Mini Costume Box

The gift I was most excited to give this year was to Mona.  It's a box of little figures made from the scraps of her old Halloween costumes.

It wasn't exactly a surprise since I did the same for Aden when she turned 12, but Mona was delighted by her box.  Aden's box still makes her weepy.  Mona is not as sentimental, but always appreciative, so it was a different sort of reaction this time around.  It was still worth the effort to hand stitch all those little costume figures, and I like the idea of my kids having mini versions of their Halloween costume memories to hold onto (rather than feel they must forever keep the actual costumes).

Mold-A-Ramas at Busch Gardens and the Mote Aquarium

After our whirlwind day in Tampa, the next two stops on our Mold-A-Rama Road Trip in Florida were Busch Gardens and the Mote Aquarium.  Busch Gardens was Mona's chosen spot where she got to dictate the length of our stay, so we got an early start and hit the park right when it opened.

I will admit, Busch Gardens was the one place on our list I was not looking forward to going.  I pictured an over-hyped tacky amusement park, and (for us) it's prohibitively expensive.  I questioned whether it was worth spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars in order to procure a half a dozen Mold-A-Rama figures.  But for the whole trip we traveled as frugally as we could, eating mostly peanut butter sandwiches in the car and staying with friends or in hotels that took coupons, so we decided we could afford to have this be our big splurge.

It turns out Busch Gardens is great.

Mold-A-Rama Rama

Our family talked at the beginning of the summer about things we want to do before vacation is up.  The top thing on my list?  Get one of every Mold-A-Rama figure at our zoo.  And today was our Mold-A-Rama Rama.

What is a Mold-A-Rama?  Well, if you're not from Milwaukee (or a small handful of other places according to a quick Google search) that's a very reasonable question, since I've only seen the likes of these machines here.  They were built back in the 60s, and maybe they were all over at one time, but I've never personally seen any outside of the Milwaukee County Zoo.

There are twelve of them scattered around the park.  You put in two dollars, and you get out a plastic figure molded on the spot that is shoved into a holding tray while it is still hot.  It's seriously kind of wonderful.