Hallowe’en this year was a smashing success.

When Gwen’s sister Mary was here around Thanksgiving, we dressed the boys up in their costumes and took some pics down in Stanley Park:

Yesterday, we carved up the pumpkins we got from the pumpkin patch, stuffed the kids into their costumes, and went down the 3 blocks to the False Creek Co-op to Trick-or-Treat. Now, it must be said that I feel a bit guilty about this, but the atmosphere there is a million times better than around our place. In fact, we don’t think we got any kids last night at all. It’s hard to tell, because we weren’t home for quite a while, but we did leave a bowl of candy outside our door and it didn’t look disturbed at all. It didn’t seem like anyone else in our complex was handing out candy, and I’m pretty sure everyone else who has kids took them somewhere else. Contrast this with the False Creek Co-op where there are literally hundreds of kids, lots of costumed adults, and lots of in-the-spirit people handing out treats. I took some video that I’ll try to put together a bit later.

After trick-or-treating down there, we came back and took some pics of the pumpkins and the boys:

This year Aidan ‘got’ Hallowe’en.

He picked his costume out with his mother several weeks ago while they were at Old Navy … he wanted to be a bat, but they didn’t have any in his size.  Instead, he chose to be an elephant.  And, was quite happy to be an elephant.

Nana and I took him down to the False Creek Co-op to Trick-or-Treat since our neighbourhood here in Fairview is *awful* for Trick-or-Treating.  Case in point: we got a total of 4 kids all night long.  Listening to some of the people down at False Creek, by 7:30 pm some of them had gone through 150 or more.

Anyway, Aidan had a grand time, knocking at the doors (yelling “Knock knock!” each time) and mostly greeting everyone with a “Trick or Treat!” and a “Thank you!”.  There were a few occasions of raiding the candy bowl before the person actually offered the bowl, but it was pretty good.  And, he was pretty excited to be getting candy, often telling me “Look at all the candy I got!” as he left houses.

The rain held off and it was pretty warm to boot.  By the end of our hour out, he was getting tired and spooked by some of the costumes and decorated houses.  The excitement was wearing off and his toddler mind was starting to process some of what was happening around him.  There were a few houses with ‘scary’ music playing that he shunned, and by the end of it, any moderately sinister pumpkin was enough to disqualify a house in his mind.  No matter, he had plenty of fun and got more than enough candy.

The door of last house we went to was answered by a cute little girl about his age wearing a bee costume.  He just stopped and stared at her.  I don’t think she even got a ‘Trick or Treat!’.  She looked at him and happily gave him some candy.  He continued to stare.  She gave him a big smile and asked “Want more?” and proceeded to give him more.  I had to pull him away.  After the door shut, he turned to me and said “That was a very pretty bumblebee!”.  We headed back to the car for a short drive home and in addition to admitting he was tired (he never does that!) he also told us about the pretty bumblebee.  Very cute!

No time for words, photos follow:

Hallowe’en! Trick-or-treating! Lavish costumes! Lots of candy.

Oh wait. Not in Vancouver. And what’s with the fireworks?
Well, at least some of the units in our place were done up. And Aidan went trick-or-treating. Two whole units opened their doors!

Both Aidan and Tristan were simians of some sort:

And Gwen had fun carving some pumpkins: a scary Tyrone (from The Backyardigans!) and an even scarier owl:

As usual, more pictures are on the Picture Barn.