october photo show

So Jon and Abbey hosted a pumpkin carving night last week. They spread out a tarp on their living room floor, brought out all kinds of cutlery (including a genuine scalpel and the infamous Ginzu knife), plopped down a bowl for plopping in pumpkin seeds, and by the end of the evening we had filled their porch with jack-o-lanterns. Here's the full line-up:

Here's a close-up of the pumpkin eyeball and the "punk-a-lope"/roadkill pumpkin.


Here's two more, including the pumpkin monster on the left. Unfortunately you can't see the persimmon-laden branches for the arms in this photo.


And everybody's favorite, my sister's ninja pumpkin...and its unfortunate victim...


The only downside of this night is our unseasonably warm late-October weather, which had all of these pumpkin growing hair after only two days. We had to throw ours out last night, two nights before Halloween :-(



And this is a birdhouse in the pasture on the hill above the house where we're living these days.


And...I think it was last weekend...we went to a marching band competition in Loomis. Both of us used to be band geeks in high school, so this was especially fun for us. I marched in the Loomis band review four years straight. Our friends John and Laurie had invited us to watch with them, and my cousin Blayne (yes, the wasp in the hair cousin Blayne) was marching with my old high school band and our friends. On the whole it was more enjoyable this time around to be on the side of the street.

This is us after the band review. Looking oh so good.


But not quite as good as this guy. Does life get better than a drum major in full Scottish attire? I submit that it cannot.