Trick Or Treat

I have been out of town for work for almost 2 weeks now and had to miss Trick Or Treat this year.  Really a bummer because I really like to walk Ace around town getting candy and looking at all the cool costumes that people come up with…

Ace kept me in the loop though.  He sent me a picture message showing me what he looked like in his costume, and I wanted to post it here for everyone to see…

Happy halloween!

By the way, I hate this f’ing costume and I don’t want to trick or treat either!

Love,
Ace the giraffe


Would You Give Candy To This Kid?

I found a post about creating your own freaky Halloween pics written by one of my favorite bloggers, Lotus.  So, I decided to try it myself…

What do you think?  Should I try to recreate these looks for Trick Or Treat?  😀

Vampire Ace

Vampire Jared

Freeing Up Some Space…

So many times I take pictures and forget I even took them.  I downloaded all of the pictures off of my digital camera and realized that I completely forgot to write about the awesome time we had on a mini vacation in September!

The whole goal of this mini vacation was to get out of Dodge for the weekend, and go down to see the leaves changing along the Ohio river.  There were a few other festivals that we were planing on attending as well.

So, we loaded up the truck, and we moved to Beverly….not really…but we did go to the hills.  Not the Hollywood Hills, but the hills of Kentucky!

We drove down on a Friday night after work and got into the hotel kinda late.  Ace was zonkerred out and Momma and I quickly followed his lead.

Saturday morning we got up early to go to a harvest festival/car show a few towns over.  We get to the little po-dunk town and there was nothing…not one car being showed.  We drove around the 5 whole blocks of this town to realize that their website was wrong.  We finally found a sign advertising the car show… THE NEXT WEEKEND.

So much for the car show.  We had all day and a full tank of gas.  We just started driving and saw a sign for a National Park.  We had not visited a National Park since we lived in Colorado.  Ohio just does not have many extreme wilderness areas…ya know?

We paid for our day pass and drove about 10 miles back into this forest until we found ourselves parked at the end of a hiking trail alongside the Ohio River.  Ace has never been hiking…let’s do it!

Off we go…hiking through the forest.  It was pretty muddy because it rained the night before, and Ace hit every mud puddle along the trail.  I rolled up the bottoms of Ace’s pants to keep them from getting too muddy…and I had to roll up mine as well.  😀  We were having fun!

The cliffs were amazingly high…and steep!

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Tall Cliffs Near The Ohio River

Ace got to see a lot of things he had never seen before…big cliffs, the Ohio River, people riding horses, and even a few barges hauling stuff down the river (one was hauling port-a-potties…a whole barge full of porta-potties!)  😀

We hiked and hiked…and hiked!  I’m surprised  that Ace’s little stubby legs still worked!  But he did stop a few times to take a rest…

Taking A Rest While Hiking

Taking A Rest While Hiking

We hiked all the way back to the truck where ace decided that there was something wrong with the front tire..

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

Dad, Here Is The Problem...

And after he fixed the problem…not real sure what he did…we headed back out on the road.

We came across a little park that marked a battle site from the Civil War…or something.  ( I never have been a history buff.)  There was a cannon that was used in the battle, and for some reason an old cabin.

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Looking Down The Barrell Of A Cannon

Notice the jacket that Momma is wearing?  It’s the one I reviewed…  😀
Which by the way has been moved over to the new DadThing Reviews Blog!

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

Sitting On The Front Porch Of An 1800's Cabin

We quickly bored ourselves with a history lesson and headed back out onto the road.  This time we ended up at the Louisville zoo!

Just so happens they were having a trick or treat night!!  So, we got Ace dressed up in his best Fire Fighter Uniform and went to keep all of the zoo animals safe from any blazing infernos.  😀

Firefighter Halloween Costume

Firefighter Halloween Costume

And wouldn’t you know it…Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow from Oz were there!

We just had to meet them…and get our pictures taken with them…

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Tin Man and Dorothy

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

The Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion

Dad and aat the Emerald Palace!

Dad and Ace at the Emerald Palace!

Notice the bottoms of my pants?

Yup, some ‘tard forgot to roll them back down after hiking… 😀

I guess Momma is right…I am special sometimes.  😀

More Of A Treat Than A Trick

Ace Trick Or Treat 2009So this year was a pretty fun one for Trick-Or-Treat!

The past few years Ace could really give a crap.  I think it was more of an inconvenience for him actually.  He probably saw Trick-Or-Treat as just wearing some uncomfortable clothes…being made to walk (ride in the stroller or Dad’s arms) an insanely long distance…being surrounded by people with bad customes…and it was all for nothing!  He didn’t even like candy!

But, this year was a different story.  I was so proud of him.  We took off from Grandma’s house walking…yes actually walking this year.  He was carrying his candy bucket, kept his hat on, and only tried ripping his costume off a few times.  😀

Ace walked house to house, up and down stairs, for six whole blocks without even being asked to be carried.  (My arms thanked him)  😀

There was some people trying to be scary to the little kids by wearing scary masks while passing out the candy.  We walked up to one house and here comes a girl about Ace’s age with tears flying.  I thought about walking past this house to keep Ace from getting scared, but then I changed my mind.  After all, Halloween is all about being a little scared, right?

