Halloween

the witch, the unicorn, the tree frog, and the ballerina

Halloween was a highly anticipated evening - but not necessarily with excitement.  In years past, the kids run off the school bus, get their costumes on, and we spend the next few hours with our neighbors.  So, this year, they kept asking what we were going to do.  Could we go back to MN?  I kept telling them that I thought it would be best if we made new memories in our neighborhood.  We were asked to join some friends for trick or treating in another neighborhood, but I had to work, so Matt and the kiddos hit up our neighborhood.  And oh my, were they successful!

It was cold and rainy (thank you Sandy), but they were not to be dissuaded.  That morning at work, my boss asked me when trick or treating was that night.  I was very confused and told him so.  He explained that there are set hours in each suburb that trick or treaters are allowed out.  We had a good laugh over the silent dog whistle that blew that only trick or treaters could hear.  I looked it up on our city's website, and sure enough: 6 - 8 PM were trick or treating hours. CRAZY!

But, our clan hit up the church around the corner early.  Apparently, they didn't get the memo and they started their trick or trunk at 5 PM.  So, off the troop went to the church around 5:30, then they could hit up the houses on our circle on the way back.  They came home having found a house just a few doors down that gave out KING size candy bars.  They were quite pleased.  Brandon and Matt warmed up and went out again and hit the next two streets over.  By the time I got home, they had created the Daddy and Mommy 'tax bucket' for us with agreements that when the bucket ran out, we could raid their stashes.  Good stuff.

All in all, they were quite happy with the evening and definitely made some new memories.