Plenty going on around here lately. Last week was Halloween, of course, and this year was probably the most Halloween-like I’ve had since moving to Sweden. We had a lot of trick-or-treaters, relatively speaking, and they all came on the right day, instead of over the course of many days, as is often the case in Sweden, where Halloween is a rather fluid concept. My three middle kids went out trick-or-treating as well, and came home with a satisfactory amount of candy. Tage refused to have his picture taken, but here are Vampire Petra and Reptile Brynja, makeup courtesy of Debi:

Friday afternoon Debi and I packed up all four littles, picked up Olof at work, and went to the big toy store. They were having a little Halloween party, so the kids got some more candy and a few small toys. Afterward we had dinner in town, then almost as soon as we were home Olof and Simon (Debi’s husband) went over to Olof’s sister’s place and helped them load up their moving truck, as it was the eve of their move to parts even farther north.

Yesterday was relatively uneventful, but this morning Olof and I were awakened by Tage reporting that Petra was sick. I was a little skeptical, but as soon as she came in the bedroom I saw that chicken pox had finally become a reality in our house. So far it’s just Petra afflicted, but I’m counting on Tage, Brynja, and Yrsa turning up with it soon enough. Lucky me, I’m off to Uppsala tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll escape at least a couple of days of quarantine. Not so Olof, poor guy.