The Halloween festivities started quickly with the whole family (+ grandma J-Flo) making our way down to the doc's office to wait outside in a line for 3+ hours to get our H1N1 vaccine. It was a very surreal experience and reminded me of some strange mid-90's dooms-day virus movie, where the government very innocently gathers up the expendables and then... expends. What was absolutely amazing, is how well not only Isaac and Dahlia did for 3+ hours,... but how well the over 3000 people did. Thankfully it wasn't raining and the staff / police / hired security was well prepared. Isaac, Rachel and I were all on a priority list to receive the vaccine because of our sweet Buges (boo-gz aka bug-a-lug aka Dahlia) being less than 6 months old.After all of that, how could the day get any better?
That afternoon, Isaac and I did a quick pumpkin carving...seriously, we cranked this out in about 15 minutes. Actually, I carved one while Isaac colored another. We did manage to get him to touch the inside of the pumpkin for about 2 seconds to which he immediately demanded that someone clean him.
Then...later that day...the moment we had been waiting for...Isaac went out for his first true night of Trick-or-Treating. As you can tell by the pics, he was decked out in his Thomas finest and even managed to have a steady stream of carbon monoxide emitting from his...engine.
First house... lights are on... approach the door and review the rules:
Me: OK, Isaac, when they open the door, you say"TRICK OR TREAT' as loud as you can.
Isaac: Yeah
Ding-Dong...no answer.
Me: OK, Isaac, apparently these people don't know the rules and left their lights on. Let's go try another house.
Second house...
Me: OK, Isaac, when they open the door, you say"TRICK OR TREAT' as loud as you can.
Isaac: Yeah
Ding-Dong... door opens
Isaac: HII! (in his happiest greeting voice)
Me: What else Isaac??
Isaac: Ummm, trick or treat?
This is exactly how the remaining 20+ houses would go. But, the moment that first piece of candy hit his bucket... you could see all of the dots connecting in his brain as to what exactly it meant to go "Trick or Treating". We had a great time and he was probably the politest kid every house got to see that night. At one random house he saw something inside that really interested him and he proceeded to walk on in... I was barely able to grab him by the scruff of his smoke stack and pull him out of the lady's foyer.
Meanwhile, back at the homestead...Rachel and Dahlia were handing out candy to stinky tweens and obnoxious teenagers. In fact, the very first group was about 10 deep with an unleashed large dog trying to barrel its way in to our house. Rachel, with Dahlia in arms, was slamming the door on the dog
's face when the tard-muff owners came to retrieve their dog and were quoted as saying "hey, this dog doesn't even have a collar on"... as though it was the fault of the kids it was trick or treating with.The next morning, Isaac was walking by a bag of recycled paper in our house and down inside (well inside) was a bite-size Snickers wrapper. Now, he has never eaten or had a snickers before, but he somehow knew what it was and where it came from... this is just about the exact exchange...
Isaac: (holds up the wrapper).. what's this papa?
Me: Umm... it's garbage.
Isaac: This is candy? Did this come from my candy papa?
Me: (with an amused yet, guilty look on my face) No buddy, no one has touched your candy.
We are continually amazed by the level of perception and deduction that Isaac is capable of at the age of 2.
Team Isaac Joshua 
