Trick-or-Treat

We had a busy Halloween weekend, beginning with the Cottage Grove Halloween parade on Saturday, and ending with trick-or-treating with HealthPartners' very own Petey P. Cup. To begin, a little before 10:00 Saturday morning, the four of us walked to the route of the Monster Bash Halloween Parade. Once we got there, we had a little wait before the parade began. We discovered that we really need to work on Emma's tolerance of loud noises. She was deathly afraid of the police cars and fire trucks at the beginning of the parade. I had to hold her until they had passed because the sirens really frighten her. Despite that, we had a great time at the parade, Emma ended up collecting a lot of candy. She filled her candy bucket at least two-thirds full.

Then yesterday was the highlight of Halloween -- trick-or treating. A few weeks ago Petey P. Cup announced on his Facebook page that he would go trick-or-treating on Halloween with one of his fans. To get a chance of having him join you, you just had to post a message on his Facebook wall indicating why you wanted to trick-or-treat with Petey P. Cup. Emma really likes Petey, so I decided I would enter us in this contest. I made a short video of Emma asking Petey P. Cup to please come trick-or-treat with her. That did the trick, because last Monday he posted on his Facebook page that we were the winners! Emma was very excited when she found out Petey P. Cup would be trick-or-treating with her. All day yesterday Emma asked when Petey would arrive.

Shortly before 6:00, I got a call from Petey's handler that they were in Cottage Grove and would be at our house shortly. They wanted to know if Emma knew that Petey was coming and if Petey needed to be in costume when they arrived. I let them know that they could change here. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been to ride in a car in that costume. Not long after that, two young women showed up with the Petey P. Cup costume. They also brought a couple of Halloween baskets, one for Emma and the other for Maximus. In one of the baskets was four Petey P. Cup plush dolls, one for each of us. The other basket contained a stuffed vampire and scarecrow for the kids. We all chatted a bit, asking questions about how they got to be Petey P. Cup, and what it is like, before one of them put on the Petey P. Cup costume and then heading out down the street.

We took a few photos outside and then started out trick-or-treating. We spent about an hour and a half walking through the neighborhood begging for candy from our neighbors. Emma had a great time, holding Petey P. Cup's hand as they walked down the street. The people handing out the candy were also quite entertained by Petey. Some other kids we saw while we were out were not sure what Petey P. Cup was. Some of them thought he was a jar of mustard, while others thought he was a container of ice cream. While we were out, Emma filled both the trick-or-treat basket that she had prior to Petey's arrival and one of the baskets Petey brought for her. It helped that a lot of people were giving candy to Petey P. Cup as well as to Emma. When we returned home, we took a few more photos with Petey P. Cup before they headed on their way. Emma went to bed not long after they left and quickly went to sleep. She had quite an eventful Halloween, one she won't likely forget anytime soon.