My daughter and I had a wonderful weekend together which included an early birthday celebration. She turns eight this week, which just gives me yet another reason to feel old. We spent most of the time playing board games, putting together LEGOs, and just hanging out.

She also helped my father put up his famous Halloween cemetery. Well, it’s famous around our trailer park anyway.

My father is quite a dedicated woodworker and made the decorations himself.

The headstones have suitably-witty names like “Izzy Dead” and “Willy Rott,” and my father makes liberal use of those little solar lights so it looks quite eerie at night and the early morning when the fog rolls in.

Every year my father adds something new to the cemetery. This year it was a coffin.

It’s hard to see from this photo, but the skeleton’s pelvis protrudes rather…well…let’s just say he seems very happy to see you.

Every Halloween my parents get something like 200 trick-or-treaters and the cemetery has always received rave reviews. It’s also survived without any sort of vandalism or thievery, which is surprising. Of course, now that I’ve mentioned it I’ve probably jinxed us.

The cemetery is one of Alex’s favorite things about this time of year–except for her birthday, of course–so my father had her help set everything up.

You might be surprised to learn that they make drill bits specially designed for the digging of small holes.

She helped him pick the spots, dig the holes, and pack all the dirt around the stakes holding everything up. These things are made from rugged plywood and are not featherweights, so it’s a significant project to get it all put together.

My daughter loves Halloween almost as much as she loves mugging for the camera.

We had a great time this weekend and I think I can say with all honesty that I’m hard-pressed to remember a happier day. Alex is at this perfect age where she’s old enough to do fun stuff, but not so old that she wants to do it when I’m not around.