Halloween and R.O.U.S's

If you are a fan of the movie Princess Bride (a.k.a. one of the best movies ever!) then you know what an R.O.U.S. is. If you have not seen the movie, then I'll let you in on what they are...Rodants of Unusual Size. Well, we have R.O.U.S's here at our home. I'll get to that later.

Halloween was fun. I tried to start a new tradition where we carve elaborate pumkins (because I am incapable of doing things half way). With much convincing and putting up with so much whining I thought I had spontaneously had a 2 year old, Jason and I carved pumkins together. (I made him smile for this picture.) We handed out candy to the 9 trick or treaters that came by and then we headed out to dancing. We're still really awesome. The teacher used us as an example again and then the other people clapped for us. It was a little embarrassing but inside, secretly I was loving it. We have now added a behind the back turn, leaders underarm turn, leaders return turn, a travel step, and my personal favorite....a cuddles to our swing repatoir. Additonally, we have added a contra step, crossbrace to our waltz ensamble. We demonstrated some of our mad dancing skills for our friends at a friday game night, and Esther took a picture of us. So y'all may get to see us dancin' after all.

Now back to the R.O.U.S's. After skillfuly and painstakingly carving our pumkins, (Mine was a cat and a pumkin in a window. Jason's was a bat.) I set them out on the stoop, only to return home the following day to find that the GINORMOUS gray squirels around our home and been gnawing away at our creations! These are no average squirels. They are huge and they are viscious! These are the same R.O.U.S's that I watched last year as they literally wrapped their fury little arms around the gords we had set out and knock them off the porch steps and roll them away. I should have remembered the bold little buggers and kept our pumkins protected! But alas, I did not. So I had a half-headed cat and Jason had a deforme bat glowing away on Halloween night. We've tried to teach Hunter to chase the little critters down, but they're too darn fast for him. Perhaps we'll have to resort to trying to stab them with knives attatched to the end of broom sticks. (Oh, I haven't told you that story about Jason yet have I? I'll save that one for another day :)