Pumpkin Carving

So we started our Halloween Pumpkin Carving Night about two weeks ago, well we've told you all about the humidity around here so we should have known that a pumpkin would go rotten in two weeks, but we didn't so here was a wasted investment in entertainment. oh well easy come easy go!!!
And if you look behind me at the door you can see our movable scarecrow decoration, the scarecrow and some inflatable ghosts that are hanging in our window are the only decorations we have up for this year.



Since we lost our last pumpkin to the humidity we bought two more and carved them after our big ultrasound appointment, and here is us pulling out the guts!!!



This is a close up of my Pumpkin it's a scarecrow, Wendy's is a bugaboo(not pictured),but her's is pretty cool. This year we used a Jack-O-Lantern Pattern Book just so you don't think that we are amazing carvers. No we just cheat!!! the "tools" that we used weren't very good, the small knife for detailing broke early on and then the tracing tool didn't work very well I pressed pretty hard and I could hardly see the marks in the pumpkin so I replaced the paper and cut out the pieces with the paper on the pumpkin.



BOOOO!!! Oh wait here's Wendy's Bugaboo. Obviously finished. it's cool!!



And here is my Scarecrow we worked pretty hard on these!!



I hope everyone has a SPOOKTACULAR Halloween!!!

Halloweens Past

Today, we're going to relive Halloweens from the past by examining some of my old costumes. I do not have nearly as many pictures of costumes on my computer as I did of pumpkins. But I'm sure you'll enjoy looking as these just as much.

The last time I dressed up was a few years ago. This was a particularly cheap costume. The only thing I purchased was the white pants. I made the buttons and carrot nose out of construction paper and borrowed the top hat. Here I am with my life guard and butterfly roommates.
We dressed up for a stake Halloween party. The church was so hot... but me in my snowman costume (which I had double layered because white can be a little too transparent) made for a really uncomfortably warm evening. I ran in to an old pal while I was at this party and met his friend. Later, this old pal told me that his friend kept asking him when they could hang out with his "snowman friend." I didn't realize my snowman costume was so attractive and had made such a big impression!

The year before that I dressed up as a Paramecium. I know, who does that? I even labeled myself so all could recognize my unique organs.
Actually, I was part of a whole team. My roommates and I went to our ward Halloween party as the Kingdoms of Life. From left to right you see a lion (animal kingdom), a mushroom (fungi kingdom), me (the paramecium kingdom??), a virus (not exactly a kingdom...) and a palm tree (plant kingdom). We totally should have won the costume contest! But instead the Harry Potter team won (sooo not original.)

Then there was the time I threw a costume together several hours before a party. I borrowed black pants, black gloves and a black hoodie. I already had the white tape and black scarf.
Personally, I think I made a dang good skunk! Whenever I look at this picture I'm sad that it turned out kinda blurry!

Now we'll rewind a few more years to high school. Both of us were a bunch of grapes. The best part of this costume is that while we were Trick or Treating we heard some boys yell down the street, "Hey, look, balloon girls! Let's go pop 'em!" And that ended our Trick or Treating fun for that night!! (No, we never got popped.)

And finally, one of my favorite costumes of all time, a witch costume made by my mom. I vaguely remember watching her make it on the sewing machine. I painted my face green like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz... but somehow I missed my whole forehead?

This was probably about the same year that my dad taught me how to spell witch for my spelling test. I had tried all evening to learn how to spell witch and ghost and wasn't getting it. When I woke up on the morning of the spelling test, my dad told me he had a way for me to remember w-i-t-c-h. He told me: Wendy Is The Cute Head: w-i-t-c-h. I remember him telling me it was a silly way to remember...but guess what, to this day, that is how I remember how to spell witch.

And on a mostly unrelated note, the pumpkin we bought at Foodland (that I wrote about last time) molded while it was sitting on the floor waiting to be carved! Stupid humidity!

Halloween's Many Faces

Who doesn't LOVE carving pumpkins for Halloween? Since the 1860s, this pumpkin art has been associated with Halloween. Since 1981, it has filled at least one of my October evenings in preparation for the big night of October 31st.

