Happy Halloween - Iron Man

Halloween in Louisiana is an event all in of itself. Since Halloween fell on a Monday this year, festivities started the Friday prior. First we went to educational community based activities, then we participated in alternative "trick-or-treating" based activities at local churches/community centers. After such long days we spent Saturday evening at home carving our special pumpkin Daddy Swann selected from the pumpkin patch and roasted pumpkin seeds, its our little tradition that I started years ago with Garr.

As for Sunday, there was a pause in the Halloween festivities as the religious observances trumped the holiday. Then Monday, rolled around and everyone was given the opportunity to leave work early! Yes, you're actually allowed to leave work early on Halloween so that you're able to trick-or-treat.

Then entire neighborhood was jammed packed wth vehicles, thank goodness we have a gated community or we wouldn't have had a place to park! And speaking of parks, the local park converted its trails into a trick or treat trail with free hot dogs, snow cones and cotton candy (the weather is mid 70s here!) - and of course candy - CANDY like every 2 feet! There were also moon bounces and all other types of things for the little and big kids alike! After that, into the "city" (as Robert calls it) but it's just the neighborhood behind our apartment complex. He didn't like that too much though, as the houses were pretty elaborate in their decor and he refused to go get candy on several occassions - I think he may be a tad bit traumatized by all of the "darkness" of the holiday; mommy may have forgotten for a moment that he was just four (bad mommy)!

It has surely been a long night, maybe they should consider giving people the option of a late arrival to work the following morning ;)