Halloween

We had a fabulous Halloween again this year!

For the first time Matthew and I carved pumpkins. (To be clear... first time for Matthew and I together... I have carved pumpkins before. Once upon a time, many many moons ago, etc...) My dad had grown several in one of his gardens this year. While I was off in Dearborn the week before socializing with friends and networking for a job, Matthew and Dad were in the garden picking those pumpkins. Matthew got to pick out one to take home. I took the liberty of absconding with a pumpkin as well.

We looked and looked at different patterns to carve into our pumpkins. While I am really handy with a knife, I'm not exactly a free-hand artist. Matthew wanted something that was scary, spooky. He finally settled on a pattern that said Boo! with angry eyebrows on the face. And he helped me to pick out mine as well... Yeah, mama, that's a spooky scary face, use that one on your pumpkin. (Nodding his head seriously the whole time...) And for those of you out there asking the question... NO!!! He was NOT talking about the look on my own face! ;-)

We got our pumpkins all cleaned up and I started cutting out the tops. Matthew's was first, and once I got the top off, I helped him roll up his sleeves so he could "dig in" and clean out the pumpkin. His impressions about the inside of a pumpkin were hilarious. It's stinky mama. I only want to get out the seeds, mama. It's slippery and stringy, mama. But eventually, he got the job done. He determined where to start the carving on the pumpkin, and helped hold the pattern pieces in place while I put in the first marks to guide the actual carving a bit later. Once we were all done carving out both pumpkins, he gathered up candles and the candle lighter so we could see how they looked. His comment was they looked great. It was the baby pumpkin being hugged by the mama pumpkin. I just love his views of the world. :-)

The tradition of trick-or-treating with my "chosen sister" continued. We packed up and went to her house on the Friday so we could spend the whole weekend with them. So as it turns out, four adults and six kids took to the streets of a small German-Catholic town in mid-Michigan for what ended up being a great haul on Saturday night!! :-)

I have to admit that I love going out trick-or-treating in this particular town. It is small enough that you know the people in every house, and you know the people you pass on the sidewalks as you move around the neighborhoods. Depending on our location situation, we should be able to get one more year of trick-or-treating in with them. After next year Halloween moves back into the school week, and the distances between our homes means too much travel for a school night.

And the funny bit for the night?? Cows and a Yak(!!) in the village limits of the town we were visiting. I have been through this neighborhood for five years now, and never seen these animals before. I took this picture while standing at the edge of a cul-de-sac. There is only a short span of yard and a small ditch between where I'm standing and the happy little bovines. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that DST didn't end until Sunday morning... we did the majority of our trick-or-treating by daylight this year. That was a new experience as well.