Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza 2011

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This year for Halloween we were in San Francisco for "Nevada Day", so we didn't have a lot of time to carve our pumpkins, but we still had a fun time picking them out at the local pumpkin farm and furiously trying to complete them before our trip. Here are our results! (Reminder: hover over the pictures to see the before/after images)

"Nightmare Before Christmas" Jack Skellington Pumpkin

"Despicable Me" Minion Pumpkin

Unfortunately when we got back from SF on Halloween Eve, our pumpkins were a little wrinkly, but nothing that a quick bleach bath couldn't fix!

While in SF, we went to a 49ers game, which was AWESOME! Check "Professional Football Game" off of my bucket list!

As a side note, if you have ever wanted to find out what it is like to eat a meal as a blind person, try out Opaque - Dining in the Dark. It is a "Blind Dining" experience where you basically get to eat a full 3-course meal in a pitch-black room! It was totally the most unique experience! They have locations in San Francisco, L.A., San Diego, NYC, and Dallas.

Pumpkin Carving Extravaganza 2010

Happy Halloween everyone! For those of you that don't remember, two years ago I posted pictures of the pumpkins X and I carved for Halloween. I really wanted to turn it into a yearly tradition, but last year we were so busy with the Murder Mystery Dinner that we just didn't have enough time to get any done. So I had to make up for it this year! I don't have any novels to tell of inspiration-invoking pumpkins this year, but I still had fun coming up with unique ideas to carve. Since X wasn't around this year, I still got her involved by having her help me come up with some of these ideas. Hover over each picture below with your mouse to see what the pumpkins look like when they are lit!

Red M&M

Yellow M&M

Hunchbart

Murder Mystery Dinner 2009 - Pasta, Passion, & Pistols

I was in charge of hosting the final (?) installment of the murder mystery dinners that my friends Sarah and Allison and I have been doing the last few years. Each of us has taken a turn hosting a dinner around Halloween each year, but now that each of us has had a turn and the fact that X and I have moved out of state, this last one might have been the last time (at least for all of us together). Knowing this I wanted to do something really fun and original for my dinner - I had all the guys play girl parts, and all the girls play guy parts! I had some negative response from a few people at first (mostly from homophobia or people who felt like it was just wrong), but after a little bit of coercion everyone was game! The murder mystery dinners are usually a little corny (you'll notice from the characters names listed below), but we always just have fun with it. So here's how it worked:

The Mystery

The succulent aroma of home-cooked pasta is drifting from New York City's most popular Italian eatery, La Speranza, but something else is heating up in the kitchen . . . cold-blooded murder! Restaurant-owner Pepi Roni has been shot in the back with his own pistol. Tonight his family and friends will gather to pay their respects to poor Pepi, but one of the guests won't be shedding any tears.

The Suspects

Rocco Scarfazzi

Pepi's twin brother, a tough-talking no-nonsense Italian business man. In addition to his vineyards and real estate holdings, it is rumored Rocco is in the 'laundering' business. He had no love for his brother Pepi but his reasons are his own... capische?

Tara Misu

Rocco's vivacious young fiancé. She was just an upstairs maid in Rocco's villa until she swept him off his feet. Now Tara keeps a smile on his face and a firm grip on Rocco's assets. Tara is dressed to kill. She knows the effect she has on men and flaunts her charms shamelessly.

Bo Jolais

Cousin of a cousin of Rocco's, Bo manages the Scarfazzi vineyards. Bo comes from a long line of French wine-makers and no one knows 'ze' grape like Bo. An important man in the Scarfazzi organization .... what could Bo possibly have to whine about.

Mama Rosa

Pepi's grieving widow. For 25 years, Mama Rosa cooked the pasta while Pepi greeted La Sperenza's dinner guests. In all the years they were married, not once did they argue. Had something finally boiled over in Rosa's kitchen?

Angel Roni

Pepi and Rosa's beautiful daughter. It was Pepi's dream that his 'Angel' would marry a good Italian boy, have children and carry on the family traditions. Angel has a few fantasies of her own though and one of them is that hunk, Bo jalais. Mama-mia!

Marco Roni

Pepi and Mama Rosa's only son, Marco was expected to take over the restaurant after his parents retired. Marco hates waiting tables. His goal is to play on a World Cup soccer team but his papa has been keeping him permanently on the bench.

Father Al Fredo

An Italian priest and long-time family friend of the Roni's and the Scarfazzi's. The good priest has heard their confessions and knows their sins.

Clair Voyant

Rosa's best friend and astrology advisor. Clair's talents include an ability to communicate with the spirit world and see into the future.

