Leaves, Leaves, and More Leaves

Here's a little tip. When house-hunting, go in the fall. Never in the spring. Everything is in beautiful full bloom in the spring. The fall is when all the work that needs to be done becomes apparent. The beautiful trees that flank the yard are naked...and all that remains of that beauty is littered all over the yard. ALL OVER THE YARD. Behind every nook and cranny...trapped in every bush you own. This is my least favorite part of home ownership because no matter how many leaves we pick up, they continue to come...from where I don't know (as our trees are naked). We will still be doing this in the spring...although I must admit that having Kyle get so excited about running and jumping in them made it a little more bearable. Oh yeah, and the fact that I had an appointment to get my hair done right in the middle of the leaf pickup party didn't hurt this year either (you can't time these things...that appointment was on the books for weeks). There were 26 bags of leaves when all was said and done. I was responsible for bagging 6 bags.

This is the before picture:


See, they are everywhere:


Some fun in the leaves:


Brad and Kyle are both buried here...the trick is to spot Brad:


Buried:

Movie Night

We had our first "Movie Night" at the house. It was very exciting...there was much talk of popcorn and jammies and snuggling. I even bought a special new movie we could watch (Ratatouille). However, when it came time to decide on the movie, Kyle wanted to watch Thomas. I convinced him Thomas was a show not a movie, and got out all our movies for him to pick from (Nemo, Toy Story, Monster's Inc, Cars, and the shiny new shrink-wrapped Ratatouille)...and what did he choose? The new movie that I was selling hard - No, of course not. He picked Cars...which we have seen no less than 1 million times. It was still a success...and popcorn was had by all...and snuggling...and I have him convinced that we can never watch the same movie twice on movie night (there is hope for Ratatouille yet).

Trick or Treat

A few pictures from our enjoyable Halloween. Daddy took Kyle trick or treating and Mommy stayed at the neighbors house with the other mom's handing out candy (and drinking in the front lawn). Kyle hung with the big kids running from house to house for a while and then announced his bucket was full and he had enough candy and wanted to go home to eat it. He got back and I told him he could pick two pieces (which somehow meant five pieces) and proceeded to indulge. He had a blast and ended up with just enough candy to not make me have to take some to work with me to get rid of it.

Kyle's playing with some of our old costumes - scary dude:


All pumpkins carved by master pumpkin carver "Brad":


Superman is for the night out - he has been working on his muscles for maximum candy handling:


Trick or treat at Ms. Lynn's house:


Hanging onto the stash - please notice the sugar rush coming on:

My Brief Brush With Stardom

Alternate Title: Geeks on Parade
Alternate Title: My Life on the D List

I have proved to myself that I can survive away from my family for 5 days. My family proved to me that they can survive without me for 5 days. I just got back from the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference in Los Angeles. What is that you ask? An exciting developer conference put on by Microsoft with about 97% male developers and 3% (probably generous) female developers. This means that if you are one of the 3%, you attract attention (whether you want to or not). Luckily I was there with 5 other co-workers (surprisingly we are a 50/50 ratio of men to women). We had a really good time and we even had a brush with a celebrity.

Yes folks, that is Vern Troyer (Mini-me). For some random reason he was at the DevExpress booth signing t-shirts. I know he looks very happy - probably because he is wondering what the hell he is doing in the DevExpress booth signing t-shirts. This is my first celebrity photo...I am proud.