Halloween Hangover

Greetings Fanatics!

How was your Halloween? As you probably know, October is the most active month for we three Fanatics and as such the blog suffers. November has rolled around and now it's time to discuss what we were up to and what the rest of the calendar year holds.

On the 16th, we decided to knock a bunch of stuff off of our Autumn Fun List and visit a pumpkin patch. Originally, we planned on visiting Froberg's Farm in Alvin but when we found out that Froberg's pumpkins are only available to purchase in a box in their market, we decided to visit The Old Time Christmas Tree Farm in Spring instead. Joining us for this adventure was Grandpa Comparetto and sister Hannah.

Old Time Christmas Tree farm is usually only open in late November to December to sell, well, Christmas trees, but have a pumpkin patch open on the weekends in October. Even though pumpkins don't grow very well in Houston and OTCTF has to import theirs from North Texas, they were artfully arranged in huge piles that children could climb on and take pictures with. It was unseasonably warm and sunny, but there was still a crowd out. We first took a hay ride, pulled by a tractor, to tour the (currently closed to pedestrians) Christmas tree lot. Although the heat and sunshine made it hard to imagine this as a fun autumn tradition, we had a good time. We saw Aaron's doppelganger manning the bounce house on the property and sister Hannah and I took great delight in seeing Aaron and his slightly taller reflection monitor Isaac. We bought about 10 pumpkins between us, including 2 carving pumpkins, 3 sugars, and an assortment of small gourds and mini pumpkins.

While decorating our "yard" in spooky cobwebs, I got stung by a Puss Moth Caterpillar, which I will talk about in detail in tomorrow's post. Unfortunately, this threw both of my arms out of commission for our Halloween party weekend (painful sting on my left making me compensate with my right which triggered Carpal Tunnel), so Aaron had to do the majority of the cleaning. (Thanks again, Aaron.)

We had a small party the Saturday before Halloween, during which we all piled into a car to visit the ghosts at Patterson Road. They didn't decide to show up this time, possibly because it was only 9:30 in the evening, but the drive and wait for them was quite spooky. We tried to visit with the ghosts at the nearby cemetery from a respectful distance, but all we saw was a shadowy figure coming at us from afar and we booked it. .

On actual Halloween, Isaac and I carved pumpkins and Isaac went on his first Trick-or-Treat expedition as the Devil. Can I just take a moment and complain? As much as I enjoy yelling at other peoples' children, I don't like it so much on Halloween. I'm just here to have a good time. Don't let your wards run about, knocking smaller children over and being the ones that grab all of the candy from self serve bowls. You never know if someone is willing to trip a gang of bratty Disney princesses. Anyway, since he's very young, we only let Isaac trick-or-treat 4 streets. A pretty great first Halloween, I'd say.

Stay Fanatic,
Megh