Pumpkin Prowl 2009

I feel like in our new home, we're getting to experience the best of both city-living and suburban comfort. We're living in a cute little neighborhood in a suburb of Seattle with nice safe little sidewalks and cul-de-sacs for the kids to ride their bikes and push their little doll buggies on, but yet in just 15-20 minutes, we can be in downtown Seattle or in little over half an hour, we can be hiking through the forest to a waterfall! Needless to say, in spite of the clouds and the short fall and winter days, we LOVE it here.

My husband and I are making a very concerted effort to make certain that we continue to stay as active out here in the 'burbs as we always were in Chicago. Since we won't be able to continue our favorite day-after-Thanksgiving tradition of visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo for the Zoolights celebration, we've decided to replace it with an annual visit to the Woodland Park Zoo for their Pumpkin Prowl event. Tickets are cheaper than a regular zoo pass, and are discounted even further if you purchase them in advance at Bartell Drugs, the main sponsor of the event. We attended the Pumpkin Prowl on Friday night, and it was a ton of fun! Nadia was crazy excited to get to wear her Alice costume for the first time, and Isaac as Yoda was a huge hit. We got there right at 5:00 and there was plenty of parking which, by the way, is FREE for the event! Once inside, there were tons of zoo volunteers handing out candy, but also about a dozen different local businesses and other companies handing out goodies, too. Our top picks were the Clif bars and of course, the local favorite Top Pot donuts. The Zoomazium was transformed into the Boomazium which was a little scary for Nadia, but incredibly fascinating to her little brother who doesn't quite get the scary stuff yet. While none of the animals were actually available for viewing, the event was a great excuse to get some extra wear out of those expensive Halloween costumes and get out on a Friday night as a family. Hopefully next year we'll be going with our best buds who were actually stuck at home with the flu this year, but even if we are on our own, the Pumpkin Prowl at the Woodland Park Zoo has become one of our new family traditions!

Happy Halloween!