Trick-or-Treating

You remember every year before when we have taken the kids trick-or-treating and they have seemed a little overwhelmed by the experience?  I mean, they are having fun but we were the ones rushing them from house to house and telling them what to do.  And then remember how after only 2 streets they were content with the amount of candy they had and wanted to be done?  That was kind of what I was expecting this year.  But no, the kids were running from house to house, and I was having a hard time keeping up with them.  And this time it was the parents that were saying "Are you done yet?"  They are growing up so much.

We trick-or-treated in Robby and Jennie's neighborhood again this year, up in Highland.  The people up there hook you up!  Some people try to venture out of the norm and do things a little different.  For example, there is one house that every year they set up their grill in their driveway have a hot dog stand instead of handing out candy.  Another house this year had signs pointing you to the back of the house through a little haunted backyard, that eventually led you to a fire pit where the owners of the house were sitting around the fire.  They told us, "you can come over here and get stuff to make some smores, or you can just take some candy if you don't want to roast marshmallows."  Our crowd kind of stood there awkwardly not knowing what to say or do.  And then my little Porter is the first one to speak up.  "Welllllllllll," he draws out, "we are actually trick or treating."  We all kind of laughed, and with that we grabbed a piece of candy, left the smores, and ran on to the next house. 

Another funny experience was when my kids saw the "spooky" side of Halloween.  Because lets be honest, to them, it is all about happy costumes, pumpkin patches and hay rides.  Porter was running as fast as he could from house to house when he passed a grown man with a fork stuck through his face.  He literally froze 2 inches in front of the man and just stared for at least 30 seconds before I pushed him along.  Then, at another house the owner that was passing out candy had a scary mask on.  Tyson was in a group with his brother and cousins but was last in line.  The kids had all run off without him and as he went to grab a candy he looked up at the adult and saw their mask.  He froze too and just stared.  We were kind of laughing from the street thinking he must be totally spooked and then he yells at the guy, "I am Robin, who are you??"  What we assumed was fear was apparent total confusion.