Girls' Night Out at the Pumpkin Walk

The week before Halloween, Brian went out of town due to work for two days. I'm not one of those people who gets freaked out when I'm home alone or anything like that. However, I do go a bit crazy after being cooped up in my house by myself for too long. Think Jack Nicholson from "The Shining". Heeeere's Johnny!

I decided that I needed to get out of the house to pass the time that evening, and I convinced my mom and sisters to accompany me. We went out to dinner and then paid a visit to the North Logan Pumpkin Walk. The Pumpkin Walk is amazing for kids and adults alike. It's a free event the week before Halloween where people set up intricate displays using pumpkins, squash and other things. Many of the scenes are from movies, television shows or books. My favorite this year was probably a display of "Despicable Me 2". Pumpkins make the cutest minions, for real. This year, there were 50 different displays. The weather was even pretty mild for late October in Utah so it was nice to walk around outside. When I went two years ago, I'm pretty sure it was snowing and I walked through as quickly as humanly possible before my ears froze off.

I love that I live in a place that still has that American small-town feel. The Pumpkin Walk is just one of the many reminders of that. Guess what they do with the hundreds of pumpkins after the event is over? Well, they have the Pumpkin Toss. Teams build their own catapults to throw the pumpkins. I went to cover that event for work on Saturday and it was a blast (no pun intended).

Anyway, I didn't go camera crazy at the Pumpkin Walk and get a photo of every display, but we did take plenty of pictures using the face hole setups at the front of the park. Keep scrolling for further enjoyment . . .

    

and my personal favorite . . .

Girl time with my mom and sisters is the best. 

Local Pumpkins are the Best Pumpkins

I figured I need to prove my middle-class, white girl status by posting about our trip to the pumpkin patch.

We went with our good friends, Richie and Lauren. We love Richie and Lauren but let's be honest, the real reason we invited them was so we could watch their baby Claire be ultra cute.

I don't, for the life of me, understand why anyone around here would buy their pumpkins at the nearest Walmart. I suppose it's for convenience sake. However, it's only a short drive to many local farms where they sell a plethora of pumpkins. Variety is much greater than what you get at a store in town and the prices are much kinder on the wallet, too.

We live in an agricultural area. Everyone should be buying from our local farmers. Handing our money to the owner of the pumpkin patch felt a lot better than running a debit card at a cash register. Plus, the pictures at the pumpkin patch turned out much cuter than they would have in front of Wally World.

Sorry I'm anti-Walmart (except I'm really not sorry).

Check out Richie and Lauren's blog here. They're both pretty witty and I think they need to post more often, if you ask me.

I'm a Mean Old Witch With a Hat

and I ride on my broom with my cat. . . 

Did anyone else sing that song in elementary?

I am sad to see Halloween go. I am sad to see our jack-o-lanterns that were so freshly carved a week ago now sit sad and mushy on our porch. I am sad to take our ghost family made out of cheap bed sheets down from above our staircase. It was fun "hanging" out with them. And I am sad to take down all my other creepy Halloween decorations. I will especially be sad to remove the creepy crows complete with branches in jars from our kitchen table. As you can notice in the picture of my crow friend above, his little feathers are a bit matted. That would be Luna's fault. And that would be the whole reason that I'm going to miss the crow decor the most. As upset as I always was with that silly black kitty, I will miss coming downstairs from doing my hair in the morning to find Luna at the bottom of the staircase, tail twitching with excitement, and an attacked crow propped at her feet. I have a feeling she was always looking for me to be proud of her that she detached her target (the crow) from its spot at the table. She always left it there at the bottom of the stairs as some sort of prize for me.

Oh well, all good things must come to an end. And they must end so that another good thing may start. I am excited for November and Thanksgiving. I might even be ambitious and do some "gratitude journal" posts. But don't count on it.

Also, can you tell what our pumpkins are? Brian's turned out pretty awesome. I don't have much patience when it comes to carving pumpkins, so I went with a simple design. Does it look more like a wolf or a dragon? Ha ha. Either way, I'm just surprised and glad I carved something out of that hulkish pumpkin. I swear, it was like a foot thick.

Pumpkin Pleasure

 That title sounds like it could be a little risque. But this post is not risque at all. I knew that title would reel you in. You sucker.

 our pickins

pay no attention to the couple canoodling in the background

 Last night, I should have done more homework, but instead Brian and I jumped in the truck and drove out to a little local pumpkin patch. There is something about a pumpkin patch that makes me feel like a giddy fifteen year old. It might be the fact that I had a crush on a pumpkin patch boy when I was fifteen. Those big green eyes and the way he carried those pumpkins on his shoulder just made my heart thump, you know? Well, a few days after I finally turned the magical Mormon age of 16 (we're advised not to date until then), Pumpkin Boy took me on my first date. I still remember what I wore on that date because it took me about an hour to pick it out. When Pumpkin Boy picked me up, he took me to the bowling alley. I hate bowling. And I guess seeing Pumpkin Boy carry bowling balls on his shoulder instead of pumpkins made me nervous and confused. I hardly talked all night. He didn't ask me out again after that.

