Catching up

[Murfreesboro]

I forgot to mention that my cousin, a retired Home Economics teacher, is a superb seamstress. She did not make the bridal gown, though she did alter it slightly ( she hid an Irish lace cross among the folds of lace in the skirt, which a handful of people noticed). She did make the bridesmaids gowns.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

We went to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon, we chose it for a few reasons, it was affordable and close enough to us, and we had just covered the cost of the wedding, and around the same time we were beginning to start the renovations for her new bakery, so most of our funds went into that. At the time it was a major risk, but thankfully it went well. The honeymoon itself was beautiful, and I wouldn't change it, though the romantic in me truly wishes that I could have brought her to France, maybe one day.

You brought up something interesting regarding the groom being a atheist that I honestly haven't ever thought about until you mentioned it, and that is that most people that ever get married do so mainly because they view marriage, and rightfully so, as a religious ceremony, and regardless of which religion you believe in, the very act of marriage is basically a form of religious unification. So it brings up the question, what is marriage without religion?

I get it, love is love, and if 2 people love each other then that should be the only thing that matters, but I think that marriage without religion is just a government contract, and if your marriage is just a piece of paper, then it's just another excuse to use for divorce. Don't get me wrong, I don't judge anybody for getting divorced, especially if they have a real reason like my mother did, and I know that most divorces come from religious based marriages. A good friend I have known for years is on his third marriage, he's a good person, and I don't judge him for it.

Maybe it's because I was brought up religious, and regardless of my parents marriage, I believe that when you take your marital vows that they are a promise, not only to each other, but to the Lord, and that you must honor that promise until death. I've said before that I don't believe in divorce, and I'm thankful that I married a woman that feels the same way. We are stuck with each other until the end regardless of what might come, and if she wants to get rid of me before that then she's going to have to put a bullet in my head.

Well, I'm going to be busy for the whole Halloweekend, so I'll be back on Mon. Have a ghoulishly good time everybody!

[Andybev01]

Among my 10 siblings there has been 18 marriages and 13 divorces,.

9 Catholic, 1 Lutheran, 2 fundamentalist Christian, 1 Jewish and 5 non-denominational.

I guess it's more of a hobby in my family.

[Murfreesboro]

Those are sad stats, and I shouldn't chuckle, but the way you expressed yourself did amuse me.

Marriage is of course a legal as well as a religious act. I think some non-religious people marry "officially" because of certain legal protections, and because they do regard it as an indicator of serious commitment. Also, if people hope to have children, I think children prefer it when their parents are married. Little kids are surprisingly conservative about some things. They want mommy, daddy, the dog, and the white picket fence.

There've been a lot of divorces among my cousins on my mother's side, but not so many among my paternal cousins. Not sure why that is.

[Andybev01]

Although true it was definitely meant to amuse.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

Well, I'm back. I'll try to make this as short as possible.

As usual, I started Halloween at midnight by watching some horror movies while everybody else was sleeping, then I went to sleep for about a hour before getting back up at 5am. I got my costumes ready, and I also put up the last few decorations in my yard before I got dressed.

Of course, The Great Pumpkin arrived early to give Phoebe her candy and presents, and even though Sam was deliberately getting ready at that time and missed him, he still made sure to leave her a present. Then I went to the neighbor's house to visit their kids, and they were very happy for the candy and presents as well.

I also made sure to give Millie a call because this was her hundredth Halloween, she was excited about it, but when I talked to her again the next day to find out how it went, she told me that she went to sleep around 7pm and missed most of the fun.

We went to the restaurant for about 10 minutes to make sure that everything was running smooth, and then my wife and I came back here to get into our costumes. As I mentioned, we were dressing up in Hocus Pocus costumes, my wife and the girls were the Sanderson sisters, and I was Billy Butcherson. It took awhile to get the makeup on, but it looked awesome when it was done.

