I would actually just like to spend the entire season of fall in a place where there is an actual prolonged season of fall. I'm from North Dakota and in terms of seasons it goes something like this: Spring __ Summer ___ Fall _ Winter __________________ ... Well anyway, you get the picture. Usually fall sets in around mid-September. You can smell the change in weather on the wind. It is absolutely magical. I love how the wind does that. Unfortunately, the wind is what ruins fall for me. As I said before, mid-September is when fall sets in over in North Dakota; probably around September 15ish. Well around September 30, just enough time for the leaves to start changing and things to get beautiful along the river a nasty wind sweeps in and blows all the leaves off the trees, which translates to a very ugly fall and a sad me.
There are many other great things about fall. My mom and grandma and many other irreplaceable friends have their birthdays during the fall but among these holidays is another holiday that I don't really celebrate anymore but I love looking at all the fun little kids have; that would be Halloween or "All Hallows Eve" as the Christian world allegedly calls it.
Mostly I like Halloween for three reasons. Adorable children's costumes, pumpkin carving, and candy. Here are some pictures to document my love for these three wonderful things.
Well now that I've overloaded this post with pictures (probably to make up for the increasingly apparent lack of pictures in my other posts), I will move on to talk about how much I love carving pumpkins. (There are no pictures of candy because I don't want to give you an enormous hankering. And yes, I know that some of the carving pictures aren't actually done on pumpkins but what can you do? I really like penguins and owls...and watermelon.)
When I was a kid, every fall around Halloween time my brother and I would go with our parents to Papa's Pumpkin Patch and pick out the perfect pumpkin for each of us to carve. My mom never really got into carving but that's ok, like ice fishing it was something special we did with our dad. Anyway, I don't really have any specific memories of what I carved, just that I did. When I was younger I mostly just picked out what I wanted my dad to carve and then I helped him gut the pumpkin and helped tape the pattern onto the pumpkin but after that I quickly lost interest and left to come back to the most amazing pumpkin a 6 year old could ask for. My dad is a master at carving stuff. That's sorta why I included the watermelons. My dad used to carve all kinds of things. He is awesome. I digress. As I got older I progressed to actually helping poke out the little dotted lines that are the secret to any amateur pumpkin carver's success. And as I continued to age (like cheese...or wine...) I actually did some of the carving. I have so many memories of carving. It was always a blast. On a particularly sad note, I remember one year when some teenage hooligans thought it would be funny to smash our pumpkins in the road. Needless to say, my brother and I were crushed, devastated, reduced to tears. It was very sad. But moving on, I never really got into the whole costume thing. I was a Christmas tree once. I think that was the last time I went trick-or-treating. I was 17 haha. A group of friends and I went to the governor's house and trick or treated. We actually had to wait in line to get to the door. Anyway, the governor (ya Hoven!) told me I made a very cute Christmas tree. :) Wow. This is getting ridiculous. If you have actually made it this far in this post, I am VERY impressed. :) I should probably stop talking and save some for next time. So until next time, Happy Halloween!
-Ashley
