a tale of six pumpkins

 Just as we were headed out the door to carve pumpkins at my parents' house on Friday, Blaine walked over to the cabinet above our refrigerator, opened the door, reached inside and pulled out the pumpkin carving tools and templates we bought two years ago (I told you, he doesn't waste a thing). I had forgotten all about them, particularly since I haven't seen them in two years, and because the kitchen in our house is Blaine's domain; it's off-limits to me, except to make an Ego Waffle in the morning.  Anyway, I found it somewhat entertaining/concerning/intriguing that Blaine knew exactly where to look for something we haven't used in two years, yet, not too long ago we couldn't find the spatula for a couple of weeks, and we used it pretty regularly (eventually we found the spatula outside beside the grill).

 Anyway, since Blaine and I hadn't already picked out our pumpkins, we had to stop and get them on the way to my parents' house.  Blaine was so proud of his pumpkin, he felt it was necessary to strap it in with a seatbelt; whereas, I just dumped mine in the floorboard. However, despite my failure to seatbelt my pumpkin, it came through relatively unscathed and was in mint condition when we arrived at my parents' house. 

  

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Rather than bore you with the mundane details of  the events leading up to carving, I'll go from here:

We started out with six participants: Jeff and Michelle (my older brother and his wife), Tyler and Bekah (my younger brother and his girlfriend), Blaine, and myself; but with only five pumpkins.

 Well, actually, we had six pumpkins...but Michelle finished before the rest of us (really, she finished before we even got to my parents' house)...which is why she was sitting next to the fire, enjoying a glass of wine and watching the rest of us figure out how we would share one set of pumpkin carving tools (did I mention that Blaine and I were the only ones who knew these tools existed?).

Don't let her fool you though...rather than carve her pumpkin, Michelle decided to revert back to the 80s and opted to create a creepy looking Mr. Potato Pumpkin Head. 

Blaine chose the second easiest design; and therefore, he was finished early enough to help everyone else scrape out their pumpkins.

After spending an hour online looking for the perfect template (I guess the two year old books were too "two seasons ago" for them), Tyler and Bekah finally got started on the actual carving (which really worked well considering we were all using the same set of tools...well, except for Jeff, who insisted on using a giant serving spoon to clean out his pumpkin).

Despite doing things the hard way when it came to cleaning his pumpkin, Jeff implemented a very methodical approach to carving it.

Tyler and Bekah found time to stop and pose for a picture, even after getting off to a slow start.

  

Finally......we thought everyone was finished, so everyone started looking at the finished products; but one pumpkin in particular left my parents perplexed and my dad scratching his head, literally.

During the clean-up, Bekah realized part of her template had been overlooked, she didn't cut out one of the "arms" to her design, which made a huge difference in trying to decipher what she had carved into her pumpkin.  After Bekah carved the arm out of her pumpkin we had six great pumpkins in time for Halloween, pictured below:



Left to right:  Joker (Tyler), Mr. Pumpkin Head (Michelle), Ghost Busters (Bekah)



Left to right:  Mr. Happy (Blaine), Stayin' Alive (Jeff), Haunted House (Alyssa)