We procrastinated carving out pumpkins, although we picked them out pretty early from the pumpkin patch. They were just decorating our porch, uncarved, which was autumnal and practical with the heat and humidity as it was. When the time came, Hadley decided to recreate her scary clown pumpkin from 2020, and Owen stuck with the classic jack-o-lantern face.
The melted crayons were still messy, but I guess it's a trade-off to not scooping out pumpkin guts! We helped keep them in place with some hot glue (noting for next time).
New this year: Owen carving his own pumpkin face, in addition to scooping. Despite the crazed look in his eyes, he was very responsible with the knife, and there were no incidents! Mom approves!
Later that afternoon, we volunteered at our church's Trunk or Treat event as candy refillers, just like last year. Unlike last year, though, we had record crowds this year! The kids took a wagon around to the dozen or so display trunks in a loop for a couple of hours, and we actually completely ran out of candy a couple of times! A few errand runners were able to extend our candy supplies for the full time. I was shocked that some kids tried to get candy directly from our wagon by the handful. People are candy crazy!
The event had a dozen trunks, several games, craft tables, bouncy houses, and a train going around the parking lot. The local fire truck even came out and extended its ladder up to the sky! I'm not sure how many people came, but we went through thousands of pieces of candy, and it was the largest crowd I've seen there in years.
We have a certain someone that doesn't mind waiting in line for a bouncy house, too.
Finally, Trick or Treating! Owen really phoned it in this year, but went around with friends collecting as much candy as possible. Hadley dressed up like Annabeth Chase from the Percy Jackson series of books and made off with quite a haul of her own. With it being Monday night, the doorbell barely rang for me, and it was all done by 8:30pm.
October was a busy month! Weekdays and nights flew by with activities, obligations, and fun events. The Bobcats' 7th grade A team had a great season and finished 6-2.
We loved watching our #44 play running back, edge rusher, kick returner, and kick team defense, staying on the field for nearly every play. Other than a couple of bouts of turf burn, we were also blessedly injury-free. Don't forget, you can catch up on his season highlights here!
They didn't make it to the championship game, but they played a bonus game against John's alma mater, which they won to end the season.
One fun tradition is Junior High night for what will be our future high school team. All of the junior high football players get to run through the "tunnel" and on to the field with the high school players. After the run through, they stay and watch the game with their team. Unfortunately, Taylor had only 3 wins this year, and this was not one of them, but they still had fun! (O is in a white jersey near the end.)
Besides football, we were busy with our church's pumpkin patch. We helped unload about 1800 big pumpkins from a semi-truck fire-brigade-style and arranged countless little ones in organized piles and aesthetic groupings.
This was the only posed pumpkin patch picture we took one Sunday after church. I guess they're getting too old for this, but I'm glad they'll still humor me with a photo.
Finally, we signed up to work a shift at the patch. We were on first shift, so the kids checked all the pumpkins and removed any that were rotting or damaged. Then we hung out for a couple of hours, worked the cash/credit box for any families that came by, and helped them load up their vehicles.
Hadley is doing her school's Read, Deed, Run club again. As part of this club, she will run 26 miles, read 2600 pages, and do 26 good deeds over the school year. Just before our pumpkin patch shift, we did one mile as a family walk/run with donations going for breast cancer research.
Fall is also when our Longhorn alumni group activities ramp up. As philanthropy chair, I coordinated a food drive and a bye-week blood drive during the month of October. It seems like our numbers are finally getting back to pre-Covid levels, so that is encouraging! We donated over 400 lbs of food and 24 units of blood. Hook 'em!
