working out too well - I was getting ridiculous headaches and even vomited blood once - so we stopped those until I see the doctor again.

In a couple of weeks, I'm going to see a gastro doc to try and figure out WHY I was vomiting blood, and why my scans are still showing slight intestinal obstructions. That doubtlessly means a colonoscopy or endoscopy or both. I'm looking forward to those OH SO MUCH, as I'm sure you can imagine.

December marks my last Taxol chemo treatment, which might be great or might be....bleh. In January we're going to switch to a drug called Topotecan, which will be infusions every week, 3 weeks on and 1 week off. We're going to be very, very tired, but there is a chance that the Taxol I've been getting all this time hasn't been doing a thing, since I have had growth in the tumors, slow as it's been. Maybe the new drug will stop the growth entirely; maybe it will do nothing.

I've got to give it a shot though, because any growth is bad growth, as far as I'm concerned!

Until then, it's all about getting ready for the holidays. Pea was less than enthused about her photo session for our annual strange Christmas card, but that's ok. You'll all get to see the final results soon enough.

And now, it's bedtime...

More soon. Happy Winter everyone!!

Ahh, the joy of chemo...

NOT.

Well, I've had two Venofer treatments, my labs and my visit with Roni, Dr. Mazj's physician's assistant. Two days down, one to go... THIS WEEK. As of yesterday, when the rest of my Venofer treatments were worked out, I'm so over-scheduled, I'm not sure how either Lloyd or I are going to take it. It's going to be a lot like the days when we were doing radiation and chemo at the same time and heading up the mountain five days a week.

Next week isn't bad at all, yet. I have the remainder of my root canal treatment to finish on Monday, with a trek up the mountain on Tuesday for Venofer. That will let me have a little bit of a break after chemo, and still have time to get in all oif my Thanksgiving shopping, prep and cooking without being too pressed for time. I usually try to prep as much in advance as I can, but Chris has been drafted as my sous-chef for the holiday so I've got my back covered this year.

After my holiday break, it's one hell of a week. Monday, six fillings; Tuesday, Venofer; Wednesday, Andy; Thursday & Friday, Venofer. Urgh!!

The following week is almost as bad - Monday, Venofer; Tuesday, three fillings; Wednesday, Venofer; Friday, Venofer. At least I've got Thursday off that week.

The week after that, we're back at chemo week, so it's an exact copy of this week, with the doctor's visit, chemo and Neulasta on top of three Venofer infusions.

I'm getting tired just reading this, and having trouble figuring out where in all of that I'm going to do Chrismas shopping, wrapping and all the other holiday tasks. I'm having the sudden (very sudden!) realization that I'm going to have to cut back on what I plan to do, and make really damned good use of the little time I do have!! Hello Mr. Anxiety Attack!

I just got up for my every-ten-minute potty break, and now I'm REALLY depressed. The shower is overrun by ants - still. We started treating last night, choosing to put a bait disk in there, so they might kill some back at the nest, instead of just spraying it. This morning, we'll have to spray, but it does look like the bait disk has had booming business overnight. This is only day....er, 10? 12? Longer? in our ongoing battle to reclaim the house from the ants. The kitchen and pantry have been under constant attack, with side flanks hitting all three bathroom. This could put an even bigger damper on any holiday baking I try to do!!!

And, whoever plans layout for our local newspaper should be given a lesson in compassion. The obits belong somewhere appropriate, likejj behind the last page of the classifieds, not on the page before the comics. Seeing familiar faces of two women, one young and one older, who request donations to the Feather River Hospital Cancer Center and Hospice didn't help out my anxiety or depression much at all.

It's going to be an interesting month ahead. It's time now to go hit the catalogs and work on some Christmas shopping.

SO, no one's going to be shocked when I don't post very often, now, are they?!

Ok, I'm back

Well, I hadn't felt much like writing when lost Boo, but I'm back.

More specifically, I'm in the cancer center infusion room, waiting my turn for one of the very busy, overloaded fantastic nurses to come and puncture me, and then set me up with my infusions for the day. I'm supposed to be getting a red cell booster infusion each of the next three days, along with chemo tomorrow, and Neulasta shot on Friday, so this should be interesting. I think I've had this drug before, but I can't really remember what it was like or if I had a reaction to it or not, so I have no idea what to expect.

I guess we'll see, won't we?

Along with being kind of generally depressed after losing my birdie, I've also had some generally miserable days in the recent past. I had one day ( I can't remember which day for the life of me) where I woke up with a migraine so bad that I spent the entire day, early morning till night, alternating between sleeping and sitting on the bathroom floor barfing my guts out. I couldn't keep anything down, my anti-nausea meds did zilch for me - including the suppositories - and nothing would touch the pain. It was truly the worst thing I have experienced in a very long time. Actually, I've got more than a little bit of a sinus-y headache going now, but I'm crossing my fingers. And my port hurts, damn it. It just randomly hurts sometimes, but this is the first time its hurt while it's been accessed (meaning while its punctured while I'm up here getting an infusion) so I'm a little surprised.

There really hasn't been a lot going on to write about, truthfully. One exciting thing- I got the results of my bone scan: NO metastatic disease in the bone! Whoo-hoo!! That is the one thing that mattered. It did show some sinus problems - not shocking AT ALL!

Otherwise' I've been getting my dental work done, bit by bit, and had sort of a double root canal yesterday. I say sort of because they weren't able to fully finish it in the time we had. I was having a weird day yesrday, where I kept falling asleep constantly, and I slept through the whole thing! I'm not complaining, but it's weird.

