The One With the Happy Halloween

 

 

 

 

It is Halloween night 2024...and it was quite a busy day.

 

First, it was the first time Kiff and Bri had been around in the past few years. And, it was nice to have the around. They helped pass our candy to our trick-or-treaters. We had 23.

 

Kiff and I also put together our new Halloween decoration - the Plague Doctor. It was unique.

 

We set up our haunted house and we also put out the firepit in the driveway, where we greeted trick or treaters.

 

Kiff left early to go to a Halloween party. But, we got back just in time to have the Great Pumpkin visit. 

 

 

The One With the New Car

 

 

Today, Emmie and I took a trip down toward the south shore. We visited the Sullivan Brothers car company - a company whose signed I passed a bazillion times since growing up going to the Cape. We were in search of a new, used car for Emmie. Now that Bri has a license, we wanted to do a car shuffle.

 

The goal of today was to find a Jeep Wrangler that Emmie could use driving back and forth from school and on local drives. After all, she had longed to have a Wrangler again.

 

And we were in luck. We found one for the right price that was a good deal. And the people at Sullivan were amazing. It was a great experience.

The One Where Bri Gets Her License

 

 

Today was a banner day for Bri. She got up early in the morning and had her driver's license test planned for today in Beverly at 8:15.

The first time around did not go so smoothly for Bri. She bumped into a curb when she was parallel parking, which means you automatically have to do it again. So, needless to say, she was nervous.

However, she had been practicing all this week - particularly her parallel parking - and reviewing what she needed to work on (checking her blind spot when backing up and stopping before entering an intersection from a parking lot).

Although she was nervous - as most of the kids were there today - and had to wait long, it was worth it. At about 9:37 AM she was off. She returned 6 minutes later, looking stoic. Of course, it turns out that the exam driver didn't tell her if she passed, either, so it took her a moment to realize that when he said, "You did good," and then she checked the permit she had to bring for the test, it became clear she passed.

It was amazing!!! Her face beamed as I took her picture and she had a special skip in her step. She couldn't wait to get home to tell Emmie (who, along with Kiff, congratulated her via text). And according to Bri, she did the best parallel parking she ever did (and she even showed me the red car she parked behind).

 That was just one of her successes this week. She found out yesterday that she now has set the family record for SAT scores with a 1320. Zoinks!!!

The One With Megalopolis

 

 

Wow. That is all I can say. On Thursday, Kiff and I went to see Megalopolis. He has been hoping to see it all year and I have been interested in it as well. Although he knew it was supposed to be a flop - he had heard that for months - he still wanted to see if. After all, he is a huge Francis Ford Copolla Fan.

 

However, nothing could truly prepare us for the wild ride we went on. The movie was marketed as a fable. While allegorical, I think it would be better advertised as a parable. But, then, it is really hard to say what the heck is going on in the story. Yikes! 

Of course, my favorite quote was when Kiff turned and said, "This is so bad!!!" Indeed. To make matters worse, for a short period of time, when of the best displays of Northern Lights to reach New England was visible while we were in the movie. Nice!!!