A very belated Halloween update

You know that window between the last trick-or-treater ringing your doorbell and a great big turkey suddenly taking up residence in your refrigerator? Yes, I have no idea why it vanishes so quickly every year, but I think it has something to do with the appearance of Christmas decorations in every retail store I've walked into in the last two and half weeks. Somebody hand me a noisemaker; it's practically New Year's.

We feted Halloween with Dieter's Aunt Chris, who came to visit for an extended weekend filled with ghoulish activities. Meow Meow enjoyed most of it, even with the extra bustle of small children alternately screaming in terror when Dieter opened the door (he painted his face quite scarily) and clamoring for candy.

When we weren't loading up the neighbors' kids with sugar, we were carving produce with vigor. Oh yes -- we don't just do pumpkins around here. Dieter decided to break out the power tools and do coconuts.


Inspired by some crafts we saw in Hawaii, Dieter adorned his scraped-out coconut with feathers and seashells. I thought the end result was properly creepy:


But Meow Meow was unfazed.


Note, however, that she preferred to sit in Aunt Chris's lap while she was working on her pumpkin with a knife rather than risk joining Dieter and his noisier drill ...