Carving the Pumpkins

Wednesday night is Trick-or-Treating night, and we have our pumpkins carved and ready. I didn't buy any candy, though. Claire will be out begging for the stuff herself (as Diego), and really I think one or less people will ring our doorbell. When I was younger we were never home to answer the door for the trick-or-treaters, so we'd put a big bowl of candy out with a "Happy Halloween, Take Some" sign. It was always empty when we got home, the entire thing dumped into the bag of the first kid to come by without supervision, I'm sure. We lived in a pretty rural area, with maybe eight kids to the neighborhood. Maybe I should just set out an empty bowl and tape a "Please Take One" sign to it. Just kidding. Kind of.

Anyway, the pumpkins. Claire was very excited about carving pumpkins all day. Then when we finally got down to business, she discovered that the process was messy, and by the look on her face, downright disgusting.










































That scoop was as close as she got to touching any of the insides. So she compromised by just drawing what she wanted carved right on the pumpkin, and then supervised Mike and I. They turned out pretty well. Mine is the traditional Jack-o-lantern, Claire's is the 'guy with glasses', and Mike's is the tree and bird.














Then I roasted the seeds. I've never done it before, and it turned out to be pretty easy. I'll definitely buy a few more pumpkins just for the seeds next time around. The three we got this year didn't have very many, and I think they will be gone as soon as Mike discovers them.

Claire Opening Halloween Presents

Here is a video I uploaded to YouTube of Claire opening Halloween presents.

Mike

Leaves

We had the ideal autumn weekend with peak fall colors, beautiful weather, and two batches of apple crisp. We spent as much time as possible out in the woods and up on hilltops to enjoy it all. There were many leaf collections started, many acorns planted, and big piles of leaves were raked, for the exclusive purpose of jumping into.

Seattle

Its already been a week since we got back from Seattle. I've been meaning to post a few pictures for a while now. It was much more vacation for Claire and I than Mike, since he had a conference to attend, but we all had a great time. It was really nice to catch up with a lot of the West Coast family. Claire, Audrey and George had a great time playing together, and that was really fun to see, too.

Claire and I spent an entire day at the Pacific Science Center, and we probably could have stayed longer than we did. Yet another place our Children's Museum of Maine membership came in handy. I really really love that we are a part of the 'reciprocal' program. We've made good use of it all over the country. Anyway, we were able to catch two shows at the Pacific Science Center. The first was called 'SuperCold' and we watched a bunch of demonstrations showing how cool liquid nitrogen is. The second, 'Combustion' was about exploding things (like balloons filled up with hydrogen gas) and fire. These shows were my favorite part. Claire liked the bubble wall, which is really difficult to take a picture of.











We also found time while we were in Seattle to see the Ballard Locks, Pike Place, a beach, the Space Needle, and Mt. Rainier National Park. Mike and I even went out for dessert at a place where you order S'mores and get your own personal pot of fire to roast your marshmallows over. Very cool.

Some pictures (or click here for even more):