Pumpkin tats

One of the many aspects of village life that we like is how many people decorate for holidays and Halloween is at the top of that holiday list. On my morning walks, I see orange lights, giant cobwebs with spiders, ghosts, tombstones, zombie hands emerging from the ground, and jack o'lanterns. Numerous jack o'lanterns.

We like jack o'lanterns but we don't like carving them, and haven't in several years. We don't like the mess, they never come out quite like we envision, and there is always the opportunity for someone to get injured. And by "someone", I mean me; my palm is still healing from an unfortunate mandolin accident about a month ago. Let's just say I have major trust issues right now with sharp kitchen tools.

So when James spotted these pumpkin "transfers", we knew we had our answer to pumpkin decorating:

 

Transfers, schmansfers - even the directions state "apply with water just like a temporary tattoo."

After dinner last night, James and I got to work on the two pumpkins we bought earlier in the day (Aidan was too busy playing his allotted computer time to help with something as silly as pumpkin decorating). The transfers are incredibly easy to apply, even on uneven pumpkin surfaces, and stand out well against the orange. We had enough transfers to do two different faces on each pumpkin for a Jekyll and Hyde effect.

Pumpkins, sides A:

Pumpkins sides B:

Although we can't light them and enjoy the flickering jack o'lanterns at night, we are still very pleased with the results and will take this pumpkin decoration route again. Thank you, Martha!

Best family camping trip EVER

We wanted one more family camping trip before storing the popup camper for the winter, so last weekend we headed out to West Canada Creek Campsites in Poland, NY. It was our first visit to that campground and we chose it because of its location - just outside of Utica - and excellent online reviews. It took just an hour and fifteen minutes to drive there and although we had to set up in the dark, we soon had the camper open and a campfire burning.

What a great weekend we had. The campground is very nice; the owners are friendly and helpful, the bathrooms are spotless, there is a large open area in which children can play and the sites are spacious and flat:

Aidan soon made friends and played football, kickball, soccer and everything else under the sun. The campground is set in a bend in West Canada Creek, so James had easy access for fishing:

Aidan joined James for some dad and son fishing time:

I was happy to stay at the campsite where I read Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton (one of my favorite authors) cover-to-cover, knitted and enjoyed the splendor of autumn in New York:

The weather was spectacular. The days were warm and sunny, and the nights were cool but not freezing, just cold enough to enjoy the campfire (and the heated mattresses in the camper!). We feasted on sausage gravy over buttermilk biscuits for breakfast on Saturday morning, hot dogs cooked over the fire for lunch, and steak shish kebabs and campfire cones for dinner. After packing up on Sunday morning, we stopped at a nearby diner for a hearty breakfast before making the short drive home.

The combination of excellent campground in a great location, fun together and fun apart in our own activities, and lovely fall weather made us all agree that it was our best family camping trip ever.