"Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza" and a long hike.

This past weekend was a busy one for us here at the House of Cockrell.  We took the kids to get pumpkins, hit up the consignment stores, and came home to get ready for our annual "Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza!"  Okay, so it's not so extravagant, but the kids love having everyone over and it's become tradition to make Russian Tea (MaMa's recipe) and pumpkin roll (Mammy's recipe) and invite everyone local over to watch the kids throw pumpkin guts (this year, they got to throw them at each other, which upped the ante).  Either me or Mark always wind up doing the actual cleaning and carving of the pumpkin and the kids end up having more fun playing with the pumpkin guts, but that's part of the excitement, right?  The end result, however, was a smiley face carved in our pumpkin, good chili (thanks to Pops), good pumpkin roll, good coffee and Russian Tea, and even better company.  Sunday morning after church, we headed over to the new Dewey Short Visitor Center and trail at Table Rock Dam.  We took a picnic and enjoyed lunch outside before our hike.  We took the kids through the new visitor center and they enjoyed the wildlife exhibits and information about the dam.  They even got a pretty good idea of how the turbines and generators make energy to power our houses!  After that, the real fun began... We headed out on our 4.4 mile round-trip walk.  (Eerily similar to a three-hour tour right?) Luckily, the path was fairly level and paved the whole way, and we had the stroller for the kids to ride on when needed. After a couple of hours of walking, Mark and I wished they made mommy and daddy strollers too. Really though, we all had a great time enjoying the outdoors and the nice weather.  We made it home that afternoon and did absolutely nothing but watch "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" together the rest of the day, which was maybe the best part of the whole weekend!!  I'll be busy this next week putting the finishing touches on our little witch's Halloween costume.  Mark will be busy this weekend finding the Christmas decorations and tree in the attic.  We're taking the kids trick-or-treating for the first time this year and as is our custom, putting the Christmas tree up the weekend after Halloween.  Stay tuned for the next post to see how all of that went....