August Halloween

Jeff's and my honeymoon in Hawaii took place during the third week in October. That meant we saw lots of spooky Halloween decorations hanging amidst the palm trees. I remember thinking how odd, and nice, it must be to trick-or-treat in a tropical setting.

Last night, the kids and I had a chance to find out.

Auntie Barbie's campground in Sturgeon Lake has a Halloween party every summer, and she invited us to join the fun. I'm thinking the above photo is the only one I'll ever take of my kids in costume in which you'll see green grass in the background. (Unless she invites us back next year, which she's already promised to do.)

The weather didn't completely cooperate. It rained quite a bit. But it was a warm rain, and let's be honest, there was candy involved so none of the kids seemed to mind. Sydney wasn't too thrilled with the rain drops at first, burying her head in my shoulder. But after about the second or third stop, she figured out the candy haul potential and was rarin' to go.

AJ, along with Barb's other nephew DJ, plus two kids from the neighboring camper, happily ran through the mud. Quite often I would hear one of them shout out to the others when they found a camper with lights on, "Hey! There's candy over here!"

The timing of this couldn't have been better. It was the perfect distraction from missing Daddy. And it came just one day after AJ got his new Transformer costume.

The only downside, if you don't count my mud splattered legs, was the ensuing sugar rush on a certain little fairy princess. Watching her repeatedly body slam herself against Barb's couch and then giggle hysterically should have been a clue that she'd had enough Tootsie Rolls. But I still went ahead and changed her diaper before we left the campground (a little before 9 p.m.) thinking she'd fall asleep for the night during the drive home.

Silly, overly hopeful me.

AJ, who has never been overly affected by sugar, fell asleep soon after we got home. But Tinkerbell was still running on pixie dust until almost 11 p.m. (I'm really not complaining too much about this fact, because right now it's 8:30 a.m. and they're both still asleep.)

By the way, I should mention that, when combined with what we got at parades this summer, we now have enough candy to last until Halloween 2010!