Happy Halloween from Ruff Ruffman and her sister Princess Blossom Pepper Doodle Von Yum Yum (aka “Blossom�).

Our family’s obsession with America’s only reality game show hosted by an animated canine continues this month, with these fabulous hand-made costumes inspired by FETCH! With Ruff Ruffman. As usual, Karen sewed the costumes from scratch, and I was in charge of procurement (check out those handsome eyebrows and outfit-making glasses)!

While the casual observer may have thought Jocelyn and Felicia were dressed like a mere cat and dog, you now know better!

This picture is also available on Flickr.

Felicia, Jocelyn, and I were home tonight, when a 5.6 earthquake struck, centered about 10 miles to our northeast. It was definitely Felicia’s first earthquake experience. While it was not Jocelyn’s first, it might be the first she remembers.

Felicia was in the upstairs bathtub, and Jocelyn was in the shower. The cats were the first to run for cover, and that seems to be Felicia’s big memory. She’s been wokring on other scientific theories since the quake:

“Our cats shaked all the houses and Booksin school!”

“A rat was stuck under our house and it shaked really hard the whole house. Then the street and all the people’s houses.”

Our house suffered no damage, aside from some crooked pictures and some falling charms from our printers rack. In truth, Felicia has been demonstrating the shaking for the last few minutes on anything she can move, perhaps doing more damage than the original temblor.

We’re all fine, by the way.

This was kind of a fun coincidence.

The National Hockey League has been part of a “Hockey Fights Cancer” awareness project this month, so it’s allowed us to talk about pink-shaded cause marketing. In particular, Jocelyn has been interested in pink-based cancer awareness.

Simultaneously, we are cheering for the San Jose Sharks, who happen to have an up-and-coming prospect named Devin Setoguchi. It took Felicia no time at all to latch onto a nickname for him: “Gooch!”

So when the Sharks top development affiliate in Worcester, Massachusetts, hosted a “Pink at the Rink” fundraiser last week, we
decided to buy six pink pucks and have them signed by players in Worcester. They were signed by Sandis Osolinsh, Garret Mink, Thomas Greiss, Derek Joslin, Lukas Kaspar, and Setoguchi.

Conveniently, Gooch was playing in Worcester last week. But not anymore … he played in his first game as a Shark tonight, making his NHL debut in Dallas. The pink pucks arrived this morning, including his. And he scored two goals in his debut! See … the pink pucks are good luck!

This picture is also available on Flickr.

I can’t really compete with the artistically awesome photography regularly displayed on the Nashville Martins’ website, but sometimes I can pretend.

We spent Sunday evening carving pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns at Jenni, Ange, and Kiana’s house, and Jocelyn has gotten pretty good at creating her own designs.

Once she had finished carving out a ghost shape, I thought I was being pretty clever placing the camera inside the gourd and snapping a picture. Anyway, I like it.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

That’s right … Uesugi. Anyone with preschoolers in San Jose has probably been to Uesugi Farms, THE standard for citified rural Pumpkin Patches.

Jocelyn has been several times (those of you with Flickr privileges can see what I mean), and now it’s Felicia’s turn.

Felicia’s preschool visited the huge pumpkin patch today, riding a Scarecrow Train, touring a corn maze, and watching pumpkins grow … oh, we gathered pumpkins, too. Happy Halloween!

This picture is also available on Flickr.

No matter how fuzzy the cell phone picture … and despite the bad pun in the headline …. There is no other way to describe this picture.

Jocelyn and Kai were part of third grade field trip to The Intel Museum earlier today. A bunch of her friends got an introduction to the history of Intel, and Jocelyn even got to wear a famous Silicon Valley bunny suit as part of the tour.

Karen snapped this picture before the tour started. Since neither Keller parent was present for the tour, we don’t have a picture of our child in a bunny suit. But we won’t rest until we can share it with you.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

Felicia’s comment at dinner tonight: “Maybe on the day after Halloween the Christmas guy will come and hide those eggs again.”

We visited a special pumpkin patch today, in preparation for Halloween!

Felicia and Jocelyn are smiling despite being threatened by a flying ghoul inside the Moreland Pumpkin Patch. The proceeds of this patch benefit the school’s educational foundation, which also happens to be a partner of my Rotary Club.

We’ll undoubtedly have more to say about Halloween — including a costume update — very soon!

This picture is also available on Flickr.

The 20th Annual Booksin Walkathon** wrapped up earlier today, and it was another great day for our local elementary school community! Here’s Jocelyn completing one of her laps alongside one of her best friends, Kaitlyn.

In addition to Jocelyn, Felicia also walked, recording three miles of her own (That’s Kaitlyn’s sister Madilynn joining her as a “Junior Walker”). And David spent the day organizing the Music & DJ volunteers, after setting up the course on the school’s lawn the day before (in the pouring rain).

**David also designed and maintained the Walkathon website. This picture is also available on Flickr.