Pumpkin Carving Party (oh-eight)

Well, Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, but soon became tragic. Suzi, Karina, Jennifer, and Cherol (aunt, cousin, and two cousins-in-law) were flying back to California later in the day, but we thought it'd be fun to have a big breakfast together before they left for the airport. Nate and I drove to Mom and Dad's around 8:40am and helped Dad with breakfast.

We called everyone downstairs when it was finished and the table was set and it was about then that someone noticed water in the back hall - the downstairs toilet had flooded magnificently. Mom, Dad, Suzi, and Jennifer got to work on it; Karina, Cherol, Nate, and I were shuffled off to the side so that we weren't in the way of the clean-up.



The water got mopped up, stuff from the back hall got moved onto the back porch, and then finally, when nothing else could be done, Mom, Dad, Suzi, and Jennifer sat down to breakfast.


When the girls finally left for the airport, Mom was "this close" to canceling the party. Nate and Dad worked on finding a 24/7 plumber and I swore to help Mom do whatever was necessary so that the party wouldn't be canceled. Nate and I were enlisted to wash all the dirty towels from the mop up.

It wasn't too long after we got back home that Dad messaged me to say that the plumbing was fixed and the party was still on. Wahoo! So Nate and I went back over around 4:45pm for the party.



It was good! It was much smaller than in years past, but we had fun still. There was a good amount of excellent food - that's always a highlight. The party started later than in previous years, so it actually got dark as we were in the middle of carving.


Ivy spent some time showing Nate and I how to get the good stuff out of snap peas. And then she began to tell us how crazy Stella is. She switched topics, though, by the time I took this video:



Here are some other family pictures from Pumpkin Carving.