Garden After Dark

It's Halloween time, and that means our annual trip to Red Butte Garden After Dark.

This years theme is An Olde Fashioned Halloween.

We invited Joseph's friend Charlie to Join us. This is a perfect event for boys their age, and he added some entertainment to the evening.

The kids get to wear their costumes. This year Joe and Josh are Mario and Luigi. Charlie is Boba-Fett from Star Wars. When People walked by us they instantly recognized the Boys and would usually say "Hey, it's Mario and Luigi" But they never mentioned Boba-Fett. This bothered Charlie. So he would always say loudly "AND BOBA-FETT" Usually the people would smile and say something like "Oh yeah, cool." However there was one man who still did not acknowledge Boba-Fett after Charlie told him who he was. Charlie did not like being ignored so he followed the guy and repeated "AND BOBA-FETT" until the guy acknowledged him. There was one boy about Emily's age who instantly recognized Boba-Fett and told Charlie how cool it was. This made Charlie happy.

We started off with the face painting. They pretty much let the kids and parents do the painting.

Emily and Joe stuck to the themes of their costumes. Josh wanted a mustache, but he also did a little painting himself. Charlie wanted a spider and a mustache.

After the face painting we headed into the garden.

The first stop was a broom making station. The kids picked out a stick and then we helped them tie dried weeds and straw to the end.
The kids thought their brooms were great.
At the next stop the kids got to have broom races.

My favorite station of the night was the hay stacks. There were plastic bugs and spiders hidden in the hay. The kids had to find one and when they did they could exchange it for a prize. The boys found theirs pretty fast Emily had a harder time seeing the bugs. After a while I started trying to help her by pointing them out to her. The only problem was when she would turn to look where I was pointing she would brush hay over the bug I was pointing at.

When she finally found her spider we all cheered including her.

Another fun spot was the potion room.

The kids were given a vile to put plant pieces in to make a potion. (potpourri) The boys really thought this was cool. Especially when the lady told them they had to warm up the potion for it to work. They headed right out to one of the fire barrels on the trail to cook their potions.


There were other fun things like painting a pumpkin, a haunted forest (very kid friendly) a story teller, and a real owl. Our prize at the end was a cob of popcorn. The kids are excited to try popping it in the microwave. I am not so sure.


Usually Ryan's dad comes with us. He was not able to come this year and the kids really missed him. They decided to bring a cob of popcorn home for Grandpa, so that he would not miss out on all of the fun. Maybe we can try popping it at his house.