And I'm cool with that because last night at the pumpkin patch, I got to watch my blue eyed, blonde haired boy haul pumpkins around and it made my heart thump extra hard. After a long search of digging through piles of pumpkins to find just the right ones, I finally came to the point where I was ready to make our purchase. The owner made fun of me at one point and asked if I was trying to find just the right ones. I told him yes. The owner also talked me into buying these cute little squashes that he told me to eat after I was done using them as decorations. That sounded exciting. So I'm looking forward to the day that I cut those little squashes open and stick them in the oven. I'll let you know how that goes.

So this morning, I have a pile of funny pumpkins in all varieties and I also have a pile of unfinished homework. The pumpkins were way more fun to invest my time in so I don't feel guilty at all. I am also glad we went to a local pumpkin patch and not to some grocery store that has crummy pumpkins out front. Brian and I are all about shopping locally. So I guess I'll just end this pumpkin adventure by putting a plug in to shop local first. Smile.

Chinese Food & a Pumpkin Walk

Occasionally, on days when Brian gets home from work and I get home from school, neither of us feel like cooking dinner. It can be a lot of work; cooking. All the planning of what to prepare, all the mess you have to make, all the waiting for the meal to be ready to eat. Not to mention, once you finish eating, you have to worry about cleaning up and washing dishes. C'mon guys, cooking can be a pain.

So on such occasions when neither of us want to do so much as look in the direction of a pot or pan, we take the luxury of eating out. Thursday night, we chose Chinese food. It really hit the spot.

 Then, after nibbling away at our fortune cookies, we also treated ourselves to the luxury of going to the pumpkin walk.

The pumpkin walk was packed with people. There was a huge line that went all the way out of the park. Since the cold was nipping at our fingers and toes, we didn't want to wait in the long line. So we decided to go through the park backwards. A handful of other people also had the bright idea of going through backwards so we weren't complete loners. Being backward folk was a bit strange and we didn't get to take our sweet time at all the displays, but it was still a good time. Plus, we didn't have to stand in line for hours at a time and didn't develop hypothermia. Any ways, I always love a creative pumpkin display. Way to go pumpkin artists! I snapped a few pictures so you can feel like you're going on a pumpkin walk too. You're welcome!  

Tangled. . .this was my favorite display!

The Happiness Smashers

Halloween is just around the corner, and I am pretty excited! I am quite a fan of Halloween. Actually, I am quite a fan of all holidays in general. But as Halloween is nearing, the dreaded Happiness Smashers are coming out. These Happiness Smashers smash much more than just happiness. . . .they smash pumpkins.

I won't deny it. During my high school career, I smashed many a pumpkin. Usually this mask was covering my face, in order to keep my reputation safe. . . . .

But here is the thing:

I always did my smashing the night of Halloween.

That way, I wasn't being too much of a happiness smasher. After Halloween, people usually throw the jack-o-lanterns in the trash any ways. But a week before Halloween???? Come on, people!!

This past weekend (that would be a week before Halloween almost exactly) I drove through Old Farm's parking lot to find pumpkins smashed. They weren't just in the parking lot. They were also smashed on the lawn. And I wondered to myself, what could be wrong with these college kids, smashing other college kids' jack-o-lanterns? And a week before Halloween? It's a sick and twisted thing really.

I think I have realized what the problem is though. .

Some kids come to college and just go a little nuts. These are kids that probably haven't rebelled a day in their lives, and now they feel they can do anything they want. I feel there are quite a few of these kids at Old Farm. Things like this will happen:

• It might be Wednesday night (or Thursday morning if we get technical) at about 3 am, and there will be kids outside my bedroom window. They should not be awake at this time. Let alone outside. But they are. Not only that, but they are screaming. I have no idea why. And neither do they. Basically, the only reason they are screaming at 3 in the morning is because they can. They no longer have curfew, or parents to tell them to come back inside. This leaves me to yell at them from my window. Because some of us actually missed curfew a few times in our life and have learned to appreciate sleep on a weekday.
  
  
• It might be raining. Raining hard. It's cold. There are girls outside. With no shoes on. Playing in the rain gutters. Sliding in the mud. Getting sopping wet. These girls are going to get sick. Then they will skip class due to being sick. And FAIL. Sure, playing in the rain is fun. But I got plenty of that done as a kid. I also went skinny dipping in high school before. Skinny dipping makes playing in the rain gutter when it is freezing outside look pretty pathetic, and not very wise either.
  

This brings me to my pumpkin smashing theory. These kids that never rebelled in high school, see pumpkins on doorsteps and their fingers just itch. They probably heard about smashing pumpkins. But they had in their mind it was a bad and evil thing to do.

Killing people is a bad and evil thing to do.

Some things, I feel, should be experienced, and a lot of these experiences, while in high school. Smashing a pumpkin should be experienced by everyone. So to all those kids that held themselves back while in high school: Go for it! Smash them! But please have proper havoc reeking etiquette and wait to smash the night of Halloween. Some of us took a great amount of time and effort to carve our pumpkins. And we will not be happy campers if you smash our hard work.

Here are some pictures of some amazing jack-o-lanterns. We went on such a fun date last week. Dinner at Iggy's. Pumpkin carving. Carmel apple making. "Hocus Pocus" watching. Did I mention I'm quite a fan of Halloween?

Good thing I lift weights ;)

Best date ever!

Flawless.

This would be my kitty. Which about ended up with 5 legs. Oops.

I would post a few more pictures. . .but I am downloading Adobe Photoshop at this very moment at the same time I'm blogging. My computer doesn't like that too much. So I'll quit confusing her and be done now, and maybe Photoshop will load.