Why I Oughta...

In what I know many of you will find to be a dissatisfactory notice, I'm disappointed to report that last night - Halloween 2021 - there was no visitor trick-or-treat tally that was conducted.  This is (now) the second year in a row that I've failed to both conduct the tracking assessment as well as failed to post the results here on the blog.  I'll take a COVID pass for 2020.  But, this year?  Just a product of the new neighborhood, going out with the kids to trick-or-treat and not being able to control the tracking.   Now...like a lot of you, we have video evidence that I could go through to try to recreate the visitor list and make a tally, but I don't have time for that this morning.  Here's an example showing the Mandalorian and his buddy who plays for the Chicago Bears.  ( Note...I grabbed this screenshot without the kids faces showing on purpose... ) Of note, I have started to track the weather on Halloween.  Yesterday - Halloween 2021...

My...how the mighty have fallen.  That list above is our sad tally sheet from last night.  It only has five marks before we went out trick-or-treating and ended up with 24 total.  Oh,  and a big drink stain on it.  Twenty Four.  And that's being VERY GENEROUS by counting all the little ones that live on our block who came over to our house with their parents for a little post trick-or-treating party.  The five were kids that rang the bell and I dropped candy into their bowls/bags.  Mostly middle school kids.  The 19 others were kids who did, indeed, take candy from our bowls, but also stuck around for a while. We then went out with the kids to hit up the neighborhood.  And we put out a bowl.  About 150 pieces of candy (based on the bag having 300 pieces... I poured in about half) in the bowl.  Set it out on our front porch.  And put our Nest camera pointing towards it.  You can see the little orange bowl just o...

What a difference!  Last year, we had 302 kids/others come to our door.  Last night?  77.  And that's not even super accurate as The Babe and friends did the bulk of the counting/handing out candy.  Oh...and we put out a bowl and went trick-or-treating with our kids for a while, too.  So, the numbers can't be verified by Price Waterhouse Coopers this year, unfortunately. We're in a different neighborhood with different size lots and setbacks.  We walked a few blocks over and the place was hopping with kids and felt a lot like Elmhurst did the past few years. So, here's the breakdown: 2017:  77 kids. 2016: 302 kids /total. In 2015, we had 346 total . In 2014, we had 308 total . In 2013, we had 326 total . In 2012, we had 327 total. In 2011, we had 269 total . In 2010, we had 236 total . In 2009, we had 184 total . Lowest candy year on record.  Good thing the savages in our house and neighborhood destroyed the candy bowl in our fro...

At Pete's Fresh Market in Villa Park, I spotted these Choco-X Toys in the checkout aisle.  These are basically knock off Kinder Eggs, I think.  But they have official Marvel branding, so they must be legitimate in some fashion?  These are written in Spanish, so maybe these are the Mexican Kinder alternative? Wonder why we can't get Kinder Eggs, but we can get these?  Kinder has these same kind of 'scoop the chocolate out' of eggs with the 'surprise' on the other side now, so the whole child eating the Kinder Egg and choking on the little toy thing seems to be a non-issue? Either way, get to Pete's on Roosevelt for all your Easter Basket needs.

As we spend more time up at Twin Lakes in Wisconsin, we are beginning to get to know the local community a bit more including places to shop like Lake Geneva Antique Mall  and this place above"  Anderson's Candy Shop, which is actually in Illinois.  Richmond, Illinois to be exact.  Richmond is a border town.  Check out this map that shows the town of Richmond, the location of Anderson's and it's proximity to the Wisconsin border (which I've circled in green) as well as Twin Lakes of Elizabeth and Mary. Anderson's isn't the first candy shop that we've discovered.  Because of Google Maps rerouting us one time due to traffic and accidents, we came across the Riverside Chocolate Factory in McHenry .  It is shaped like a teepee, so it is hard to miss.  I'll try to post something on that place the next time we go because I think that the kids actually like that place better. Mostly because they have LOTS of little bins of name-brand candy. And...

Earlier this week, I posted about this year's Halloween Trick-or-Treater tally (302 for the record) , but I also wanted to share one little change we made to our candy mix.  Normally, we have both 'full size' candy bars (for the kids we know) and the normal 'snack size' candy bars for everyone else.  (For the record, we get both a big bag of chocolate-based bars and a big bag of chewy/fruit-flavored treats.) We also have the blue pumpkin out front for kids who can't eat nuts and candy and what not, so Nat gets a set of plastic toys and spider rings and vampire teeth and what-have-yous, although I don't think we had anyone request that stuff this year. But this year, I also bought a book of 20 of those free small slurpee tickets that you see up top of this post.  They went fast!  I gave them to 'kids we know', so 20 of those kids got a little extra treat from us.   And at just $5 for 20 tickets , it was a fun little addition to the mix.  I...

