Pumpkin Patch Magic

In case you didn’t already know, I am obsessed with pumpkins. And I absolutely adore pumpkin patches. So the first weekend I was home my parents and I headed out to one of my favorite places – Lakeview Farms. I haven’t been home to go there for ages since I’ve been at school, so it was a wonderful reunion!

Here are some of the happy moments:

Isn’t it wonderful? (And isn’t the warty one extra cool?)

Lakeview Farms even offers the absolute best in pumpkin transportation – a boat that evades sharks and pirates, and a train that drives through a spooky haunted house.

Here’s what this year’s hoard looked like. Quite nice, if I do say so myself. I got to carve the biggest one today!

The trip was even educational!

We stopped at the roadhouse (McMenamins) on the way home, where I continued my quest to find the world’s best mac & cheese. Mmmmm…

It was highly successful day. Hope you all have a magical Halloween!

*song = Werewolf Bat Mitzvah, compliments of 30 Rock

Halloween Distractions

I have this thing where I think my brain has reached its limit of studying. And Halloween just provided way too great of a distraction. Here are some of the things we did for the holiday while not doing other (arguably more important, but way less fun) things.

My roommates made some cookies while watching Rear Window and I came home to catch the tail end of it. Brynn, who also didn’t want to do her homework, decided to see if she could make the same faces as the ghosts. Love her.

Naturally there was some dressing up.

And of course we carved some pumpkins!

We (mostly Annie) even made the pumpkin seeds into, well, cooked pumpkin seeds. And they were delicious.

Now for Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!

I am well aware of the fact that I should be asleep now since I have stake conference first thing in the morning, but I just got home and am 100% awake and ridiculously excited about Halloween. So here is a teaser of the ghoulish activities I’ve been up to.

Annie carved the Harry Potter pumpkin, I carved the happy vampire.

May your day be filled with candy!

Flavor of Fall

For me, fall means pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Actually, I have been known to eat them year round. As anyone who went to Washington Seminar with me should know, since I made some for dinner group and then proceeded to feed the entire building.

But I especially crave them once it gets close to Halloween and Thanksgiving and the changing of leaves. For more on the reason why I am so obsessed, check out Annie’s blog entry from earlier this summer. Let’s just say that ever since London I have been especially appreciative of pumpkin goodness.

Today I made my first batch of the season. If you want some come and listen to this month’s SPJ speaker, Josh Awtry, who is the assistant managing editor of the Salt Lake Tribune and will speaking on the future of journalism and new media. Thursday at 11 a.m. in the Brimhall Atrium on campus (sorry friends not in Utah!). Nice people will be there.

Or I might let you cheat if you stop by my apartment. One batch = 59 glorious cookies. But you better come soon because they will go quick!