Halloween fun!

Last weekend, we decided to test out the kids' Halloween costumes and head to a neighboring town for a Halloween fest. They close off the streets of the downtown for trick-or-treating, crafts, food, etc. When we arrived, there was a line down the street for trick-or-treating. After waiting for a significant amount of time without moving forward, we decided we were going to miss everything else if we stayed in the line and told the kids we'd just buy them candy on the way out of town.Before leaving the line, though, a couple of local firefighters came and found Sam since they heard there was a fireman in line. We were lucky enough to get them to pose for a pic with him...that's two years in a row! (Last year, Halloween just happened to fall on garbage day and Sam just happened to be dressed as a garbage man and we just happened to have the best sitter in the world who was able to snag a couple of photos when the truck arrive to collect her trash...talk about the planets aligning for that kid.)
After we abandoned the trick-or-treating, we headed down the street to get our dinner from a coworker's food trailer. I have to say that it was the best carnival food I've ever had. The chicken we got for the kids' was amazing, although, Grace was just fine with passing on the chicken and fries and heading straight to the funnel cake (can't say I blame her...it was divine).

From there, we met up with a few more firefighters to check out the fire truck that was parked on one of the side streets (we were tipped off by the guys who were so gracious to be in the photo in line). Sam and Grace were ecstatic to get to sit inside of it! You'll notice Sam isn't smiling in the pic, though...that's because he was all business proclaiming, "We're on our way!" in his best fireman voice.
On our walk back to the car, Sam spotting Smokey the Bear working his way through the crowd. He made it clear right off the bat that he was not interested in going to see him. He said he thought he might be a little scared of him. Grace, on the other had, was adamant about meeting our friendly educator of fire safety in the forest. So, we marched over to meet Smokey and as he turned to greet Grace with a hug, she lost it...I totally knew that was going to happen, so she was even more upset when I couldn't contain my smile. What's a fun family event if at least one kid doesn't get freaked out by a giant bear costume, right?

And we didn't even have to stop anywhere to buy the kids the candy they were so pumped to get. A few of the vendors started to realize that all the kids in line were never going to make it through the tents, so they ventured out into the crowd and passed out candy to any kid they came across, including Sam and Grace. Fun prep for the big day this Friday...the countdown has begun in our house!