I don't know about you, but this just blew my mind.  Up in Canada, Smarties are called Rockets.  And something that is like a cheap M&M are called a Smarties. Weird, right?

Leave it to Aurelio's Pizza to introduce the King of the Ball Tossers to the wonderful world of lollipops.  Who doesn't deserve a DumDum after they eat that tasty pizza?!?! There's no turning back now with these things I'm guessing.  We go to Aurelio's often enough that I'm wondering if he'll remember where the lollipop came from?  They have them in a big basket right on the check-in counter and his two older sisters go up there and stuff their pockets with them.  He'll soon be joining them I'm sure.

One of the inborn instincts that my kids seem to have (and I had) is the need to count and sort the candy one receives over the various Halloween activities into piles based on type and color.  Here, The Babe shows her handiwork.  All the Twizzlers in one pile.  All the lollipops in another, etc.

Anyone who has traveled for work with me knows that I have a soft spot for an airport purchase at the ole' Hudson News of Mike and Ikes.  You know...the little pill-shaped fruit candies.  They're my favorite.  Have been for years.  I'll pick those over the rest of the fruit-jelly crowd including Swedish Fish, Twizzlers, etc. But, at Menards, I spotted this bag of "Australian Style Outback Beans with Chewy Red Centers".  This are the same folks who make the "Australian Style Green Apple Licorice" that comes in little cut down stalks that I pick up on occasion (Nat loves that stuff, too!).  I didn't buy these, but I'm thinking on my next trip, they'll end up in my cart.  Who doesn't need 10 ounces of Mike and Ike copycats, amirite?!? "Incredibly delicious"?!?  I'll be the judge of that.

I've never been one to seek out candy corns.  At Halloween-time, they're usually around people's houses (maybe not so much these days?  But...when I was a kid, it seemed that plenty of candy dishes were filled with them come fall time?!?) and I've always stayed away. They just never did anything for me. But...when I was at Menards this weekend, I took the girls to peruse the candy aisle (as we always do) and came across these:  Birthday Cake Candy Corn.  Didn't buy them, but interesting to see the Brach's company trying to come up with other occasions for their product.  Birthdays seem like a good place to start.  Or...maybe they've already expanded before?  Are there Christmas Candy Corns?  Red/White/Green?  What would they taste like?  Birthday Cake is a natural.  But Christmas?  Some combination of pine and sugar?!?

We were at a wedding over the weekend and as part of the candy bar, the bride and groom had a bunch of blue-ish candies including these bazooka bubble gums. You remember Bazooka, right?  The ratty gum that is usually hard and chalky with a comic inside?  I sure do.  This time around, the gum was pretty good.  It was blue raspberry (I think), but there wasn't any comic.  It was something *else* in there that was the same size as the old comics, but it was some sort of little prank sheet.

Last weekend, we spent the night in the city so the girls could go swimming in a hotel pool.  (Well...that's not the *only* reason, but it was one of the driving forces anyway...) We spent Friday afternoon walking around with stops at my office, the new Maggie Daley Park (wowsa...pretty neat place!) and then hoofing it up Michigan Avenue to head to dinner.  On the way there, we stopped into Dylan's Candy Bar. Pretty neat place.  Lotsa candy (as you'd expect) and they even had 'nostalgia' area with old school candy.  Some of it from a long time ago, but plenty from the 80's and 90's that I remember from my childhood.  I was pretty impressed with the place.  That was...until...I checked out and was waiting around for Nat and the girls to finish filling up their bags of candy.  There, by the door laying on the counter was a book all about Dylan's Candy Bar and the founder Dylan Lauren. You can see the book here on Amazon . I went to back inside...

Last night's Trick-or-Treat totals are in and we had the biggest night ever.  269 total.   38 kids that we 'know' from the neighborhood, 215 kids that we 'don't know' - either from farther away than a few blocks or driven in from other parts of town/out of town, 10 adults with no kids, but had costumes, and six adults with no kids and no costumes.  We would have more of the latter category (either adults/no kids/costumes or adults/no costumes if we kept our lights on after 7:30, but Nat puts her foot down and calls shenanigans on them. Kids we 'know' totals over the years:   37, 39, 38 Kids we 'don't know' totals over the years:  147, 181, 215 Last year, we had 226 total and in 2009, we were at 184.     Here's the tally sheet from 2010 .

Have you been in the new Terminal 2 at SFO?  It is home to American Airlines and Virgin America and it is spectacular.  Well...at least as far as airport terminals go it is. The chairs are nice.  The outlets are plentiful.  The bathrooms are spacious and clean.  But the best part?  They have a candy place called Natalie's Candy Jar.  I *had* to stop by on my flight out.  They weren't open when I was departing, but I told the guy in the store that I couldn't go home without some over-priced by-the-weight candy.  After a bit of negotiations, I boarded with a small bag of licorice.  Mission accomplished.