Ace walked up to the scary guy with some weird mask on and just stared at him like he was thinking, “What the hell is wrong with your face?”  Ace took his candy and calmly walked to the next house.  I was rolling… 😀

After about 6 blocks Ace has had enough and his candy bucket probably weighed about as much as he did.  We called it a night and went inside to check the candy for tampering.  There were a few pieces where I deemed that a taste test was necessary…  😀

Next year’s post will probably be about how out of breath I will be after chasing him from house-to-house, keeping him out of the street, and my sugar deprevation.  😀

Ace’s First Halloween…With Me!

Well, I made it back from Baltimore on time! YAY! I arrived at the factory where I was doing the work at 11:00 and had the machine fixed and was out the door by 12:30. Caught a flight at 2:30 and was home by 4:00. I think I broke every land and air speed record known to man! 🙂 Enough about work…let’s get to the fun stuff…

We got Ace dressed up in his skunk costume. Here are a few pictures from before our journey…

ace-skunk-1-halloween-2007.jpg

ace-skunk-2-halloween-2007.jpg

ace-skunk-3-halloween-2007.jpg

ace-skunk-4-halloween-2007.jpg

I was surprised that most people knew what he was. Honestly, just by looking at the costume, I wouldn’t have known. We were greeted by many people saying…

  • “Oh, look at the little stinker!”
  • “Oh that’s what I smelled!”
  • “Oh, how cute! Look at the….lamb?”

However, since Ace doesn’t walk yet I carried him most of the way. We brought the stroller, but I just didn’t feel right standing in line with the little kids waiting on candy. When I would get up to the porch I would say “Trick-Or-Treat!” and then turn around and point towards the stroller on the sidewalk…”It’s for my boy.” I felt pretty stupid, so I sacrificed my arm muscles for candy. (Not to mention I was secretly showing him off to the neighborhood, as any proud Dad would do.) I decided that having my arms morph into limp slivers of Jello was well worth such a fun experience. 🙂

During the trek across town and back we saw many unique and unusual things…

  1. The high school trick or treaters… If you are old enough to grow a mustache…you shouldn’t be begging for candy. Also, if you have to put your cigarette in your mouth so that you can hold your bag open…there’s a good chance you shouldn’t be out getting candy with the youngins. 😀 Just my opinion…
  2. Second were the sluts-in-training…I mean improperly dressed pre-teen girls. Belly shirts, tube tops, fishnet stockings, high heeled shoes, big hair, and too much makeup. Any Prostitute Momma or Pimp Daddy would be so proud! I can hear Pimp Daddy when the little girls got home….”Where’s my cut of the candy, hoe?”
  3. Third was the miniature horse. That’s right! A miniature horse on a leash in the city! Somehow we got onto the subject of horse poop, and one of my friends said that horse poop is like dust. I’ve never seen a cloud of poop behind a horse, have you?
  4. Fourth were the numerous pets in costume (no offense BusyDad) 😉
  5. Fifth would have to be the lame costumes. You can’t wear jeans and a hockey jersey and call yourself a hockey player! Where is you stick? Where is your helmet? Maybe some missing teeth?
  6. Sixth would have to be the lack of costumes. One kid had no costume, but was saying, “I’m doing this for my younger brother. He is at football practice tonight and couldn’t go trick-or-treating, so I am getting some candy for him.” Please…we aint stupid! You would just be embarrassed to be seen by your 17 year old peers with a Power Rangers costume on, and you are too lazy to get a job to pay for your own candy!
  7. Numero seven…The kids that are too lazy to walk from house to house! Seriously there were a couple vans with the sliding doors open. They would stop at one house, 5-6 hooligans would get out and get some candy, then they all got back in the van. The van would drive three houses down, and then they would do it all again! Are you gonna cry because you had to walk a whole block where no one was handing out candy? Where has the work ethic gone in this country? I understand they were being more efficient. Their HPH ratio (Houses Per Hour) probably far exceeded ours, but excessive efficiency, in my book, equals laziness…
  8. The parents that drove their children from house to house! What great role models! I can hear it now…”I’ll drive you from house to house, but I’m going to need some of your candy to help offset the cost of gas. Deal?”
  9. My favorite was the local bar that had the kids come inside and pick three items of candy off of a table. It just didn’t look right to see a line of kids entering “The Red Brick” for a treat. It was a good gesture and they had the best of intentions, but it just looked funny. 🙂

I have to quote something that my brother-in-law said at the end of the night as we were talking about all of the crazy things that we had seen… He said, “A person can be very smart, but people in general are dumb.” My question is…are people in general really dumb? Or is free candy just dumby bait? Or are people so intoxicated by the sugar rush that they left their inhibitions, morals, and values at home? Your guess is as good as mine…

All in all we had a great time…both enjoying Ace’s first Trick-Or-Treating experience, and also watching all of the inhabitants of this wonderful city.

As you probably know, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be going Trick-Or-Treating or not, so I didn’t put much thought into a costume for myself. At the last minute I came up with the following costume… Can you guess who I am?

jared-as-dorky-dad.jpg

I’m the ex-lobster panty specialist…Dorky Dad!

At the end of the night, after walking for about three hours, we were all tuckered out! Especially Ace…

ace-zonked-out-after-halloween-2007.jpg

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween! I sure did!

Hostinger