On Halloween night, we rode our bike to Shepard's House United Methodist Church on Driver Street, where EDCI and other East Durham community organizers had planned a "Trunk or Treat" trick or treating event. EDCI staff and volunteers, and other families in the neighborhood decorated their car trunks or truck beds and handed out candy, stickers, books and other fun stuff. I wanted to participate, but Rob had to work until 9pm and had the car, since his broken foot was still healing, so that meant Eliza and I had 2 choices: either take the bus to the event, or ride our bike. If we took the bus, we wouldn't be able to decorate anything, and that wouldn't be fun...so we chose to ride our bike, and decorate our bike trailer!
It was really, really cold on Halloween night. I bundled Eliza up in 2 pairs of leggings, 2 pairs of socks, long sleeve shirt, 2 sweatshirts, a hat, and 2 fluffy blankets that would cover her up in the bike trailer. Then I bundled myself up! The bike trailer was packed to the gills! I brought our outdoor blanket to sit on, my warm sleeping bag, Eliza's Peapod tent, our big carved pumpkin, some glow sticks, my glow mask glasses (cheap find at Dollar General the day before!), our bucket of candy, a stack of Halloween activity pads to hand out (another Dollar General find), and 2 light up toys that Eliza likes to play with - her Fisher Price learning lantern and her Playskool toddler flashlight.
Our bike trailer was very lightly decorated with a string of glow-in-the-dark skeletons, but hey, that counts as decorating, right? :) Oh, and our carved pumpkin counts as a decoration, too, I can't forget that. Here's a pic of our bike trailer as we were just leaving:
And here we are all set up in the parking lot at Shepard's House:
So, we also decorated the Peapod tent with a string of glow-in-the-dark skeletons, which didn't really glow all that well once it was dark enough. Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for! When the kids started coming to trick or treat at everyone's "trunk", I got a lot of comments about our pumpkin - like, "WHOA! Is that a REAL pumpkin?" It was really cute. I started by handing out 1 candy and 1 Halloween activity pad to each kid who came up to my "trunk". I bought those mini-packs of M&M's and Starburst and Snickers to hand out. I let the kids choose which candy they wanted, which some kids took FOREVER to decide! I guess they liked all the candy equally and it was hard to make a choice? :)
So many kids showed up to trick or treat! It was amazing! I know there's a lot of kids in the Old East Durham area, but I didn't know there was THAT many! It's just a little shocking to me because our neighborhood has a much smaller number of kids, especially in the young elementary age group. Anyway, with how many kids there were, I started to run out of those Halloween activity pads. So I started limiting them to 1 per family, but there are many kids who don't speak English in this neighborhood, and I couldn't tell them why I was only giving 1 to a family with 4 kids...it was sad, and it's times like this I wish I was bilingual! So...after seeing a few sad faces of kids who didn't get a Halloween activity pad, I just couldn't bear it anymore, so I kept giving each individual kid 1 candy and 1 activity pad. I ran out soon after, though! Note to self: buy 10 packs of pads next year! 4 packs just wasn't enough!
Once the sun had totally set, most of the younger kids went home and the older kids, middle school and high schoolers were out trick or treating. Some of them had some great costumes on! I wish I could've taken more pictures, but I was so busy passing out candy and talking to other volunteers and parents that I couldn't! EDCI had a costume contest and the winner was a girl who had made this costume out of Lay's potato chip bags (the small, lunch-size bags) - a lot of effort went into her costume and it looked great. Next year, I will try to find a way to take more pictures!
Eliza had a lot of fun playing with her light up toys once it was dark outside. Here's 2 pics of her running around playing, and eating M&m's:
After the trunk or treat was over at 8:30pm, Eliza was sleepy so it was time to head home. The bike ride home is exactly 2 miles and takes me only 10-12 minutes. Oh, for those of you reading this who might be wondering about the safety of riding at night, here's what keeps us visible (and in compliance with state laws):
This is a really awesome headlight! I like how there's 3 wattage settings, so when I really want a lot of light, I put it on high, but if I want to conserve the battery, I can set it on low, and it lasts a LONG time! The charging capability of this light is another plus - it uses a mini-USB and can be charged either with a standard wall outlet or your computer. You can buy this light at Performance Bikes.
As for taillights, Rob and I have used these for years. I put 2 of them on the back of the trailer, and sometimes, I'll even wear 1 more on my back pocket or on my Camelbak. You can buy them at Performance Bikes.
Well, that's all for October! More blogging later!
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