Every year, Syracuse City puts on a Pumpkin walk. It is a fabulous Halloween tradition: Black Island Farms donates thousands of pumpkins to the city and then anyone and everyone can come and carve and decorate and then give back the jack-o-lanterns. Then they put all the pumpkins in a line around the city park, light them and let everyone come and go for a walk. (They light the pumpkins with lights not candles! Can you imagine trying to light all the pumpkins?? Yes you say, but that is because you don't realize that there are really a lot of pumpkins)
Last year Michelle and I went with little baby Sammy. I think he slept the whole way through. This year he was almost excited. Well at least he actually wanted to try and touch the pumpkins! But we all learned, "DON'T TOUCH THE PUMPKINS!" Not sure why we didn't get a picture of any of the many pumpkins carved with "Don't touch the Pumpkins" (From english, spanish, japanese, Oromo?, Pig Latin, King James).
Anway, we invited family to come along with us to start a tradition of going on a pumpkin walk in the cold and coming back to our place for hot chocolate and homemade doughnuts. We didn't think of this far enough in advance, so some people didn't get the memo in time (Sorry guys!).
Anyway, here are some pictures of the event:
After waiting in line for about 30 minutes, we were ready to begin. Something new this year were all these cutesy little signs. They were painted by the Val Bagley? person who does a lot of church cartoony books and comics. They did a good job and helped bring in the spirit of the festivity!
Waiting in line was not a favorite thing for Sam. He was outside so he really wanted to run around. Instead his mode of travel consisted of (in order from left to right top to bottom): ride on Dad's shoulders, throw a crazy fit, be cute (momentarily), cuddle after being warn out from the tantrum, joust with Nathan (Nathan thought Sam was giving him the sucker when instead Sam's intent was to poke him in the face with it), ride on Mom's shoulders, sit with Mom and Dad in front of a sign, ride with Dad, and finally!! walk and try and touch all the pumpkins. Unfortunately he was held at just the right distance that his final objective was not reached, We Hope.
I think Sammy did have a good time once we got walking. It was great that they had kids posted at just the right intervals giving out candy. By the time most kids got bored walking, there was another station with some candy to keep them going for another leg. Sam ate the sucker eventually and I think ate about half the stick in the process. Mmm Fiber!
Byron, Elizabeth and Nathan came along. Nathan is about 8 months younger than Sammy, and is a favorite friend. Unfortunately Nathan doesn't like balls being thrown at him, but we are working with Sammy on that, at least we tell ourselves that to help us sleep better at night. Anyway, it was great to have them along.
Here are all the attendees to the pumpkin walk on Friday night. Brandon & Kimberly and the boys came Saturday night to the walk, and stopped at our house to chat which was fabulous. As you can see, my parents came as well. Dad's hand is looking very good, in fact he showed us the pin that had been used to stabilize one finger (to which Michelle nearly vomitted). If you were confused about what I was talking about, Dad had a fight with the table saw and nearly chopped all his fingers off; the surgeons did a great job, and he is recovering fantastically.
So here are some of the favorite pumpkins. There were plenty of BYU carved ones varying in degree of professionalism, a whole muppets section, a whole disney section and everything in between. They varied in difficulty from a simple triangle and circle cut to intricate detail creating pictures of christ and the temple. Some of my favorites were pumpkin pi, pinky & the Brain asking for votes on Nov 4th (for world domination), and of course Trogdor burninating the countryside!!It was an enjoyable time. I mean let's be honest it wasn't Busch Gardens or anything, but it was fun to be with family and see all the creativity. Afterwards we had a great time making homemade doughnuts and hot chocolate and enjoying each other's company.
Learning to fly 
