So, all the boats around us have Halloween decorations–everywhere!  We don’t have any here. I’m not sure that there are children around on the docks anyway so I think we’ll just enjoy everyone else’s decorations this year.  Halloween used to be one of our favorite holidays.  We often had folks visiting from other countries so it was fun to carve Jack-o-Lanterns.  Our house was on a major street in Washington, DC and we had loads of children trick-or-treat each year.  We typically had a casual dinner party, invited friends without kids to stop by and help give out candy.  Adding to the fun was our cat, Skog, who liked to greet the children at the door.  Here are some pictures of the festivities.

Many kids were afraid of the spider we often put by the door (below)

In the next pictures we have Julie, a biologist visiting from Canada, America, an economist visiting from Barcelona, with local DC resident, Martin, all working on Pumpkins.  Not to be outdone, Dave from Tasmania is carving his own lantern.

Here are some of our trick-or-treaters.  Note the cat welcoming the first group at the door:

In September 2004, David and I took a driving trip from Washington, DC to Nova Scotia. We drove completely around Nova Scotia and every night we’d stop and camp somewhere, pull out the computer and start writing up the application for a particular patent. Getting away from our business for those two weeks, we not only had a lovely trip, but we were able to get the application completed and turned in by our deadline for it. It took many years for that patent to issue. It just issued late this spring 2011. I was looking through pictures today and decided to post a slide show of our trip. There are pics of Buttercup getting a new alternator bracket made up behind the Ace Hardware store, David writing on a picnic table next to the car, and many photos of back road driving and a very lovely time in Nova Scotia.

LINK to Slideshow