Trick or Treat

Who can't resist a day where you get to dress up and parade around town with the bonus of getting paid in candy for your effort and bravery of humiliating yourself in front of others? 

The young and the not so young have fun dressing up.  After church, our friend, Nettie, stopped in to show us her Energizer Bunny costume.  We all got a big kick out of it.  She was heading to town to walk around the "mall" where her daughter-in-law owns a shop. 

As dusk began to set in Bonnie, Brian, and their friend, Dante, got ready to hit the streets.  Bryce, unfortunately, came down sick with the stomach flu earlier in the day and was sent to bed.  I don't know why but this is not the first halloween that someone has come down sick.  If you notice, Brian is in costume.  He did not want to dress up but he did want to get candy.  He was informed that to do the later he had to dress up, so he put on his dad's referee uniform for a costume.  Bonnie, in case you didn't know, is the ghost of Marie Antoinette (with her head still intact).

I was informed by my teenage daughter that we started out a bit early.  "This is when the little kids start," she said.  But they still got candy.  Our plan was to trick or treat the four or five blocks to the Nazarene church where they were having a carnival and then trick or treat on the way home.  The carnival started at 6 and we wanted to allow for time to stop along the way to visit friends and gather candy so we left about 45 minutes early.  Of course, we had to stop off at grandma's house to get all of her goodies.

Just past grandma's we saw this monstrosity.  This grim reaper had to be about ten feet tall.  A teenage boy was inside pushing a cart that the reaper was attached to. 

I think my teenager felt a little better when we ran into her friends, Jordan and Stephen.  Of course, they weren't trick or treating yet.  Did you see how spiked Jordan's hair is?  It reaches all the way to the street sign.  Both boys are really nice and have a heart for the Lord.

We eventually made it to the Nazarene church where they had hot dogs, cider, hot chocolate, carmel apples, popcorn, and games to play with lots of candy for prizes.  We spent quite a bit of time there and then headed back home to hit all the houses we skipped on the way up.  Of course, by this time it was black outside.  The one house everyone wanted to visit was the "haunted" house which happens to be three doors down from our own house.  These people went all out.  They created a maze with hay bales through their yard to get to the front door.  Fog machines created a mist that covered everything.  Tombstones stuck out of the ground and ghouls and monsters popped out of no where scarring the kids.  We heard screams from the house late into the night.

The kids had fun.  Everyone shared their candy with Bryce so he didn't miss out too much.  By eight o'clock we ran out of candy, turned out the lights, locked the doors, and retired upstairs.  Of course, now Bonnie is starting to feel sick.  Bummer.