Mississippi Surprise!

My parents, Sky, Ryan, August, and Royce left today for Mississippi to visit my oldest sister Sandy and her family. Sandy's youngest son and his wife had a little girl in August and will bless her on November 2nd. So the family decided to go visit. Nick and I were not going to go. After a Sky booked tickets for her family and my parents, Nick and I talked and decided to go.
The surprise part of this story is that Sky, Ryan, the Kids, my Parents, and Sandy's kids don't know that we are coming! Nick and I leave Thursday morning and will arrive late that night to Sandy's house. We are so exited to visit Sandy and her family! But I am more exited to surprise August!

Cutest Princess Leia & Yoda Ever!!!

We bought Royce his Halloween Costume this year. We were at a Halloween store, and when we saw it I told Nick we had to get it. Sky made August's costume to go with Royce's.

They came to the Pumpkin walk in costume, and everyone who saw them were ooing & ahhing because they were sooooo cute!!!

The last night of the pumpkin walk when they came with Ryan's mother, also in their costumes, one lady asked.. "I'm not in your family, but can I take their picture?" Sky and I said yes.

This isn't the best picture, because August and Royce were getting grumpy. I will add some additional photos when Sky sends me some.

2008 Pumpkin Walk is over

Val Bagley, a local artist in Syracuse, designed the entrance this year for the Pumpkin Walk. It was huge, and very expensive. It also turned into a large bottle neck for the line because everyone wanted to take pictures in front of it. The second night we put up a barrier to prevent people from going up around the pumpkin people. It didn't work very well. We ended up having 3 spotlights broken not long into the night. We also were keeping track of now many people fell off the bench.

One of my projects this year was this totem pole. I added the wings this year, and it turned out better than I thought. Because it was a little warmer this year, we lost about 5 pumpkins before the first night. I had to re-carve 3 of these pumpkins, and two of them opening night. This should have been 8 pumpkins tall, but due to the large size of the pumpkins I couldn't fit all eight on the pole. So below is the picture of the 8th pumpkin.

I also carved the welcome pumpkins. They were also going to be a totem, but we didn't have time to get them stacked before people started to come on Thursday.

As I said in an earlier post, Nick's project was his terrarium. We were able to get 9 pumpkins carved, not as many as we would have liked, but it turned out alright.

Nick also carved a this Star Wars pumpkin. It turned out really good , considering it was his first really detailed pumpkin. He isn't really happy about how Luke turned out, but Yoda is really good.

Another project we worked on, with Nick's brother Jared, was pumpkins dedicated to their cousin Jocylnn. She was killed in a skiing accident in February. Her nickname is Jiggy. Jared carved the picture of her, and I carved the "Go Jiggy" pumpkin that sat next to it.

The final count of pumpkins this year was 950. Most of those were Jack-o-lanterns carved by city residents and the West Point Kiddie Kollage.

We are sad that the Pumpkin Walk is over, but we are needing to recover from the long nights. I don't think I will pull another 40 hour day for a long time. Next year, I will just plan on taking more time off to get ready.

Now it is time to start looking for pumpkin patterns for Pumpkin Walk 2009!!!

Nick's back & Halloween stuff

Nick went to Denver for some work training. He left Monday afternoon, and returned about 11:00pm on Thursday. I picked him up at the airport and he almost walked right past me when he got to the baggage claim.
It is so good to have him back! Even with him working nights and not seeing each other much, there is a difference when he is home.

We have a long day of pumpkin carving scheduled for tomorrow. We are going to meet up with a bunch of our friends and get as many pumpkins finished as we can. I printed off a bunch of bug pictures, and stuff for my stacked pumpkins. I hope to carve at least 14-20 this year.

On the 18th we have our annual Murder Mystery party with family and friends. We are trying to find our costumes and not finding anything. GRRRR!!! I don't know what to do. I don't have time to sew a costume like I have the last 2 years, and I don't want to buy an expensive dress. We are going to a costume shop tomorrow, and hopefully we can find a great costume.

Getting ready for the return of my Parents

My parents return from West Yellowstone on Friday the 10th. I have never been so exited to have them return. To get ready for them to get here, my mother has asked that we have the carpets cleaned and the guest bedroom fixed up.

While listening to General Conference, Sky and I took August downstairs and started working on the guest bedroom. we stripped the bed and August was sitting on a chair. So I decided to pile all the pillows on top of her.

She pushed the pillows off and then asked to have them put back on her. Since none of us wanted to play that game, Nick put her on the bed. So Sky and put the fitted sheet over her, trapping her under the sheet. If you look closely at the next picture, the bump in the middle is August.

And to end this post, I want to share a typical "Nick" picture. Whenever he has a camera, he has to take a picture of himself. So while holding Royce, he took the following... They are sooo cute!!

1st pumpkin for the year!!

We had our pumpkin walk meeting with the rest of the comittee today. We talked about the new entrance that will be built and what groups/themes we will be carving. We were also told that Black Island Farms picked us a special batch of pumpkins early. So, after the meeting Nick went and picked up 4 pumpkins so he could start carving before he left for his work training in Denver on Monday.

Nick's group that he is going to be incharge of this year is a terrarium for insects. He is so exited that he has already carved his first pumpkin.

We hope that we will carve about 20 different bugs in two weeks and help with other groups. It is going to be many longs nights ahead! It is so worth it!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

178th LDS General Conference

October 4th & 5th is the 178th Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! I am so excited to hear from our Prophet Thomas S. Monson.

http://www.lds.org/broadcast/gc/0,5161,8176,00.html

Syracuse Pumpkin Walk 2008!!

It is that time again to get read for the Syracuse Pumpkin Walk! We have our first committee meeting tomorrow to make find out all the details we need to know.

Nick and I are so exited to get started carving pumpkins! We should be able to pick up our first batch on October 8th. I plan to carve at least 14 this year, hopefully more.

Nick is planning to do a bunch of Bug pumpkins to group together like his fish pumpkins last year. I will be carving the welcome stack pumpkins again, and help with Nick's bugs.

Another bunch of pumpkins that we might be helping with is a Star Wars grouping. I'm not sure of the details, but our friend Jason had an idea to make a battle with pumpkins. It will be really cool if we can pull it off.

I will post pictures of our pumpkins the day after the pumpkin walk starts. So, for right now the pictures posted on the Pumpkin Walk blog will have to do. But, the best thing is to see the pumpkins in person. The details of when the pumpkin walk are also on the blog below.

http://syrcitypumpkinwalk.blogspot.com/

Heather's Work Conference

September 15th - 18th I was lucky to help with my work Engineering Conference held at Snowbird Ski Resort. Wow what an experience and it was tons of work!! Because we were working such long hours, I was able to stay at the Cliff Lodge.

When I checked into my room, I took a bunch of pictures. This is a picture looking towards the door and the bathroom. The bathroom had a window in the shower that looked into the bedroom. It was kinda weird.

Due to the long hours, 4 am - 10:30pm, each day I didn't spend much time there, but the beds was comfortable enough to get the sleep I needed.

I hope to be able to have the opportunity to help with more conferences in the future!!