We had a lot of fun at this dinner. I love doing the murder mystery dinners with this group because a lot of people really get into it and try to act & dress like their character would. If you look online at pictures from other people's murder mystery dinners (like this one, this one, or this one), most of them have just thrown on a dress shirt and called it good. But we go all out! It's a good thing we have DI!

While I won't reveal who the killer was, I will say that I wasn't surprised! One interesting thing I have noticed is that the killers have always been women. The funny thing is that it would've been a man this time had I not swapped male and female parts, but I guess it was just intuition that made me do it! Here's hoping we can do another one of these sometime in the future!

Pumpkin Carving Extravanza 2008

For those of you that know me pretty well, you know that when it comes to Halloween one thing I get really excited about is pumpkin carving. Every year I like to try something new, and really try to out-do myself from the year before.

This is a picture of the pumpkin I carved last year.

As you can see I like to try new things. Last year I just found a USU logo and created the stencil myself to make it work with my pumpkin. I'm always looking for new ideas and creations to try on a pumpkin.

Last weekend X asked me on a date, and I was thrilled to hear that we would be carving pumpkins for our date. I don't think she knew how much I enjoyed carving, but she soon found out! X did some research and discovered that Macey's was selling pumpkins for 12 cents/lb. so we began our journey Thursday morning to find ourselves the perfect pumpkins.

At Macey's we started digging through the pumpkins and I soon realized that I was going to have to do some climbing to get to the untouched pile of pumpkins in the back. X cheered me on as I made my way to the back, climbing over the pumpkins but distributing my weight so that I wouldn't crush any of the pumpkins along the way. As I was making my way to the back I saw this really ugly and deformed pumpkin and asked X why anyone would ever want to buy a pumpkin like that. She just shrugged her shoulders and we kept looking until we found the right pumpkins for us.

Now before I go any further, you have to understand that choosing the right pumpkin is an art in and of itself. Sometimes you choose a pumpkin based on an idea of what you want to carve; other times you find a nice-looking pumpkin and decide what you want to choose based on your pumpkin. And other times a pumpkin chooses you. This was the case for me at Macey's that fateful Thursday morning, I just didn't know it yet.

After we each chose a pumpkin we walked inside the store to make our purchase. For some reason I couldn't get the ugly, deformed pumpkin out of my head. I kept reminding me of... something... We were waiting in line to pay when it finally came to me. The pumpkin looked like a giant peanut! It was large and round at the bottom, and also large and round at the top, but in the middle it kinda went in and made it look like a peanut. My mind quickly raced as I thought of what I could do with it, when my eye caught on a package of Planter's Peanuts with a big picture of Mr. Peanut on the side. Golden. I told X to wait in line and raced outside to go find my Mr. Peanut Pumpkin before anyone else could find that wonderful (ugly & deformed) pumpkin. I was glad to see that it was still sitting there in the pile, untouched.

Saturday night we went out for dinner to Panda Express, and then came back for a night of carving enjoyment. We had 3 pumpkins to carve, and only knew what was going to go on the Mr. Peanut pumpkin, so we set to work at finding designs for the other two. X came across a few sites with some really good designs, and I found one that I wanted to do. We tried to find another design that would go well with mine, but the only place we could find one was charging money to view the design. So X decided to go with a design out of the carving kit that I had purchased last year. Luckily X had her camera phone with her while we were carving so she snapped a few pictures during the night. I had to run back to my apartment to get my camera after the pumpkins were ready & lit.

Here are a couple pictures of the carving of Mr. Peanut. The pumpkin was so uniquely-shaped the it was really hard getting the stencil to conform to the surface of the pumpkin! I had to tape it up a lot to make it work just right. X thought the tape-job looked pretty pitiful so she snapped a picture for us to always remember.

Here are the final pumpkins that we carved. X did a really awesome job. This was her first time carving using a stencil, and she surprised both of us when her pumpkin turned out flawless. The window pane and spider's web were the hardest part but she did a great job! Mr. Peanut turned out better then I could've hoped for. It was hard finding a usable image online that was large enough and looked right, so I just ended up blowing up the image myself and edited it to work for what I needed it to look like. Photoshop rocks!


You might be wondering about that 3rd pumpkin I mentioned and where it is. Well, we spent so much time working hard on these pumpkins that we didn't get finished until after midnight, so I decided to finish up the 3rd pumpkin Sunday afternoon. Below are the pictures of that one... Mario!

Doesn't the light totally make a difference on that one? After we found the Mario design we tried to find one of Princess Peach, but were unsuccessful at finding any except for the one to purchase. Oh well, maybe next year. Thanks for the fun date X!