I am complaining about this growing headache I have...its making it hard for me to see to type this, so I think I'm going to sign off and try again tomorrow during chemo. I know this isn't the greatest or most exciting entry, but I know that all of you will live. I shared the bone scan result, and that was the important thing.

I'm going to take a nap. More later!

Milestones

I just noticed, as I went to write this entry, that this is post number 301 on this blog. I never imagined I'd have 300 things to say to anyone!

But, I do have a sad milestone to report today too. After more than 14 years, 11(?) homes and four companions, my poor little Elvis Booboo left me sometime in the night.

He was wanting tons of love and affection yesterday, and now I think he was saying goodbye. I said goodnight to him and turned on his warmie-pad, and Lloyd found him there in the bottom of the cage today, still nestled near his heating pad.

It's been a rough day, but I wrapped him up in a cloth and we took him to the vet and at least I was able to hold him for that last ride. He'll be coming back to us soon. You may think that sounds silly, for a bird, but I think anyone who sticks with me for fourteen years has earned some respect.

He was my friend, honestly, and the house is going to seem far too quiet and still without him.
RIP Boobird.

Very much spoooooooky-like-ness-ing

And as usual, Halloween was once again THE premier holiday for the Irwin household. The way we do Halloween makes most people's Christmas celebration and decoration efforts look pretty anemic, if I do say so myself.

It is very much a whole-family holiday. Lloyd and the kids decorate the hell out of the yard in advance, and top it off as it's getting dark that night. (light-up ICE CUBES, anyone?! Yes, we still have a good number that worked, and this is year seven!!!).

Giant graveyard on the lawn, check; anything that can be draped in black fabric or covered in glow sticks, IS, check; spooks created from cheesecloth, discarded net curtains, check. Boys with voice-changers, tiny hidden mp3 player speakers, faceless masks and red glowing eyes hiding in the bushes with bags full of cans full of pennies...check, check check!!!

I had some great half-formed ideas for giant spiders out of the bottom ring of a papasan chair and how to best use my wheelchair, but alas they were too late for this year.

So, we had to settle for the two-

or three- hundred other things we did....

Anna was feeling pretty bummed over the whole thought of being too old to go trick or treating, and a the last weeks and days counted down to the holiday, I caved. First I said to invite her two best friends over, just to run around outside or whatever. Then I gave in on the trick or treating too. What the fuck, she's only young once, right? Young enough to still go, but also old enough that I was able to let her and Christa go out for a while on their own.

Let me clarify though: We checked the Megan's law site. She was given a precise set of streets she was allowed to be on and no further. They were nicely visible thanks to many glowsticks (& Christa's shiny white patent knee-high platform go-go boots!) There was a curfew, they knew not to consider eating a single thing they collected AND I had her on walkie-talkie the whole time.

Freedom on a very short leash. ;->

But, because of all those things and knowing our housing tract-neighborhood, I was able to feel very, very comfortable letting her have her freedom, and the two girls had an absolute blast-plus. Maybe next year she won't want to do it again, but I've alre

ady decided to let her. Like I said, she's only going to be this age once.

The boys, once they aged out of the door-to-door thing, made up their own routine for the holiday. They both have big black shroud kind of things with those hood masks that make you look like you're faceless. Under that, at least one of them had glowing red eyes, which look eerie as all hell.

They take turns sitting in a black draped chair, with black draping covering their feet and such, and play statue, candy bucket between the feet. For younger kids (the ones brave enough to come all the way up the walk!!), they just give out the candy. For the tiny ones with pink wings, I often have to intervene and bring the candy down to the sidewalk, that's HOW good they are!!

While one is in the chair, the other is somewhere in the bushes with a bag full of soda cans, with a handful of pennies thrown in for better noisemaking.

Older kids, see, are fair game...... Muhahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
You should hear the screams!! Oh, it is glorious! Teenage girls are the best prey - of course. They do such a great job that our house is now widely known in Gridley as THAT HOUSE - "you know, that one house with the guys who don't move?!"

I was across the street talking to Jamie at one point and when I looked back across at our house, we had a LINE. A LINE!! All the way down the walkway to the driveway, with screams emanating from the porch. I wanted a camera so badly right then.

As for me, I decided to really go for it myself, costume-wise. As I told Jamie, not to be morbid, but, I have no idea how many Halloweens I have to feel up and perky enough to do it, so I didn't want to miss it. My costume was very deceptively simple, but I got masses of compliments!

I was a Christmas tree!!

The idea was stolen from a long-ago coworker, but the execution was all mine, with prop styling by the Dollar Tree store. My main tree-part was a giantly fluffy green square dance petticoat with ornaments, battery powered LED lights, ornaments, etc. Other than fixing the lights in place and putting my "hat" ( garland wreath with a giant gold star) together, the rest was basically draping things artistically.

I was actually surprised at how much attention I got. Then again, I was the only brightly lit neon green Christmas tree running around in the dark.

I got tons of compliments from kids and adults both, but I also had one rather clueless family where the father wanted me to *dance* for him - what the fuck?! Do people just randomly ask other adults to dance on the sidewalk for them on Halloween in his world?! His horrid children kept sticking out bare hands at me saying "trick or treat!" over and over and then trying to remove and take my ornaments.

I'm going to be generous and assume that this was their first Halloween since sneaking across the border...... Ok, that was terrible of me but I was getting seriously grossed out by these people TOUCHING ME!! Yuck.

I should have thrown pumpkin guts at them.

But, aside from being groped by one nasty family, the rest of the night was a complete blast. All the kids were exhausted from the hard work hiding, scaring and walking, and we were exhausted from supervising the general chaos.

The boys are already plotting next year.......