The Weekend of the Fests

While Mom was off Cranfesting....the kids and Travis harvested pumpkins with Grandma and Grandpa; then stopped to see the draining of Lake Tomah.





No major purchases at Cranfest: a hat (modeling), shirt and scarf by ellembee (also sold on etsy.com), rusted flower magnets for Kya to hang her school projects on the frig and a very unique and repurposed airplane for Therin from Dick Cooley "Spark your imagination" metal sculptures (www.sparkplugguy.com).


Fun in the latest fort-a tepee built from sunflower stalks and camo netting. Thank you Dad!


A tomato torte and applesauce for dinner where we shared our day's roses and thorns. Thankful that we have so many roses and so few thorns to share.

Among our other roses this weekend:
Mom completing another half marathon.
Getting to see part of the crazy Octoberfest parade Saturday.
Spending lots of family time together.
Getting more apples for applesauce from our generous neighbors, Jim and Jan.

Thorns:
The grass did not get mowed.
Peeling and cutting more apples to make applesauce.
Kya's is always driving (We drove to Tomah).

Pumpkin carving

Therin and Kya with our pumpkins.

The little pumpkin Kya is holding actually has three faces carved in it. Therin REALLY likes carving pumpkins and all the other pumpkins were spoken for so he maximized his pumpkin allotment by carving three faces in one (Yes, all by himself. Aren't we responsible parents? It was just a little saw.). Surgery may be in his future!

The pirate pumpkin was voted the family favorite.

Therin checking Dad's surgical skills.

It was in the 70's this weekend, beautiful weather to sit outside and carve pumpkins. I'm pretty sure they'll rot by Halloween but I wanted to carve at least a few while Travis was home. (He left for a month long transplant rotation in Madison.) I've been storing the pirate pumpkin in the frig, provided there is room, so hopefully it will last longer. I cooked the pumpkin seeds but tried a new recipe from allrecipes.com that was delicious-add garlic powder and worchestire sauce to the traditional butter and salt. So yummy!

The Annual Pumpkin Harvest with Grandpa

Grandpa's pumpkin patch.

Grandma and Grandpa Smith with Therin and Kya.


The family.


Grandpa, Kya and Therin.

Grandpa Smith took the family to harvest pumpkins this year on our way home from Aunt Julie's wedding. Since the ladies weren't off Cranfesting, we even got to go! When I was looking through seed catalogs this spring, I asked Rick if he would order these "Cinderella pumpkins," as Mary refers to them, and they were by far the most successful (only) pumpkins to grow this year! Grandpa was less than impressed with the production of his regular pumpkins so he even bought a few to "plant" in the garden so as not to disappoint the kids-what a thoughtful Grandpa!!! As always, we had to snap plenty of pictures.