Traditions

For the third year now, our pumpkin-carving skills have been put to the test while our little family celebrates one of our favorite traditions. It's AUTUMN, when we all get into the mood of college football (the big schools are MICHIGAN, GEORGIA and USC!), carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds and eating Amy's delicacies. All in that order!

It all starts in Amy's garage. Well, it actually starts with all of us buying our own pumpkins to carve and then congregating in her garage to begin the annual tradition.
(And oh, see the boombox in the way-way back? An old Peter, Paul and Mary soundtrack entertained us, as it did when Amy and Mark were Nicholas' age!)

Donica and Nicholas always get paired up together, for some reason, and because they were done first with his pumpkin, they decided to carve Donica's as well...which she had bought mainly for the seeds.

Even G'ma carved a pumpkin this year AND took the pictures, too
(except for this one, of course!).

From left to right: Nicholas/Donica, Mark, G'ma, Amy, Nicholas/Donica.
BOO.

We're not sure which we like most...the carving or roasting (read that as EATING) the seeds. Do we have to pick?

This year Amy tried this corn chowder recipe that we all LOVED!
You have to understand that she LOVES to cook and enjoys using us as guinea pigs whenever possible. Need I say that we enjoy it just as much, if not more!

I've been thinking about how there comes a point in time...as parents get old enough!...when the kids start taking over the traditions on which we hang our years. Amy says this may be her most favorite of them all, next to Thanksgiving. Well, it's HER tradition, so I can understand why it's so important to her...just as it's becoming important to us.

It's not a big album but here are the rest of the photos, to commemorate a wonderful memory for Autumn 2008! Enjoy!