Halloween in Richmond

Patrick and I headed to Virginia this past weekend for a wedding celebration, some family time and a mini vaca to see the leaves and get out of the insanity that is selling our home and trying to move.

First stop on our mini vaca was to hang out with some family in Richmond!  Being Halloween my closest cousin, Katie had a great idea to take a stroll down Hanover Street in "the Fan" to do some people/creature watching.   It was amazing!

I did some google recon and apparently the "Halloween Block" of Hanover dates back to the 1970s as a bonanza Halloween hot spot. Bonanza...  Bringing it back.  It was crazy y'all.   The most insanely decorated houses, crazy good costumes (and plenty of bad), swarms of people and even a live band on someone's front porch crooning some Thriller and Disturbia.

Chaos in the streets!

Best costume: little kid passed out in his dad's arms dressed as Max from Where the Wild Things Are and whatever this crazy thing was.  Complete with spray painted Nickelodeon moon shoes.

Worst: monster woman wearing basically a pillow case with an Angry Bird on it dragging her child who was likely diabetic and hated candy.   (Also goes to us creepers who didn't dress up at all and knowingly just wanted to drink booze and watch little kids in the dark... )

Full-on castle in someone's yard

Bates Motel - ok this is a crap pic, but granny on the top left made it cool!

Jellyfish!

The smell of KitKat bars and hyper active children in such mass quantities was totally new to me. I grew up on Hilton Head in a neighborhood with something like 8 kids out of 400 homes full of retirees. Halloween went like this:

.. go to the local mall

.. harass Gap employees for a tootsie roll

.. head home with mediocre corporate candy and coupons for mom

.. load onto the golf cart

.. drive around trying to find a house with one light on

.. wind down the driveway, ring the bell, patiently wait for grandma to make it to the door

.. huffily take apple and pepto bismol hand out

.. resolve to go to Hilton Head Plantation next year where the kids were making the legit candy deals on the block

Patrick and I have vowed to dress up, pack a rolling cooler with big kid treats and go Trick or Treating with our kiddies in a group in the future. Quantity over quality until you know better. Plus gives us a better chance or bartering for other kids' Butterfingers and Nerds.

Me and Katie in front of a pirate ship!

Seriously, where do they store that thing all year?!

After the questionable child gawking, we headed out to a really great restaurant called Heritage: http://www.heritagerva.com and got an awesome charcuterie plate, some pastas, duck and some really awesome cocktails.

It was really great catching up with my two cousins and hearing about Katie's plans for her own Charlottesville wedding in Spring at Pippin Hill Farm in Spring. We are so excited to come back and celebrate her marriage to a mystery fiancé I have yet to meet in the decade+ they've been dating!  Sunday night, after we returned from Charlottesville and the wedding festivities, we headed over to my aunt's house and celebrated my other cousin Sara's 20th birthday.  It was a packed house, as both of my mom's sisters and my grandma were all there with their families.  We had a mini Thanksgiving celebration and I was certainly thankful to be surrounded by such great family, almost accidentally!