Candy, Candy, Candy, Candy, and a really long line?

Wow.

It's been a few years, but I went with April and the boys again this year to Trick-or-Treat(ing) at the zoo. This is a yearly event held at Madison's FREE Henry Vilas Zoo. Support your local zoo, they are wonderful places. Of course, this time of year, most of the animals are away or inside, but we really weren't focused on the animals now were we?

The kids got a fair bit of candy, got to see a few animals, got some coupons to share with Mom & Dad, and even got to get scared or amused depending on the kid in question. Overall, I think they enjoyed it, but everyone got impatient at some point.

I'd like to say it was a wonderful experience and I'd recommend it to all, but it wasn't, and I wouldn't. It requires quite a lot of patience as you deal with endless lines and constant newcomers looking for their place in line.

In truth, it's got to be a huge undertaking to plan and I wouldn't want to be part of that team of people. I think they do their job as well as they can. In my opinion, there is something about the zoo that makes this event very difficult to manage. The zoo has not one, not two, but three different entrances and is more or less arranged in a meandering looping path. What this means, is that vendors giving out candy and treats set up shop along this loop, and there's no one place to start or finish. This of course means that after you've been waiting sometimes ten or more minutes in line patiently (or not) for the next booth, there's a good chance that a group of newcomers (I'm going to assume that nobody willingly went back for seconds) will push their way into the line in front of you, further increasing your wait for the next grab at candy. Of course this turnabout is fair play since when you got there, you had to do the same thing to get in line and start your run at the candy and treats right? This coupled with the fact that kids hot and tired and bored can be especially unpredictable so there was always some incident or another to slow things down even further. One more annoying bit, a tent/booth that looked much like all the others was situated on the route, and we couldn't figure out who the vendor was. They had no candy, just a kid holding a sign with bad grammar (I can't remember what it said) a guy making comments to all passers by, and another guy peeking out of a coffin standing up in the back of the tent. No candy, just a tease. ;)
After all is said and done though, we managed to make our way around the line in around 1.5 hours.

As I said though, mostly the kids had fun. At one point, I felt a bit like a heel as the boys excitedly went into a tent with a sign that read "Enter if you dare". I jokingly said they'd probably come out crying. About 5 seconds later, Ethan did. A largish man wearing a black cloak, bloody spikes on his shoulders, and a skeleton mask was popping out inside and grabbing anyone who got too near. Lesson learned though I hope. 1. Halloween is a time for scares, so expect them. 2. Think twice before entering a tent signed "Enter if you dare."

I think this event is a great opportunity for local vendors to get their names out there though. The ones who handed out coupons with their candy were the smart ones in my book. I can think of a few other local stores that would do well to have a presence there.

Incidentally, I should have mentioned before, we went to the zoo with Elena, her husband Jared, and boys, Drew and Noah. Tim (Elena's bother) and family were also along.

Through the maze in record time!

OK, record for us anyway. I think it took 45 minutes or so. Year 1 took nearly 2 hours, last year took 1 hour 15 minutes.

We went to Schuster's Playtime Farm today. April's friend Elena and her kids Drew and Noah came with. Overall it was lots of fun. We do this every year for the last three years now. They have an Awesome! corn maze, a playground for the kids, a petting zoo, snacks, a "corn" cannon, and more. It's a good way to spend several hours. This years maze even won a national corn maze contest.

For those of you not interested in working your way through a 45 minute or longer puzzle, there's a smaller maze available as well. Check it out!

You can check out photos of the day at the boys' blog here.

Kellen can read.

OK, well, he's 8. He's in second grade. He should be able to read, right?

I'm just proud of him. His school put him into an advanced reading group. You can read about it here on the boys' blog.

Mom and Dad both read a lot and love books. OK, maybe we don't do any deep reading or anything, but books are important and we're glad that he seems to be showing the same joy early on. :)

Our house is officially On the Market!

Check it out here!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Ethan is 5 today. They grow up so fast.

We already had the big party, gathered about 20 of us at Chucky Cheese, blah. But he likes it right? ;) Tonight, we took him to Pizza Hut after we vetoed Chuck Cheese for a second time. He was pretty darn excited about his present from us. In truth, I think it's pretty cool as well.

Check it out.

The way kids think.

April related this one to me the other day.

On monday this week, as she's driving Ethan to preschool, he's flapping away as usual, talking about everything and nothing. Out of the blue, he points at a house and says, "I think Miss Leslie lives there." No explanation, no reasoning, just the quick thought that his preschool teacher lives at some random house.

Once they get to preschool, April relates this tale to Miss Leslie, who is also amused by it. Of course, being a teacher and wanting to share knowledge and such with her students, she corrects him and says, "I don't live there, I live in Janesville." Without missing a beat, Ethan responds surprised but confident, "You live in Crazy Town?"

At this point, everyone has a laugh over it, and Miss Leslie gives Ethan and April a confused and possibly concerned look. April explains all by telling another story. Our boys, being the kids that they are, can't live happily in the car unless they know at all times where we are going. What this means is, at various times, from when they are told we are going somewhere until we arrive, the question comes up, "Where are we going?" Most times, we tell them or remind them where we are going. Of course, sometimes we tell them more or less to shut up and stop asking. One a few occasions, April replies, "We're going crazy, wanna come?" One such time stuck. a few minutes after this particular interaction we arrived in Janesville. Ever since then, Janesville has been Crazy Town.

Ain't it great?

On a completely unrelated note, Wizkids announced yesterday a new release date for the Star Wars Pocketmodel expansion "Ground Assault". The release has been delayed, but there's an actual date now at least rather than simply october. November 14th is the new projected date.

Hooray for a new form of plastic-crack!

Laterz.

Moving sucks.

OK, in truth, I'm very eager to move, but it's been a long hard road so far. It's only been a month and a half since we truly decided that it was time to cut and run. We've been spending a good portion of our last 7 weekends packing and moving stuff to temporary storage. Reason being, the house needed to be far less cluttered to sell, and we're needing it anyway until we figure out just how much room we really can use at the new place.

That more or less poorly explained, this weekend was spent finishing up the process of at least clearning out the excess in prep for sale. Several trips to storage and many boxes and too much garbage moved and disposed of, and we have our pictures ready for the listing. It's remarkable how much the house echoes now that it's missing as much as it is.

Hooray, only two more weekends here! Nevermind the general upkeep still needed until it sells.

Night.

Checking in.

Life has been interesting. Things have been rough. Boo Hoo for me and us, right? ok, enough of that crap.

OK, in case anyone doesn't know. We're selling our house. The basic reason is because we can't afford it. We really haven't been able to afford it since we moved in, but we have kept trying cus we wanted to stay in a house. What can I say, an extra $4000 in heating/cooling the place wasn't in the budget.

We move to an apartment in November.

We'll have a lot of great things that are only a dream now, like a dishwasher, a garage we can park in, two bathrooms, one of them being a master bath, carpet (you wouldn't think that's a plus, but with the kids, carpet will be easier to maintain), lower heating bills, etc.

The truly sad part of all of this is that we aren't allowed to have pets where we are moving. We are looking for homes for the cats, and may be surrenduring them if we can't find one. That will be rough and we can only hope they get adopted. If you know someone who wants a cat or two, we have two eleven year old cats that need loving homes. The better part of this news, is Sid found a home on Friday. We believe he will be very happy with his new owner.

Besides all this, we're working to sell off or give away the extra furniture and things from our house since it won't all fit in an apartment.

Work is crazy as usual, nothing new there.

Maybe I'll check in again sooner than later. Maybe not ;)