This past week was a busy one for us -- which made it much the same as most of the previous weeks... After the open house last weekend, we had a bunch of friends over for dinner Sunday night, our friend Matt staying with us Sunday through Tuesday, and Josh's brother Ben visiting Tuesday through Friday. That was our tightest turnover between guests so far!
Our builders and architect are submitting our house for a Contractor of the Year award through the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI). The deadline was Thursday afternoon, and Susan stopped by Monday night to borrow the house binder and accordion file full of info about our house that Rob had put together for us, along with our architectural plans and a CD of photos I took that showed all the 'green' features of the house. They must have needed to provide a lot of detailed information about the house. I spoke to Susan on Friday morning, and it sounded like they got right down to the wire in meeting the submission deadline, but she was very pleased with how their entries turned out. I don't think we'll find out until January if we are a finalist, and then you have to attend the awards ceremony to learn whether you actually won. I guess it's kind of like the Oscars of home remodeling. I'll keep you posted...
In other news, yesterday was Halloween. It was unseasonably warm here (70) but also a bit windy and drizzly. The threat of rain didn't stop Josh from wanting to test out his new (used) sailboat, which he bought last weekend. (Yes, he went to Annapolis on the first day of the open house and came back in the afternoon with a boat strapped to the roof of the car. I didn't get much sympathy from the SAI crew...) It's just a small, 2-person sailboat, unlike the 35-foot Dragon Lady that we once owned -- Josh inherited it from his grandfather -- and which I'm convinced was cursed. But don't get me started on that story...
Anyway, Josh's dad and his friend Aron came over yesterday and they strapped the boat and Josh's windsurfer onto the cars and headed down to Pohick Bay on the Potomac.
I stayed home and took care of a bunch of stuff around the house (laundry, houseplants, bills, leftover pizza) and put up our Halloween decorations. Normally I would have done that the weekend before, but since we had the open house, I thought that might look a little cheesy. (Although I did ask Steve W if he could send someone over to help us inflate all our Halloween lawn decorations before the open house. He got a good laugh out of that.) Actually, our Halloween decorations are pretty tame. We have orange lights around the porch railing, jack-o-lantern lights on the stair railing, and a spooky black light up by the balcony. I was going to make a ghost to put out there, but since it was rainy and windy, I decided against it. Maybe next year.
Josh and his dad and Aron returned just before dark. Apparently all three of them sailed around in the boat, which nearly caused it to sink, but it sounds like they had a good time. Here's Josh looking spooky (and eating Halloween candy) on the front porch.
The first wave of little trick-or-treaters arrived before I had even lit the candles in the luminarias. I guess they wanted to get an early start in case it rained later. We handed out candy until about 8pm, and then put a "Gone Hauntin'" sign on the door and went for a quick walk. Halloween is a big deal in our neighborhood, and many houses along the main drag had spooky music, fog machines, dramatic lighting, and creepy decorations that covered their whole yard and/or house. It's quite a spectacle! So many kids come trick-or-treating here that most people just sit on the front porch with a bowl of candy and a glass of wine so they don't have to keep running to the door every 2 minutes. After checking out the Halloween scene, we went over to a neighbors' house a few doors down. Jeremy and Alison had invited us over for pie and drinks, so we hung out with them while the last wave of kids came through. Just when we thought all the trick-or-treaters would have called it a night, we saw someone coming up the front walk. It turned out to be a large German Shepherd. A moment later we saw a uniformed police officer. He glanced in the door, and then walked toward the house next door. Jeremy went out to the front porch to see what was going on, and the officer told him to stay in the house. He was a little shaken up when he came back inside, as he had just seen another police officer with a gun and a flashlight coming down the street. Alison quickly made sure all the doors and windows were locked, and we peered through the front window to see what was going on. We saw the police and the dog walking around the vacant McMansion and then head up towards the other end of the block -- and our house. Josh and I started getting very nervous, so we waited until we saw a police car drive off and then headed home.
As soon as we got out the door, we encountered another policeman armed with a rifle. We asked him what was going on, and he said someone had reported seeing a man with a gun trying to break into a vehicle. They had searched the area, but didn't find anyone, and he said it was safe for us to go home. I got the impression that he suspected it was either a Halloween prank, or a case of someone's costume giving an observer the wrong idea. In any case, we were still a little freaked out, so we turned on all the lights in the house and made sure the doors were locked. I am happy to report that we survived Halloween, despite the unexpected scare.
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