A Halloween Adventure

Yes, it is very late to be doing the annual Halloween post. But I think you will agree that our Halloween this year was quite unique and well worth recording. It was also quite exhausting.

The Precious chose her costume idea about a month before Halloween and did not waver after that: she wanted to be a scarecrow. I was relieved as a scarecrow costume would be quick, easy, and cheap to put together. I admit that "cheap" was probably the selling point. We took her to the boys section in a local thrift shop and had soon found a pair of overalls, a big red flannel shirt, and a cute little hat. My plan was to crochet some "straw" to sew around the edges of each piece of the outfit to make her intent more obvious, but a certain little someone repeatedly refused to nap, got into everything she possibly could, and kept stealing my crochet hook as I tried to work. So the scarecrow had to be straw-less.

The other part of our Halloween costume plans was that The Precious was going to choose my clothes and do my hair and makeup for me. I would go as her doll. I thought it would make hilarious memories and a bunch of really funny pictures. But alas, it was not to be! We ran out of time because we spent most of the day looking for a pumpkin. Yes, you are supposed to buy your pumpkin well before Halloween day, but our town sold out of them very early and I had to make one last-ditch effort to dig one up. We drove around and around but ended up having to buy one about 4 inches tall. Grrrr.

Running late as always, we hastily ate supper and helped The Precious into her costume. I threw on some of my normal clothes, tied a long scarf thingy around my head, put on some sandals, and called myself a hippie. Then I added some "scarecrow makeup" to The Precious with my eyeliner pencil and she looked absolutely adorable.

Trick-or-Treating was going to be at the lake near our house, so we loaded The Precious into her little red wagon and gave her her first ever candy bucket, of which she was very proud. She practiced scaring crows.

So dressed as a hippie in slightly uncomfortable sandals, with the world's cutest little scarecrow in tow, we set off down the road, laughing at the forecasters who had predicted rain.

By the time we got to the lake it was dark and we actually had to use our big flashlight sometimes to be sure of the path ahead of us. The Precious wasn't the least bit frightened of the scarier costumes and seemed to be having a great time just staring at all of the kids. At a few houses she even got up the courage to say "Trick-or-treat!" in a soft, sweet little voice. A lot of people assumed she was a little boy because of her costume, but she didn't care. What she cared about was the candy--specifically, the lollipops! And lots of people were giving out lollipops, so she was one happy little girl. We knew quite a few of the candy givers so we let her start eating her candy in between stops. By now it was very dark and we were quite a long way from the house. My feet were hurting (don't ever wear sandals for trick-or-treating!) and we were starting to think of heading back. And then suddenly the rain came.

I'm not talking about a soft little drizzle or some sprinkling. This was full-out,hurricane-strength rain.

I happen to love rain. So at first I went a little crazy and may have even danced. I distinctly remember singing. The Precious and my husband were having fun too. But then Doldin insisted we take a certain road as a shortcut to the road we needed to go down to get to the road we live on. I told him that this road would not take us where we needed to go. But I, alas, am nothing but a useless female, so down this road we went in the rain and the dark. No one else was going this way, so my husband thought we would be able to get home sooner by avoiding the crowd. Hahaha.

As the blocks kept coming and coming, the night grew darker and the rain kept driving down. Within only about 2 blocks we were all soaked to the skin and we were still nowhere near home. I was worried about The Precious but she was contentedly munching her candy despite the rising water in her wagon. The road went ever on and on, darker and narrower now, and we began to have trouble with cars and trucks flying by too close as we scrambled to pull the wagon safely to the side. At one point we took shelter from the traffic in a driveway only to find that the owners were trying to get into it and apparently considered us suspicious characters. Yeah, we always take our two-year-old in a bright red wagon through the rain with us when we want to rob houses. Geez. With the rain pouring harder we continued until my husband finally had to admit that he had made a mistake with the road (not in so many words, of course). It felt as if I were in a horror movie, wading through ankle-deep water in ever more slippery shoes that cut my feet, with vehicles seeming to want to hit us and no end to our journey in sight.

Finally, finally we hit a road that would take us where we needed to go and eventually we made it home. We immediately helped our poor little girl out of the wagon and poured at least an inch of water out of her candy bucket before heading into the house to get her into a warm bath. But I just had to get a few photos of the poor little scarecrow in her dripping duds before we took them off.

She was so tired she nearly fell asleep in the bath and was out like a light in no time. That's when we realized that we never had done anything with the tiny pumpkin after all of that searching. Life's like that sometimes.

So we had a Halloween we will absolutely never forget and which will hopefully be one of a kind. I hope that your Halloween was equally exciting but at least a little less damp.

Cheers!