06:58 PM ~ Just got two groups of little kids. In the first group there seemed to be more parents than kids—we actually thought we'd hit the trick or treater jackpot for a minute there. One of the two cowboys took a Hershey bar, and the other went for a lollipop. The kid in black (a cat?) took a Hershey bar. You'd think Hershey bars were the most popular and recognizable chocolate, but I think that their popularity tonight can be chalked up to the fact that they're the tallest candy bars in the bucket. They're just what the kids hit first.
The second group was two small kids (one tiger, one lion) and their mom. They took lollipops; their mom said that they weren't really into chocolate yet, "believe it or not. It's a trait they didn't inherit from me."
07:11 PM ~ Oh gosh, they're coming so fast now it's hard to keep up. I wish I could take notes while handing out the candy! We were just visited by two groups of three. The first group was a bit older (10-13 or so), and told us we had the best candy so far. This elicited huge grins of pride from me and Al. They took various combinations of chocolate and stickers.
Next came a group of three little kids, or possibly one duo and one single (that's how Al counted them, anyway). He had the first two, an angel and a bandito (complete with colorful shawl and sombrero) coming at 6:57, and the frontiersman coming up separately at 6:58. I'm finding that the smaller kids are totally baffled by the offer of two bowls; I have to keep prompting them to take something from each bowl.
07:13 PM ~ Good god, we just got our first 40 year-old. She had the good grace to come with two little kids (though I'm not sure they were hers) and a very cute beagle. She took a Kit Kat; I'm not sure what the two ghouls (again from Scream) took.
07:32 PM ~ Shoot, I'm starting to lose track of who's who now. (Too busy straightening out the HTML in the Blogger template.) We got two groups of two kids at 7:12. The first kid I mistook for Godzilla, but he entreated me to look closer, and I quickly realized my gaffe: he was a killer whale. I can't remember what his cohort had on. The other two were a jack 'o lantern and a ghost. The jack 'o lantern told me that there was supposed to be padding around her upper torso, too, but it had all settled around her hips. I should have said, "welcome to the club," but I didn't.
07:41 PM ~ The last group comprised two little girls (clown & cat) and a toddler sans costume. He knew where the goods were, though; he hopped from foot to foot while the girls made their selections, and when one didn't move out of the way fast enough, he used her leg as leverage to pull himself forward. :)
07:44 PM ~ Two little girls just showed up, dressed as colonial women, I think. I'm not positive on the period, but they were definitely historical costumes. They looked great. Meanwhile, we're running out of chocolate. All the big candy bars are gone except for a single Snickers (we're saving it for the next lone trick or treater that comes along, since we don't want siblings or friends fighting over it), and we've handed out half the bag of Hershey's Miniatures that Al bought for himself. The lollipop bowl is still half-full though, so we won't run out of candy altogether.
07:49 PM ~ Another little girl-toddler sans costume combo arrived at 7:42pm. I asked the girl if she was a fairy princess, and she replied, "just fairy." Her wings glowed in the blacklight, and she looked positively angelic.
07:54 PM ~ Oooh, our first Harry Potter of the evening just arrived. He looked *perfect*, and we told him so. Better than the actor in the movie, I'd say. He in turn admired our blacklight—his friends were glowing, and they all thought it looked neat. I can only remember what one of the other kids in his group was wearing (a cheerleader's outfit with what looked like a giant mop on his head), but there were four of them altogether.
08:12 PM ~ We've gone 17 minutes without a visit, so maybe that's it for the night. It was all very exciting! I'm glad we decided to do up the courtyard with tombstones and glowsticks—we even managed to attract a couple adults who were out touring the neighborhood. The real black light was also a good investment (the cheaper bulbs didn't work nearly as well). It's really too bad that there isn't a Halloween season the way there is a Christmas season. It'd be nice to leave the decorations up for a while.
09:08 PM ~ Wow, a full hour and nineteen minutes after our last visit, the doorbell has just rung again. I'm already in bed (working, not sleeping) and the gate is closed and locked, so Al took the candy bowls out with him. He said I missed a good one: a giant milk carton was at the door.