Trick or Treat!

Wow! What a success this Halloween was! Thomas sure did have fun! Ben was just a witness for the most part. I can't tell everyone how pleased I am with the evening. We were invited by our next door neighbors to go trick or treating with them along with others from the neighborhood (including our good friends Misty and Nathan and their little boy Reilly-who was so sweet and who was sooo tuckered out after a while that he just had to head home early). Now, our next door neighbors have an 11 year old boy named Zack. Thomas idolizes Zack. He spends much of his time (when I OK it of course) out in Zack's drive way playing with a cool "big boy toy" as Thomas likes to call them. Such as wrestling figures, Nerf rockets and an assortment of other toys I won't yet buy for Thomas (let's face facts, I am more along the lines of anything educational at this point). Zack and his friends have a basketball hoop, skateboards, a trampoline and numerous other play things all located in the front drive way or side yard between our houses. Thomas's room has the only view on that side of the house so Thomas can just see all the neat stuff they have to play with. Zack always is helping him with kicking soccer balls and helping him to learn how to play basketball. Andrew, another 11 year old and friend of Zack's from just two more houses down, is often over throwing around a sports ball of some sort, and when Thomas gets bored, they just let him do his own thing while they play, (this usually involves catching some sort of amphibious creature such as frog or a lizard or most anything that flies). Then Austin, another 11 year old whose family just PCSed last month, is among them now. All three surround Thomas and always try to include him in everything! I often worry, because of his age, that he might be getting in the way of whatever they are doing, but whenever I bring it up Zack just shrugs and says "I always wanted a little brother, they are more fun than sisters." (Zack has a 15 year old sister, Courtney who is our main babysitter for the boys.) Zack always brings him to the door when its time to come home, even though we only live like 20 feet away. We go to Zack's soccer games and all usually hang out on the weekends at slip and slide parties. Zack's father John (who flies Kiowas and is from Halfway, Oregon-20 min from where KC grew up) is always out there doing something with the house or the yard and has told me its no problem when Thomas is over. How very blessed we are to live next to a family like that!!! So tonight for Halloween, KC could only stay a while (he had massive amounts of studying to do) and left for home while we were only half way done with the houses. I was maneuvering Ben in the stroller down the narrow sidewalks and it was hard to keep Thomas with me. So those three boys stuck to Thomas like glue! They helped him from door to door, made sure he was never in the street and always waited up for him if we got behind the others. It made me so happy that there are still people (especially young people) on this planet who do that sort of thing just because they can and are not made to. I hope those boys never change! Happy Halloween!