Whirlwind Weekend

It's feast or famine around here when it comes to my blog. After going through a dry spell when I didn't have anything interesting going on, I now have more blog fodder than I can manage. In fact, I missed my 20th high school reunion and a Halloween party for Alex this weekend. Why does everything have to happen at once?

It all started Friday, on Halloween. This year, Alex had two costumes: a dinosaur and a little devil. He wore the dinosaur outfit to daycare, where they had a little parade and a party for the kids. I don't have the pictures from that yet, but here's Alex earlier this month:




























And here's his devil costume:




Notice he doesn't like wearing the caps that come with his costumes.



I left work early on Friday to get ready for a trip up to Madison. After I had most of the packing done (I admit I overpacked, but with a toddler, you need to be prepared for anything), I picked up Alex and took him trick-or-treating to a few houses. Most of the kids came later--and there were lots. I bought five bags of candy; we would have run out if we had stayed for the entire trick-or-treat time. Although Alex wanted to go outside when he saw all of the kids, he was excited enough to hold the candy and wait at the door. At one point, a little girl in an angel outfit came. Eugene said, "Devil, meet angel," and the girl's father replied, "Devil, stay away from my angel." Too bad I didn't get a picture of them together.




We drove up to Madison Friday night and checked into our hotel, a Holiday Inn. This one featured a whirlpool bath in our room (which only got used for Alex's baths, alas) and a water park that we didn't use either. Unfortunately, we didn't have a suite, so when Alex woke up in the night, he could see us, and that made it harder to calm him. We wound up having to bring him into our bed--something we don't plan to do in the future!

On Saturday, we went to the Farmer's Market. I don't have any pictures from there, but Eugene took some. Instead of getting food, we bought a personalized piggy bank for Alex and a toy parrot for a friend's son. I browsed through Wintersilks but didn't find anything, and with Alex needing a nap, we skipped a trip to the Soap Opera. We let Alex sleep in the car while we took turns visiting Borders (one of us stayed in the car with him). We picked up lunch at Whole Foods; Alex woke up and ate a fair portion of a Honeycrisp. Later, we visited our friends for our annual Faux Thanksgiving reunion with our college friends. The food was good, and we enjoyed talking with everyone; unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. All of the kids are growing up, though.

We didn't have a chance to have brunch with our friends this year, since we were supposed to meet my family for lunch at a Polish restaurant. We did stop at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens briefly. Although we lost track of time, it was neat seeing the Thai Pavilion:



















































Finally, we left Madison to celebrate my grandmother's 94th birthday with my mother's side of the family:






















Luckily, at this point, it was a relatively short drive back home. It was great to go, but it's good to be back. Even with an extra hour today, I still have a lot to catch up on.