Then we picked up the girls and some of their friends from school, their reaction to my costume was perfect! A few screams, followed by some laughs, I couldn't have asked for a better result. We got back here to wait for the rest of their friends to arrive, each of them screaming when I answered the door to greet them, I loved it!

Something interesting I noticed this year was that on Oct. 30th and Nov. 1st at 6:30pm it was already dark outside, but on Halloween night at the same exact time there was still daylight out. That's the first time in my 44 years on this planet that this has ever happened.

Anyway, we left the house around 6pm to go trick-or-treating, there were 14 kids with us in total, and we drove to the popular area to make sure that they would get some good candy. The neighborhood there was decorated beautifully, I just wish that people around here were that passionate about it, while the kids were running around door to door I waited on the sidewalk for them, groaning to scare anybody that walked by, and people were commenting how great my costume was. Then a little kid walked up and said trick-or-treat to me, I guess she thought that I lived at the house that I was standing in front of, I had to think fast, so I told her to go to that house to get candy, so she did. I honestly felt bad, because I have always given candy to a kid, but it's not like I had any candy with me, or I would have gave her some.

We got back here shortly after 8pm, and then a few more of their friends arrived, making 18 kids in total at the party. We played some games, told some scary stories, and ordered pizza for them, and because some of the kids were not staying for the night we only had time to watch one movie, so the kids voted and we watched Hocus Pocus, I mean, it's only the 5th time we watched it this month, but that's fine.

The party wrapped up around 11pm, and most of the kids went home, 8 of them stayed for the night and we continued to have fun and watch movies until 2am. We managed to get rid of some of that Disney candy by filling a large pinata with it, and my wife told me that there were about 100 trick-or-treaters at our place that night, and she tried to give away as much of that Disney candy as she could, but we still had a large pile of candy leftover so we gave some of it to the kids at the party as prizes for trivia and games, and they were happy for the extra candy. Of course, after the kids went to sleep, my wife and I had some candy, and then it was time for Winifred and Billy to have some fun by themselves, wink, wink.

We got up early on Sat. morning, well, I did, everybody else got up at 8am, we made sure that everybody ate something for breakfast, and no, it wasn't candy, even though some of the kids insisted on it, we waited on their other friends to arrive, then we headed out for day. We went to a local haunt first, the good thing about Halloween on a Fri. is that attractions are open for the whole weekend, while we were there, I found out that 2 of the kids that were with us had birthdays that week, one kid on Oct. 30, and another on Nov. 2, so after the haunt I decided to bring them to Walmart to get them a present. Of course, it wouldn't be fair to the others if I didn't get them something as well, so I got a present for each kid that was with us. One of the other parents that was with us, she was new to the group, told me that I shouldn't spoil them, another parent that had been with us before told her that this is the way it is, and there's no point in arguing with me about it, she's right, and I'm glad that some people are paying attention.

Then we went to the community center and they had some games, a very family friendly haunt, and a costume contest. We went to the mall after that where they have the arcade that's like Chuck E. Cheese, we were there for a few hours before we came back here for more movies and games, and a few kids stayed the night ... but we weren't done yet.

On Sun. morning their friends came back and we went back to the farm haunt again. The first time we were there at night, and it had a creepy atmosphere, but when you're there in the daytime it seemed so toned down compared to their night presentation. I don't know, maybe the actors were tired after doing the show for a whole month, but they didn't seem into it much, but when you're there in the day you get a better look at the decorations, some of which were very well designed. It was still fun for the kids though, as they had a hayride, maze, activities, and more cider than any normal human should consume.

Then we came back here, gave the kids some dinner, and then waited for their parents to pick them up. I'm glad that everybody had fun this weekend, I did as well, but as the old guy there's only so much fun that I can handle, and right now, with the amount of walking and standing I did this weekend, I feel like a truck hit me. Man, the youth are truly blessed with endless energy.

Uh, sorry, the post still turned out long. I hope that everybody here had a good weekend as well.