For the past few months, we had been brainstorming around the house for Halloween costume ideas. We had just about settled on going as Run DMC, but we weren’t entirely sold on the idea. One day when I came home from work, Seth was wearing a red t-shirt and some black/dark navy overalls, and I casually called him “Mario”. Betsy immediately perked up, and the rest is Halloween history. Congrats to Heather, Carrie Ann, Scott and Brandy for your correct guesses!

The only problem was that we weren’t sure where to wear it. We were excited about going to the Olson’s Halloween party, but that didn’t start until 8pm. Since that is Seth’s bedtime, we figured we’d be able to attend for a grand total of 10 minutes before heading back home. And trick-or-treating around the neighborhood seemed a little silly when we would have to eat all of the candy.

We were excited, then, to receive an invite from my sister to go up to Bellingham to join her family and my parents for the day. Downtown Bellingham was hosting a big trick-or-treating party at the local stores, and we were going to go around town and watch Seth’s cousins Saben and Annika collect their candy.

My sister is excellent at making Halloween costumes, and she definitely didn’t disappoint this year, dressing up a scary 4-armed alien and a punk rock grrl.

My parents’ costumes were a little more understated, but they were excellent as well. Even Seth joined them in their theme for a short period of time. (Bonus activity: Try to count how many different people’s arms are trying to hold him in place for that picture, and guess how many other arms are just out of frame! But also notice that he’s smiling and having fun behind the moustache.)

My dad had the hardest time trying to guess what our costumes were going to be. He asked us a series of yes/no questions, and got hung up on the idea that we were fictional characters from modern pop culture, but not in TV, books, music or movies (at least, not primarily known from those sources). What other kind of media is there for fictional characters? Welcome to the 21st century, Dad. ;)

He finally guessed it on the car ride up, but when we got to my sister’s house, she hadn’t figured it out. She had to wait until we changed into our outfits and had the big reveal.


Seth generally doesn’t like wearing hats, so we had to hold it over his head for pictures. He got used to it as the day progressed, though.


I don’t know if a sword is really a canonical accessory for Mario, but you try taking it away from him…


With the eyeliner moustache applied.


Out on the town!

We had a great time. The city was really crowded with trick-or-treaters – probably a few hundred kids, plus families. We even ran into two other Marios and a Link! Seth was mostly interested in the balloons, and would wail in distress everytime we walked away from one. Since there were balloons every 10 feet, that ended up being a lot of wailing.

After a delicious dinner at my sisters, we ended up getting home shortly after 9pm. Seth was exhausted – he slept most of the trip home, and when he woke up when we arrived, he was a cranky baby. We’ll go visit the Olson’s Halloween party next year.