Halloween 2012

Since we were going to be at Disney World for Halloween this year, we decided to take the boys to "Boo at the Zoo" for trick-or-treating.  We had originally planned to go the Saturday before we left for Disney, but Finn's costume didn't arrive in time.  Finn was insistent that he was going to be an elephant this year, and after not wanting to wear a costume at all last year, I wasn't sure what to do.  I was concerned that he wouldn't put the elephant on at all and that we would have wasted the day and the money on the costume.  But we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and made plans to go the Friday night before Saturday morning's departure.

The day was very cold and I was worried.  In the morning I explained how cold it would be to the boys and gave them the choice.  And the both really wanted to go.  So, before Kai got home from school I got Finn layered up in long johns, shirts, sweaters and sweatpants.  After picking Kai up at the bus stop we got him equally layered.  Then I threw some snacks in our bags and off we headed to the zoo.  We put the final costumes on in the parking lot of the zoo and then headed in for trick or treating.  It was cold--but the boys did well.  I was surprised that only about half of the zoo was open, so it didn't take long to cover all of the candy stations, and then we snuck into a building for an animal show that was fun.

Finn was terrified for the first 45 minutes.  Any costume that involved a full mask (where you can't see the person's face) had him totally freaked out.  I ended up carrying him for quite a bit of our trek.  He finally calmed down with the armadillo from Texas Roadhouse gave him some candy.  For some reason, that seemed to be ok.  Since it worked, the armadillo was nice enough to repeat the act all while avoiding actually looking at Finn, and that seemed to be our biggest turning point.  Funny, huh?

On our way out we heard another family discussing making another round of the booths.  If we weren't hungry and cold, that would most certainly be the best way to get your money's worth out of the event.  But for us, it was fun and the kids got to trick-or-treat.  So, win-win!

I wish I had taken more pictures, but I spent a good part of the time holding a screaming Finn and the other part of the time herding and trying to keep the three of us together.  So, I guess this is it this year!

Spider-Man and our cute Elephant  (note the open-mouth smile....that's Kai's new thing)

Trick-or-treat

There was one building you could go through and learn about recycling and meet some animals.  Kai almost touched this snake!

At the animal show