two words

Chicken. Soup.

There was a time when I thought I'd never make this. It turned out so lovely and warming, though. Fresh parsley and sage, lots of ginger, lots of garlic, lots of chicken, and carrot, celery, turnip, leek, and onion. Also, a dash of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper for luck. :)

Thanks for the idea, Mom!!!

the event

The busy hour before the event... I have a clown hat in my hand, for some reason, and we're checking all the rooms to make sure they're laid out properly.

During the preliminary explanation, I asked the kids what to call this large, orange pumpkin (one of those we got on the memorable day of the flat tire)..... do-te-ka-bo-cha! No one was actually brave enough to carve this one, though.

Staff was stretched pretty thin, but I loved my group of little kids. Here we are trying to come up with pictures to carve into our pumpkin. They had the cutest ideas!

I did convince them to try just reaching in and grabbing a handful of pumpkin guts, but these kids were pretty neat. They mostly used spoons. It slowed us down, but hey, we weren't in a race with the older kids (were we?). ;)

The pumpkins the kids came up with! The one on the top right is supposed to be a kabuto-mushi (a type of large beetle some kids keep as pets).

Happy Halloween! Mwa-hahaha-hahaha-ha....