I never dress up at Halloween. Never.

I think the last time I dressed up for Halloween I was in the fourth grade. But this year I couldn’t resist — I got the idea to be Felicity Fox from Fantastic Mr. Fox a couple months ago, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I even convinced Ray to abandon last year’s Spiderman one-piece and be my Fantastic Mr. Fox.

It wasn’t a tough sell. The  movie’s a big favorite in our house (rare that all four of us agree on anything beyond Disneyland and the Beatles) and lately, we’ve had a Fox Thing in our neighborhood.

Turns out, our super-urban (well, not as urban as yours, if you live in a Big City, but pretty citified for metro Phoenix) ‘hood is home to an unknown number of foxes. I like to think there are just two — one red, the other silver. There might be more.

I’ve caught glimpses of a red fox a couple times during the day, but the best sightings are of the silver fox, which tends to cross the street at night, fur glinting in your headlights.  At first it looks like just another neighborhood cat, then you notice the big, crazy tail and realize what it is — and then it’s gone.

A sparkly creature, so extra-special you wonder if you saw it at all.

Ray drew the line at the tail — which, if you’ve seen the movie, you know is cool. We stuck a couple Band Aids on his butt. Annabelle even designed me a copy of the brooch Felicity wears and I stuffed my pockets with paintbrushes, which made Sophie very happy.

Speaking of paintbrushes, wait til you see Sophie’s Halloween costume…. Stay tuned.

So cool.