Happy Halloween!

In the week before Thanksgiving, we took advantage of a rare sunny day to go to the pumpkin patch.  

Aunt Gretchen and cousin Lena drove down from Seattle.  Which was good for Xiao Yu because he needed a little help at the pumpkin launch.  The rubber straps are quite strong and he needed some assistance staying on the ground.

Gabe requested help as well.

Karina and Gabe looooover the corn pit.  It is full of corn kernels, and, by the way, so super duper dusty.  

So after swimming in it, they came out covered with corn dust and also needed to empty their pockets too.

The petting zoo area is always popular.  Also, there's a little candy dispenser machine where you can buy a handful of feed for a quarter.

And then it was time to pick out a pumpkin.  As always, it's a big decision worthy of lots of deliberation.

Here are their picks!  

Lucky tagged along and rested while the rest of the kids roamed around.

Gabe slowed down enough to let us take a picture.

And Eliana too.

We met up with our nephew and his family at the farm.  We haven't seen them since their wedding and also met their kids for the first time.  They have moved back to the area so look forward to seeing them more.  Here's our attempt at a semi-socially distant group picture!

After the pumpkins came home, it was time to carve!

People were hard at work taking out the guts!

The seeds went into the paper bags, which then went to the chickens.

And as far as trick-or-treating...we decided that again instead of trick or treating, the kids would go to the store to buy two dollar's worth of candy from the bulk bin.  Much easier than going around house to house!

The kids still traded candy a little bit even though everything they got they picked themselves.

Here are their pumpkins!  Eliana carved "Hamilton" into hers.  Xiao impressively carved Thomas the Train.  Karina carved nighttime creatures in hers, an owl, a raccoon and a bat.  And Gabe a Start Wars B-wing into his.

Happy Halloween!