1982 (?) Here you see me (in pink) with my cute little sister, Cindy, with our pumpkins. I'm not sure of the year but don't you think I look about 2 and she looks about 1? Whatever our ages, it was long before we were old enough to use knives to carve pumpkins, thus the permanent marker. In fact, it was long before we were old enough to use permanent markers; I'm sure Mom and Dad drew these faces for us.
1987 (?) A few years later, we had this pumpkin for Halloween. I remember my dad had this great idea to put hard boiled eggs in the carved eyes and an apple slice coming out of the mouth like a tongue. But, if you'll notice the 4 pumpkins in the background... those were ours and they are UNCARVED. Looks like we were all still too little to use knives!

Back in this day, we used to put our pumpkins out in the garden after Halloween was over. Through the winter we'd watch them slowly shrivel under the snow. By Easter, they were completely flattened in the dirt.

(I carved many pumpkins between 1987 and 2004, but have no pictures on my laptop to display.)

2005 This is my roommate, Melanie, with our pumpkin that we carved at an FHE group (the same mashed potato dragon group). I think we gave it an awesome name to go with those giant teeth, but I don't really remember.
2005 A few days later that same year, my other roommate, Haley, and I decided to try carving mini pumpkins. Let me tell you this: Not as easy as you'd think! And, WOW, they were smelly!

And then because our mini carvings were way too awesome to keep to ourselves, we stuck them in a planter box next to the stairwell at Continental Apartments so all could enjoy our Post-Halloween pumpkins creativity. (But they didn't last very long in the planter box... someone quickly tossed them out, not fully appreciating our hard work!)

2006 I had a great idea this year which stemmed from my inability to decide if I wanted to carve a mean face or a happy face. I was probably torn between happy and mean because this was when I lived at the "Tramp House" and had reasons to reflect mean-ness and happiness which will not be further discussed here. The bottom line is that I ended up carving 2 faces on 1 pumpkin: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

This is the happy side (my expression is reflective of the pumpkin's expression as per request of the photographer.)

This is the mean side.

And just so you know that it really was ONE pumpkin, I took this pic looking in through one eye and out the other mouth.

2007 And finally, we come to the most recent pumpkin carving experience I've had. Dave and I were dating at this time and he showed up one night with 2 surprises: a pumpkin that we would carve together and the news that he was leaving the NEXT DAY (instead of 2 days from then) to work in Texas for several weeks. I was not happy! But we carved this amazing pumpkin. My favorite part about this one is that as we were talking about what kind of face to give it, I looked down at the news paper ads on the counter and saw this little tiny drawing of a spider that was no bigger than 1/4 of an inch. I said, "Let's make this spider!" And we did. I enlarged it on the pumpkin and we took turns carving.

And, sure enough, I was the only one around on Halloween to actually enjoy it... cuz SOMEBODY had to go away for work!

2009 We did nothing with pumpkins last year because Foodland, the local grocery story, sold out. (Weird, huh.) We got an early start this year and purchased our pumpkin from Foodland yesterday. It cost 69 cents/pound! A grand total of $7 and it's small!

And now we debate: What should we carve into Jack this year?

Memory-lane Monday: Mashed Potato Dragon

Three and a half years ago I was living at Continental Apartments in Logan, UT. A usual highlight of the week was Monday night's FHE activities. I have pulled from the archives some pictures of an especially memorable FHE activity: Mashed Potato Sculptures.

We met downstairs in a boys' apartment and it looks like each apartment brought a pot of instant mashed potatoes. Then we got to stick our hands all over in the potatoes and make something. Here's some people in the group (none of my roommates are featured.)

After everyone else was finished, I kept working. (Masterpieces take time.)

This is the creation I came up with. Isn't it awesome!?!

I may not be all that "crafty", but you've gotta admit that this is one stinkin' cool mashed potato dragon!

Vacation Part 3: Salt Lake

We spent the last week of our vacation in Sandy because my dad was recovering from surgery (Don't worry... he's fine!) Please note: all of the following pictures contain food.


This is me in the cafeteria at the hospital eating a giant Rice Krispy Treat. I'd heard a lot about this cafeteria before we even got home. It was pretty good AND cheap (the best part).
Typical Dave.

Olive Garden for Krista's birthday.

Fun times, except mom and dad were still at the hospital. (But dinner was on them!)

We met a bunch of friends from USU (Continental Apartments to be exact) at Iggy's in Salt Lake.

And we met Heather and Andrew up the canyon for dinner and s'mores another night.

And on yet another eating occasion, we met Sam and Monica at Garcia's.

