Pumpkins!

We carved pumpkins most years when I was a kid. Strangely, my memories of that and my memories of Easter egg dyeing run along similar lines: Gooey insides and my dad always came up with the coolest designs :)

Jen brought back pumpkin carving for me as an adult and since we carved pumpkins in Tucson in 1996, I've carved a pumpkin just about every year since. This year Ingrid spear-headed the carving party and we held it outside on the patio of our hotel.


Jesse, KeLeen and Corey, all concentrating with varying degrees of intensity.

Lauren and Chris taking their design work very seriously.

Lauren: Is this a competition?
Chris: Cuz we're gonna win!"

I finished mine first so I got to sit back and watch all the genius around me.

Dustyn, also enjoying the festivities.

Ryan and his finished pirate ship.

Ingrid and Dracula. It took awhile to see it and she kept saying "look at the positive space, not the negative space!"

Lauren and Chris and their panorama pumpkin inclusive of a graveyard (with a tiny RIP on the gravestone and a ghost rising up above it), a haunted tree, clouds and bats. They did indeed win the non-competition :)

Some post-carving hijinks.

And clean up that didn't go so well...

And the finished product in the gazebo.

I think this is phase one of operation pumpkin carving. We discovered that several people in the cast have never carved a pumpkin before (poor deprived kids!) so we'll probably do it again in Delaware or Pennsylvania.

Have a good day everyone!