A Spooky Night at the Dinosaur Park

We went to the Eccles Dinosaur Park in Ogden tonight for their "Halloween Night" and had a great time! We went with our neighbors, Paul and Dana Bendel, who live across the street from us. Gavin and their little boy Nicholas are the best of friends, and seriously, it is torture to take either one of them on outings without the other one, because they won't stop asking about where the other one is and why they aren't together! It's as if they were long lost brothers... Actually, I am convinced Gavin was supposed to be put in their family and not ours. He is always asking to go to Nicholas's house, go in Nicholas's van, and hold Dana's hand instead of mine! I may have to grow brown hair and get a mini van just for my child to like me! So sad...

But anyway, we really had a great time! All the boys, including Tyler, dressed up in their Halloween costumes. As you saw in my previous post, Gavin wore his dragon costume, Tyler was Tigger, and Nicholas was Spiderman. The park was decorated really cute for Halloween and they had employees all along the way giving candy and cheap little toys to the kids. This was definitely the best part for the boys. Eventually, they started chanting, "Candy! Candy! Candy!" (Just a prediction - Trick-or-Treating on Halloween night is going to be great fun...) The best part was that the boys were so busy looking for the next person with candy that I think they completely ignored the scary parts - the skeletons, bats, and scary noises all around. I, however, was the laughing stock of the group when a 7-year-old jumped out right in front of me and scared me half to death. All the kids were fine and didn't get scared, but I - the 24-year-old adult - about peed my pants! Ha ha. (Now you understand why I never did haunted houses...)

Overall, we had a great time and decided on the way home that we need to make this a yearly tradition. Even though it was a little cold, it was something fun for the kids to do and it wasn't nearly as scary as other Halloween events usually are. I stuck some pictures below, but let me apologize up front if they are a bit blurry. We were experimenting with the twilight setting on our camera... Until next time! -Ash

Gavin and Nicholas, what a pair!

Gavin and I in front of all the well-carved pumpkins. I can assure you that unfortunately, the pumpkins we are carving on Monday will look nothing like these...

Tyler, perfectly content and cozy in his stroller. He was so good the whole time!

Gavin, the vampire. He loved these teeth and was very disappointed once we got home and realized he had left them in the Bendel's van (yep... he didn't even ride home with us! Wow... I guess I really need a van...)