A surprise good time - 2

My wife took the kids to a Halloween party at my mother-in-law's church yesterday. We'd never been to one there so we didn't know what to expect. The kids dressed up in the costumes they were going to use for trick-or-treating that night - those are the pictures shown here with my wife. By the way, how did our 13-year old son, Evan, get so big?

Evan is dressed as the game character Mario (I especially like the big hands that came with the costume - we got the mustache right side up later) and Emma is dressed as Mulan from the Disney movie of the same name.

I was going to just drop them off  and leave the car there for them and I was going to walk home. Before I left, though, it was obvious that the party was not designed to include older kids like Evan. He didn't want to stay so he decided to walk home with me. We were having a good talk as we went along but I noticed people looking at us from their cars. Then I noticed them pointing. I finally realized they were reacting to Evan's costume. I mentioned it to him and he started to notice the reactions, too. He had taken off the mustache and the large "hands" so he put those on, too. Then people really started to react. We could see people smiling and pointing him out to other passengers in the car. Then people started beeping their horns and shouting out to "Mario".

Evan had been really disappointed that the party hadn't worked out but he was now having a great time. He was smiling and waving back at the people who beeped and waved to him. He liked the idea of bringing a little joy to their lives. I was telling him how he was doing better than I would have in this situation. I would have been embarassed at the attention and wouldn't have enjoyed it like he was. Now, I was enjoying it because he was having such a good time. He was almost sad when we got home and couldn't wait to tell his grandmother what a good time he had..

We had another good time when we all went trick-or-treating last night. We even took our dog, Charlie, with us. But it was the unexpected good time Evan had that I will remember about this Halloween.