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 was perfect.  50's

Here's the tally from last night's visitors in Downers Grove:  32 kids we know.  20 kids we don't know.  15 adults with costumes.   3 kids no costume.  And 3 Adults no costume.    That would be a total of 73 with a pretty big asterisk. Last year, we had 24 total.  All kids we knew .  And that was a pretty sad number. I think it is safe to say that these numbers are in dispute.  For sure, the numbers in the red circles below, I think we can just simply throw out.  It was snowing like crazy and we don't live in Elmhurst any longer so there were no Adults and no babies out there like there have been in some years. So, let's throw out those numbers.  Minus 21.  Takes our 73 down to 52.   That seems plausible.  We did the whole 'bowl on the front porch' thing when we were out, so there's no counting those kids.  But, like we do every year, Nat has a little party at our house after trick-or-treating and there are more than a dozen kids that c

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 off our front door mat below: It didn't take long for kid

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 front hall during our little Ha