Trick more than treat...

Yesterday I had a brilliant idea! We (I) decided that we should take our boys trick-or-treating at the zoo. This year we joined the zoo as a family membership. I didn't even know that you could join the zoo. I had hoped that there would be a habitat for us with comfy beds and food served regularly...there wasn't. It just means we can go to the zoo as often as we want for a year without paying anything more. D and I have never had the opportunity to take our kids trick-or-treating. The way the custody agreement works out, Luci has had the boys on Halloween every year since holidays have been split. So, I decided that it would be fun to take our kids trick-or-treating, and since you can't really knock on your neighbors' doors 6 days early, so going to the scheduled trick-or-treat at the zoo seemed like the best idea. The problem is that we weren't the only ones who had this fantastic idea...half the people in the state did too! I guarantee that there has never been that many people at the zoo at one time ever before. I think that 90% of the people that have ever been to the zoo were there yesterday.

Our day began at 7:00 am because I was sure if we were there near 9:00 when the zoo opened that the crowd would be significantly less than in the warmer afternoon. Whether I was right or wrong really doesn't matter, because if there was more people there in the afternoon they would have had to put a sign up that read: "Full to Occupancy--Every Square Inch Occupied!" Let's face it, my plan was the greatest one that I have ever come up with. It was so full of flaws right from the beginning. Since we don't ever have the kids on Halloween, we don't have costumes. So, I bought some face paints, but Olie and Moo didn't want their faces painted. So, our make shift costumes were as follows: Olie wore jeans and a T-shirt and left his hair messy. When I asked him what he was he said, "a boy who just woke up." Skater wore jeans and a T-shirt and painted his face like a bloody, dead zombie. He said he was a "Skater zombie." Moo wore jeans and a T-shirt with a plaid flannel shirt over it and a straw cowboy hat. He was a cowboy, but didn't have any boots or really look like a cowboy. Fuss had a costume. He was a dragon, and a cute one at that! 

When we first arrived at the zoo, people were parking blocks away and walking. D asked if we should find a parking place. I assured him that we shouldn't park miles away. As we got closer we discovered that the entire parking lot was full, the 2 parking lots across the street were full, and there wasn't a spot on the street as far as the eye could see. The line of people waiting to get in was the entire length of the parking lot and back around the first line of cars. D is not a patient man when it comes to crowds, so I assured him of a secret parking lot with its own entrance. Luckily, we were one of the first to find it and were able to get in with just a short wait in line. However, that was the only short line we stood in for the next hour and a half! By the time we left, our secret parking had been discovered and over taken by countless cars. The insanity continued!! 

We got to trick-or-treat at a couple of booths without waiting 10 minutes just to get to the booth, then we hit the main part of the zoo! All I can say is "HOLY CRAP!" There were so many people lining up just to get a piece of hard candy, or some tootsie rolls, that you might think that all the stores ran out of candy and this was the last chance anyone had to get any. An hour and half after we arrived D asked if we had been there long enough for the kids to experience the "Boo at the Zoo" and for us to have experienced taking our kids trick-or-treating. We had only visited 10 booths at the most! He promised that if we left we could stop at the store and buy the kids candy, but we didn't. Regardless, the kids had a fun time. I am still wondering what possessed me to experience this once in a lifetime adventure (because we are never doing it again!), and D is learning more patience in crowds. There really is nothing like filling a large area like a zoo to its brink and sticking my honey in the middle of it! Most of all, Fuss learned that if he dresses in a cute costume and holds a bucket that people put candy in it. This fascinated and delighted him for the rest of the night! Oh, the joy of what the real Halloween will really be for my 1 year old!