jackson is finally old enough this year to dress up and take out for some good, old-fashioned trick-or-treating! hurrah!

night one of our quest for candy led us to hood college, in the heart of the city of frederick. the historic college has some famous alumnae in spence circles (hoodlums — you know who you are!!), and we thought, what better place to break our 2-year-old into the halloween gig?

hood hosts “safe harvest” each year on campus. basically, students in various dorms decorate and dress themselves up for halloween and the city’s children walk around to pick up treats from the older kids! what a great idea!

dave, jackson and molly were supposed to meet up with friends brian, lisa and their son, aidan (who we’re staying with this week — but that’s another blog!) at hood at about 7 p.m. but that was easier said than done! safe harvest is a popular event, we learned, as we passed by the mobs of kids and their parents.

we finally met little astronaut aidan and his parents and walked around to three residence halls, collecting tons of candy along the way. jackson was mesmerized by all the lights and decorations, but he quickly got the hang of it. he knew right away to grab one piece of candy and stuff it into his bucket (thanks, barainyaks for the tote!). as we left each hall, he’d say “please mommy, jackson get more candy?”

we passed by many superheroes (batman, spiderman) and a baby shrek, some fairies, princesses and even a policeman. but so many people were oohing and aahing over our little chef and calling out to him — “hey chef!” we must admit, he was pretty darn cute!

when we were all done, jackson was rewarded with one bite-size hershey bar before bed. he loved it!

on friday night, we plan to go door-to-door in spring ridge — the neighborhood where brian, lisa and aidan live. we’ll post more photos after that!