Halloween and more...

Wow, it's been a busy weekend - and a busy week leading up to it too. Fortunately, pictures were taken and therefore it is not only easy for me to relate events, but it is also easy for you - the reader - to understand the goings on. Oh, and those pictures I said would be up Monday, well, they're only six days late at http://picasaweb.google.com/BSerHome/HalloweenAndFallPictures

First off, this year was the first time Alya understood the concept of Halloween. Now you might see her in the cheetah outfit that we thought would go over great. Well she only wore it to her school/daycare this past Friday when Sasha took them both in for a little "Trick or Treat" action.

Once Alya saw all the kids in their full body costumes (like Marcus's penguin outfit) she decided that being a cheetah wasn't a real costume, so she had to wear the penguin outfit. Being wise parents, we actually had a back-up zebra outfit in the wings for Marcus. But such was not to be.

Friday evening, Bayshore Towne Center (formally Bayshore mall, but now a heck of a lot nicer) held an excellent event. They had Trick or Treating for kids in costume from 5 PM to 7 PM that evening at all participating stores (they had signs if they were taking part) as well as a pumpkin patch, a hay ride, and they were showing the kid's movie Monster House in the outdoor plaza at 7:30 PM. A safe night for the kids to dress up and have a good time in an environment that is controlled. The only thing I would like them to change is to close off the streets that go through the center of the mall.

Attendance was through the roof, but Alya was dead tired and Marcus was sleeping through most of it. She walked like a little zombie-penguin holding her pumpkin bag out for bits of candy. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but I believe she enjoyed it.

Saturday night, on the flip-side, was for the adult BSers to dress up. A bunch of people at my work decided that since Halloween was on the weekend this was a chance to get out and do a Halloween pub crawl in Germantown.

Yes, this is not Jon's cup of tea normally, but since I work with a good group of people and Sasha knew them as well, why the heck not!

Our costumes are both up in the Web Album. Sasha's is the good one, Static Cling. Mine is the dumb one with weird inspiration. I saw a costume on the TV show The Big Bang Theory where one character dressed as the Doppler Effect. So I took it a different direction and went as Pi. Yeah, a white t-shirt with black marker is a really poor costume. It would have been better if I managed to do something with a pie plate or a Baker's Square box. Better luck next year, eh?

Meanwhile, the crawl itself was something else. A new experience for me. First off, you get to see all these people dressed up in various costumes, which is fun to watch. But then they all load up on a yellow school bus to travel from bar to bar. Oh, and they can bring their drinks on the bus.

So, imagine a crowded subway car, where everyone is drunk, in costume, and there is a complete lack of hand holds. With each stop there is a rotation of passengers, with the new group getting more and more drunk with each stop. Yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Our last ride of the evening started with me standing with my keister up against the emergency exit door at the back of the bus while holding an extra large double-shot Captain and Diet Coke that wasn't mine. Drunk, smoking leprechaun to my right yelling out two different songs at the top of his lung. To my left, a full bodysuit wolf telling racist jokes between joining the leprechaun in song. (Oddly, he was undecided on who he was voting for on Tuesday.) It was 2 AM.

Eventually, I was able to sit next to my wife and get back to the first car where we sat for a moment to let the drunks drive off and me to switch to glasses before heading home. My consumption of the evening, a Sprecher Root Beer and a single sip of that monster rum and diet. A very memorable evening - but it wasn't over yet!

It was around 2:30 when we finally came through the door. My mom was kind enough to watch the kids while they were sleeping that evening, so I fully expected her to be either reading a book or taking a small nap when we walked in. Not sitting on the floor playing with Alya in the family room!

Yes, the picture of Sasha and Alya each with a pair of glazed eyes was taken at two-thirty in the morning. Alya has all four of her molars coming in, so sleep has not been good around the house lately, and so she woke up and mom couldn't get her back down to bed. Sasha said she has never sobered up that quickly before.

We got the squirrel to bed, and then washed up and went to sleep as well. It's one of the things I hate about going to bars, my body smells like cigarette smoke and I want to take a scrub brush to my lungs. To me, it's one of the nastiest things in the world. I can only hope that someday Milwaukee will go smoke free like Chicago has this past year, but I won't hold my breath on that one.

I am writing this Sunday evening. Behind me I've got the XM Radio channel BPM playing and I'm oddly feeling awake. Alya woke up two more times last night and Marcus had an early wake up thanks to daylight savings ending. But it was such a pleasant day, that I'm not feeling dead on my feet. The kids never took a nap at the same time, so I wasn't able to get more than five minutes of shut eye.

Sasha got to sleep in this morning, so she did a lot of the work around the house while I kept the kids in check where I could. Apple cake was baked, gutters were cleared, leaves gathered and moved to a mulch-like location and the kids were kept in good shape. Alya was incredibly tired - no surprise there - while Marcus was his excitable self.

You know what? The kids and I didn't do much, but we had a good time and lots of laughing. So I call it a good day. And a good weekend, too.

Be seeing you,

Jon