Trick or Treat - Round One

We left Pacific Grove after a relaxing breakfast of toasted bagels, tea, orange juice and USA Today.  Oh.  And Dinosaur Train.

Our final destination was Davis.  We hoped the kids would make it to lunch time before we stopped.  Bless them, they both passed out by the time we hit the 101.  They slept peacefully until we came to Concord.  (So close to making it straight through!)  We stopped for lunch and a bit of a break.

Side note:  I hate making stops on destination trips.  If the purpose of a road trip is the drive, I'm all for a meandering little trip, making stops at whatever roadside curiosity tickles my fancy.  If the purpose of the road trip is the desitination...just get me there!  I have a feeling that two kids are going to greatly increase the number of stops.

We arrived in Davis around 2:00.  In a whirl of activity we dressed Joseph in his costume, piled back into the car and headed to downtown Davis for an afternoon of trick-or-treating.

One of the stores - a natural healing shop - decided to skip the candy.  Instead they handed out tiny, painted animals.  Brilliant.  Simply brilliant.  It may have cost a bit more, but I have a feeling every parent remembers the shop and every child is enjoying their toy far longer than they would a candy bar.  Of course, Joseph loved the orange plastic spider ring even more.

One of the things I love about living in this particular part of California is the mild weather.  Sure, we get triple digit heat in the summer, but it's nice to be able to stand outside in short sleeves during cool autumn evenings.  Lately, it's been warm.  Warm as in the high 70's to low 80's.  While this is great for gardening and playing outside until dusk, it's not so great when your three-year-old decides to be a dragon for Halloween and said dragon costume is designed to keep a little guy warm on cold East Coast evenings.

In less than an hour, his dragon feet started dragging and his dragon hands sweating.  He decided he'd had enough of this whole trick or treating business and took off the top part of his costume.  His t-shirt was stuck to his skin, his hair a sweaty jumble.  He asked for water and drank half a bottle in one guzzling swoop.

Poor Joe!

Oh and Elizabeth?  Well she was having none of it when I tried to put her in her costume.  The little angel screamed like a she-devil two seconds after we put it on her.  She was content in her Peanut Shell in a onesie.  Slept like a baby.  (Well, the proverbial baby.  We all know real babies don't actually sleep.  They just rest between rounds of eating.)