Happy Halloween!

Halloween has been an fun and busy time of year for me since I was a child. This year was no exception. I do not have many pictures yet because I forgot to take a roll in for developing this morning. More will be posted. Thanks to Sara for taking the photographs I use in this entry.

On Friday, Oct. 26, CGSA went to the home of one of our staff members for soup and a pumpkin carving party.


Before we began carving, we enjoyed several delicious soups prepared by our hostess.

No, this is not my costume, and no one has ever called me photogenic. This photograph shows me in the process of making a pumpkin pie using one of the pumpkins I brought to the party. Our hostess (Peggy) provided the remainder of the ingredients. The knife is for cutting up the cooked pumpkin in preparation for mashing. Though it did not look like a pumpkin pie made using canned pumpkin, I thought it was quite tasty and so did several other members of the party.

After we finished the soup, we began gutting our pumpkins, the first step in the process of turning them into Jack-O-Lanterns.

From left to right above, you can see "Boo," a "stylized harp," and pumpkins carved into a pumpkin. The latter one the prize for "most literal" pumpkin carving.

Here is a more traditional carving.

Some people were quite ambitions in their carving projects, using stencils to create intricate patterns, such as this cat in a window.

Pictures of the Jack-O-Lanterns that my roommates and I carved shall appear in a future entry.

On Monday, two physics graduate students hosted a Halloween party at their house. It boasted a wide array of costumes, including Wonder Woman, a hippie, Osama Bin Laden, Abraham Lincoln, Harry Potter, the Phantom of the Opera, a saloon girl, and a garden gnome. These photographs will be posted as soon as I get them developed.

Currently, I am sitting in my costume, waiting for trick-or-treaters to knock on the house door. So far, four have come, including one child who was so scared that his mother had to come to the door for him!

I may wear my costume one more time at a Halloween party my church student group is hosting on Friday, Nov. 2.