Lazy Halloween

Bobby and I were both pretty wrapped up in the election and volunteering for it leading up to Halloween, which didn't lend itself well to planning. Plus,we went on the aforementioned bike ride full of flats on Saturday, and by the time we got home and showered we didn't feel up for going out that night, which is when most of the Halloween celebrations were. So, we slept in on Sunday and then decided to be festive, but still lazy. I have a bag of costumes from years past, so I threw on some bunny ears and Bobby chose the cat ears and we set our sights on Halloween-ing it up, albeit on the day of and with no plan.


We got Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin" playing on Hulu...

poured some celebratory holiday Silk...

and Bobby retrieved our enormous CSA pumpkin from the balcony where it had been living for the past two weeks.

Poor defenseless pumpkin, you know not what awaits you!!

We settled for a Jack Skellington style pumpkin- not too difficult but still more fun than triangle eyes. Of course back in Texas my mom and her friend were carving intricately detailed horses and owls into their pumpkins, so we were still lame by comparison.

Roll up your sleeves and dive in! This thing was huge and I was glad to give carving privileges to Bobby. I've never personally cared that much about carving pumpkins anyway, and since it was "the best pumpkin he's ever had" I thought it only fair.

This thing was stuffed full of seeds and slimy rind.

I helped with all of this part at least :)

Bobby started carving at the dining room table and I started roasting the seeds- several recipes suggested boiling first, which seemed weird to me, but apparently that makes them more crispy and less chewy.

I made three flavors- wasabi ginger, cinnamon/clove/honey, and cumin/chili powder/garlic salt. I didn't like any of them but Bobby thought they were good- I think I'm spoiled to shelled pumpkin seeds.

Fun with stencils! This picture is so ridiculous to me on so many levels. I was wearing my Obama/Biden shirt in honor of the upcoming elections, in case you were thinking "What the hell does that have to do with Halloween??". Although, many people in my small town seem to think Obama is the Anti-Christ, so, I'll admit that's pretty scary. No really, I've been told my many people via e-mail forwards that the Bible clearly says Obama is the Anti-Christ ya'll. For serious. But, moving on....

Yay! It's done and looks very Jack Skellington-y.

We decided to get marginally "dressed up" and head downtown. I wore my skeleton hoodie and actually put on makeup- weird- and Bobby added the tail to his cat ears.

That tail had me cracking up all. night. It was so absurd.

Creepy bunny in the background downtown. And yay, my little skelly-hood is showing!

I know I've said it before, but I seriously love our downtown. We wandered around for a bit people watching and talking, and then we decided to get some dinner at a place we'd never eaten.

Let me say, it's my new favorite place. It's an Italian place, and it has strawberry mojitos (virgin)...

This amazing rosemary bread with fabulous olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip it into...

arugula hummus (apparently arugula is the sign of being an "elitist", all I know is it was delicious)...

and a dessert flight to end it all. I hope we always celebrate Halloween with pumpkin tiramisu!

We came home, lit our pumpkin, and lounged on the couch talking. I'll take a long Saturday fall bike ride and a laid back Sunday Halloween over a crowded loud bar full of drunken half naked college kids any day. I've been there and done that, and while it was fun I was glad to skip out this time around. A stress free, laid back Halloween was just in the cards this year, and it was great.