Basically, by the time we got to the end of our trip we were exhausted!
We put 1,318 miles on my parents' car (that doesn't include the miles we drove to Yellowstone, around Yellowstone, and down and back to Alton, UT.)
We ate at every single restaurant we like but don't have in Hawaii.
And we visited with 100 relatives.

It actually was kind of nice to get back on a island where you can only drive so far before you've made a complete circle and where you can only find so many relatives (0 in our case).

Vacation Part 2: Ferron

After Yellowstone, we went straight to a Larson Family Reunion in Ferron, UT. These reunions happen every 2 years in various locations. This time around, Dave's parents were in charge and they planned it in Ferron because that's where Great Grandma and Grandpa Larson lived.

First up, here's Dave with our nephew, Kolter. Isn't he cute?!

Next, I got my hair done while we were there thanks to Kailey. She did an awesome job and it kept us entertained while the adults were having their meeting.

One time, Dave left his house key in the house. So here he is breaking in to his own bedroom. He acted like he'd done it a million times... though I can't figure out why! Notice the 'Do Not Enter' sign in the corner.

Dave's dad was sort of our tour guide around Ferron on one of the mornings. Here he is talking to a group of family members about the sight that the old homestead sat on.

And here I am taking a nap at the homestead on a rock just like Great Grandma L. would have done! ;)

We also went on a "little" (but hot) hike to the Rochester Panel to look at some Native American writings. It was really cool because they seemed to be in great condition, considering how old they are.

What Family Reunion is complete without singing? (Besides Whitaker Family Reunions?) Here we are with Lori, Dave's sister. I didn't even recognize one single song that they sang! Guess I haven't been around long enough.

This is Dave playing volleyball with his cousins (actually, his cousins' kids). These girls LOVE Dave!

After the reunion was over we got to drive down and say hi to Dave's brother, who wasn't able to make it to the reunion, but his wife and baby came, which was so fun! Richard's grillin' us some steaks for dinner.

And here's everyone in the family who was able to be in town for at least parts of the reunion. Left to right: Dad, Mom, Kolter, Tyson & Lori, Britney, Wendy, Dave.

We did a few other things (like mowing the lawn and a Manti Temple trip for family names) while we were in Ferron but didn't get any pictures of those events. The time went so quickly and we wish we lived closer so we could see everybody more often!

Vacation Part I: Yellowstone

The first thing we did when we got to Utah a few weeks ago was drive up to Yellowstone to spend a week with my family. While there were thousands of pictures taken this year in Yellowstone, I have included just a few of the many highlights.

We'll start with the famous trash cans.
Next up, our Japanese Jumping Picture, featuring White Dome Geyser of the Lower Geyser Basin. Like 30 pictures were taken here; never were we all in the air at the same time. I'm pretty sure I was the one to get the least amount of air (in any of the poses!)
Matching Shirt Day. It only happens once a year in Yellowstone and we're always sure to get lots of pictures on that day.
Cindy, me and Krista getting warm under a blanket in Mom's and Dad's cabin. The weather was pretty cool and rainy for a lot of the time we were there.
The only bear we saw this year was wooden. Actually, I've been to Yellowstone every single year of my life and I've only see ONE live bear. It happened maybe 5 years ago.

This is Beehive Geyser, Dave's favorite geyser. We saw it 3 times this trip. It only erupts right now about once a day during daylight hours.
Us at Canyon-Lower Falls
Waiting for Grand Geyser with Jeff and Cindy (my brother and sister).
Another day. Waiting for Grand Geyser again. Eating lunch.

Snacks on the Knotty Pine Porch one evening. We also played Telephone here this night. It was HILARIOUS!!

My very first boat rowing experience!! It's so much harder than it looks! And it's definitely tons harder than those rowing machines at gyms. Jeff had to help me. And it kinda threw me off that you row backwards. We weren't out on the lake for more than 20 minutes because a thunder storm came our way, so our boat rental was free!

Another one from Green Shirt Day. This is all of us around a sign we found at our picnic spot telling us (and I'm pretty sure it was directed at OUR FAMILY specifically) NOT to build rock dams in the river. Last year we made a HUGE dam that stretched across the whole river... it may or may not have flooded onto the banks. Ooops.

Well, that's a quick summary of Yellowstone. If you didn't know, my family has been going to Yellowstone every year since before I was born. As you can see, we have so much fun there with each other. If you haven't ever been, you should take a trip... I can give you some pointer of how to make it a great trip!

Next I'll be posting about our Larson Family Reunion and some time in Salt Lake.