Awesome job, Joe!! I just peeked through all of them and it looks like a blast! Thank you for letting us get a look at it. BB [Pirate :] and I made a day of it, cheering folks at the hospital all day between a morning and night event. He fell asleep on the bench on the sidewalk after about a half hour of our little version of the parade :) s*cky cellphone nighttime pic but I couldn't resist that little face!

Thanks everyone for all the fun ideas. For a while there I was considering having DH be a king and I'd be a court jester. But, the party is on a Fri. night, which makes prep a little more tricky, decided to keep things simple also since we're hosts... so we are going to be the Skipper (DH) and Gilligan (me) from Gilligan's Island.

Kathy, my kids would have loved you. My Grandkids would love you now but my girls would hate you. (grin) I just might steal that idea.... My kids never encountered "candy rationing" either. They ate as much of it as they wanted, when they wanted. I usually used the rest of the chocolate Easter bunnies to make chocolate chip cookies about September. As for Halloween, anything that wasn't eaten by Christmas got used in the Christmas baking or taken to work for the candy jars, where it got thrown away when the Valentine's Day candy got brought in..... And neither of my girls were ever overweight and both have perfect teeth! I did get all black jelly beans and anything else made of black licorice. Now I'm pickier, I want licorice All Sorts, LOL, or Black Crows. Annie

Thanks for all the comments and compliments! It was an authentic outfit, and I bought some of it in Fredericksburg, Texas and some of it at Alpine Village in Torrance, where we had a German breakfast/brunch a couple of weeks ago. I bought my shoes there (see photo below), as well as the shirt I am wearing. Dina took the pictures of me at work, and so they were taken in my office, including a closeup of my shoes. Dina wore a costume similar to yours, Annie! I like the "Dale Pickle" sign! Yesterday we went to Comikaze Expo athe the L.A. Convention Center downtown and I took German sandwiches with us! It was very crowded there, and I was glad we did not have to wait in line for food. Kevin wanted to see Kevin Smith there, but the line for his conference room had over 2000 people in it, and the room only held 700, and so I had Kevin wait next to a water fountain next to a Ladies room while I looked for the men's room down the hall. As it turned out, where Kevin was waiting was exactly opposite the door where Kevin Smith was entering for his conference, and so we got a close look at him. I told Kevin to talk to him or ask him a question, but he was too shy, I guess. So we got to see him but not hear him speak. We also saw Elriva there - she was there last year as well. I bought a scimitar for my pirate outfit, which I will be able to wear next year. I have worn a pirate outfit before, but I never had the right sword. I am thinking of making a quiche this morning with the leftover pie dough I have from the apple pie I made last week. I made enough dough for two pies, and the leftover dough needs to get used today. I guess I could freeze it, but then I don't know when it would get used. Lars