Well, tonight was quite eventful and I must say it was entirely my fault. This afternoon Caleb was taking out the trash, I followed him out to get the mail and Chloe (our sweet little dog) wanted to come too. So, I told her she could come out with us. I got the mail, started talking to Caleb and then we went inside and shut the door. About two hours later Caleb left for school and I decided to run to Mervyns (thanks to an insightful call from Karen who told me this was their last day before the auditors took over the store). I went to say goodbye to Chloe who was not at her usual post of guarding me (she won't let me out of her sight lately.) and she was not around. I figured she must be out back and Ange and I left. When we got back about 30min later, Chloe was still not inside and as I started looking around the house and out back. It suddenly dawned on me that I had let her outside and not made sure she got back in with us. I'm sure you can imagine the horror and utter panic that washed over me. All I could think about was my poor little dog that I had locked out of the house! Well, I started to panic and Ange started to cry and tell me how I can never let the dog go outside again. So, we started going door to door, asking if anyone had seen a little white dog and pretty soon we had neighbors running/driving all over trying to find her. I found some girls who said they had seen a little dog sitting in front of a house and when I asked them to show me which house, they pointed at mine. (Kill me now!!!) Caleb then got home from school and we started driving the streets calling her name, stopping people (only to be told horror stories of how they lost their dog in this neighborhood) and driving down alleyways. Finally 3 1/2 hours after we had taken out the trash, Caleb gets a lead that takes him farther from home than we had thought to look. Finally he ends up on someone’s door hoping all the people he had talked to had indeed pointed him in the right direction. When the door is opened, Chloe comes to meet him shaking with excitement. He then found out that Chloe had followed one of their little girls home from school and then the girl and her sister had given Chloe a bath, dressed her in a skirt and had been playing with her for the last hour. They told us that they were planning on putting pictures around the neighborhood tomorrow. I can't even begin to tell you how relieved I was. Come to find out, the family is in our ward but they don't come to church very often. I guess this ended up being a great opportunity for us to meet some new people that maybe we can now do something nice for in return. Who knows, there might have been a reason things happened the way they did. Needless to say, many prayers were said and answered tonight and the most ironic thing was that Ange was so busy playing with the neighborhood kids that had come out to help look for Chloe, that she didn't even notice Chloe was back. Chloe now wants nothing to do with the front door and is sleeping a lot. All in all I guess things turned out all right in the end, but it sure was hard getting to that end.
Annie and Lynnsi (Angie's cousins) spent the day at our house on Friday and Saturday and got to go trick or treating with Angie. They spent the afternoon decorating the front porch and finding ways to scare people. Then we had chili dogs for dinner (my favorite Halloween dish!) and they dressed in their finest most terrifying outfits. (Ok, not so terrifying.) We have a skeleton who's name is Bob who talks to you when you walk by and says things like: "If you think I'm scary, you should look in the mirror" "Six feet below is the only way to go" & "If I were you I'd sleep with the lights on tonight" This year we took him and put him inside of the box my harp came in and put candy bars in his hands. Then, when people came to the door, Caleb told them that cousin Bob wanted to pass out the candy this year, but he died and then we decided to let him pass it out anyhow. He then told them that he had little candy bars, but if they wanted a big one they would have to get it from Bob. Most of the kids opted for the little candy bar for some reason. The parents thought it was really funny because most of the kids would stare at Bob and the big candy bar and then turn to Caleb and hold open their bags. After a while the girls decided to go trick or treating and came back with the report that our house was one of the best decorated (next to the Whettens) on the block. Then they came in to eat candy and watch "Pooh's Heffalump Halloween" which was really scary!!! (I hope they didn't have nightmares!)
