Pumpkins and Picnics

I spent four days in Bozeman last week helping my friend Kim watch the Hawthorne kids,while their parents were out of town. I don't really think she needed my help, but it was a great excuse to spend time up at camp with her, other friends, and the five Hawthorne kids, who I have missed since I moved back to Lewistown a little over a year ago. The kids are great and make things pretty easy. Because they had school, Kim and I had a chance just to hang out too. We hiked up the Cottonwood Canyon trail to the Big Rock (official name?) and had a picnic one afternoon. The view from the top is as breathtaking as the last uphill, my heart is beating abnormally fast, and what's the elevation here again? section of the trail, so it makes it worth while... that and the thought that maybe the burning in your legs is possibly causing some kind of quad or calf toning and that by the time you are finished you might have the legs of a marathon runner.

I took some pumpkins and a bigger pumpkin/squash cross breed thing (a squmpkin if you will),that my Mom had grown in her garden, to carve with the kids. Overall it went well, messy, of course, but that's half the fun. The kids all carved their little pumpkins, some with a bit of help, and then we tried to carve the big guy. He didn't really carve so good and was too soft, so we decided the best thing to do was to thow it out the window on the second story of the house, onto the cement below and watch it splat. The kids thought this was a great idea, of course, so we did it. There is something about throwing stuff from high places that is just intriguing... maybe that's just me. :) Any way, it made a good mess, which we cleaned up right away so that the bears wouldn't decide to come and share in the squmpkin fun later that night. I lived up at camp for over a year and never saw a bear up close, so part of me wanted one to visit, so I could get a better look... from inside the locked house. I was relieved when no bears showed up that night. :)