The Life and Times of Bootie & Rabbit: It's been a hard day's night, and I've been...

ignoring this blog! But, alas, for good reason. Coincidence, perhaps, that a black cat crosses my path two weeks ago (time of last post),the day of the near death experience? Of my hard drive, that is. Yes, I had feared this, even had a super duper external hard drive, patiently standing by to stave off any crash-related anxiety. And there we were, one night: just a black screen, a white cursor, and me. The three of us- totally frozen. Enter stage left, following day: my savior, computer wizard. To whom I owe a lot. So...flash forward a little bit and a teensy bit of nervousness later, and everything's fine, and I am back in business. With mucho memory and enough hard drive space to store not just my own library of four hundred million ten hundred thousand seventeen billion and ten (to borrow Portia's perception of a lot) photos, but probably those of most of our neighbors. So, I'm finally in good shape.

To much more important business! Husband extraordinaire and I, in the interim, have celebrated 8 years together. Indian summer has brought us out to the beach; we're feeling so lucky to be surrounded by such good friends; we've celebrated a host of #4 birthdays; Peanut is learning how to ride a 2-wheeler!; a magnificent Halloween has come and gone. Lots of photo coverage follows.

Hard to believe this was just 2 weeks ago

Yeah, Baby!

I'm getting there

This is old hat, Sis!

Gotta mix it up when you're learning to ride!

Halloween was a multi-day extravaganza of fun and festivities. School, Lawn Club and neighborhood activities made for a memorable trick-or-treat '09.

Darth and Zeebie

A recent and most surprising (to Marc and me) taking to Star Wars prompted this very un-Hugo, albeit adorable, costume

Hugo with Gunther

School Halloween fair...what's mommy going to do, avoid the 42 oz bag of M&M booth? Beeline straight for it!

Perhaps the greatest, most inventive Halloween event ever, organized and pulled off by a few very generous, creative neighborhood parents. A nighttime candlelit walk (in a neighborhood park) through brush, caves, greenhouses & creepy dark overgrown park corners complete with ghoulish monsters to greet at surprise intervals- here Marc plays the role of the werewolf emerging from red fog...