Warning, this may be a large post with many pictures so I’m splitting it with a page-break to prevent browser damage.
We carved pumpkins and went Trick-or-Treating this weekend. Unfortunately, the sprogling has been feeling a bit ill an keeps waking up in the middle of the night with either being sick, or bad dreams, or otherwise “uncomfortable” since last wednesday. You’ll see some serious dark circles under his eyes in one of the movies. Poor guy!
Also, this weekend, since the weather was sunny and relatively warm, the kid was determined to have “Boat races at 10:00 in the morning”. No bad weather, or sleeplessness, or parental diversions were going to prevent boat races. They HAD to happen, COME ON MOM?!! So the latter pictures will be slightly unseasonal, but still fun.
Click after the break for full details. 
First, the obligatory pre-carved picture. The giant pumpkin was grown by my father-in-law and weighed in about 70 pounds. This particular item will turn into the Cyclops!
Next up, we have a rather large movie of the “initial tracing out beforehand” technique for pumpkin carving. We gave the kid full range to make anything he wanted, from a mass of scribbled lines to a veritable Mona Lisa. As foreshadowed above, it became one gigantic eye with a tiny slit for a mouth above the eye. A Cyclops!
(warning, the movie is too large to imbed, at 22MB, so you’ll have to click the link to download it. (it’s too big to upload via FTP. GRR) If anyone knows some decent movie-editing software I could use to trim these down and make them web-worthy, please let me know!!)
Next image, is of the kid playing with the devil horns that Wren of the Zenporch send us. The picture is kinda blurry, because taking photos of devilkids at close range is dangerous, 
so this is at full zoom from the bottom of the stairs…
After we got the pumpkin mostly gutted, I made another dramatic movie of the guts. Here it is in raw unedited format. 
Initially, the kid did not want to go Trick-or-Treating on Friday evening. Two days of feeling sick, and not sleeping was taking it’s toll, but we wanted to at least stop by his teacher’s house which was said to be totally decorated and fun. I don’t have any better pictures because our camera is starting to act up and all the pictures from that night are “invalid file format”.
The camera itself won’t even read them to save/rename/delete. 
He went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and this is the only one that was readable…
I slapped together a cheesy “Tooth Fae” costume at the last minute, but still had fun.
On Sunday, we decided to make boats for the “Boat Race at 10 in the morning!” which wound up happening around 3pm. We went to the nearby lumberyard and raided the scrap bin which is always full of little bits of wood, a few inches in size, but sometimes has usable scraps or plywood in oddly cut shapes.
Below is the series of boats. The green things attached are the bio-degradable starch packing “peanuts” which are tons of fun to lick and stick together.
First the setting for our race. Boat Lake, (with our house in the background for the curious) spring fed and approx 6ft deep in the middle. Home to a few ducks and plenty of little fish, snails, and frogs each summer.
The boats themselves now. Mine has purple sails and a rubber-band paddle which almost worked until it twisted sideways and smacked against the sides. Still, it was simple, and had a renewable wind-powered backup system for the paddle.
Next, the simple “triangle of wood with straw stapled on it” that my wife put together. Worked well until a rogue gust of wind tipped it over and waterlogged the sails. 
Next up, the post-modern stylings of “block of wood with green thing” by the sprogling. 
Manned by “Rupert” at the helm, this one quickly floundered in the water, and dissolved it’s captain within minutes. Rather disappointing, but luckily the kid did not mind too much.
Almost last, was “Brandon’s Boat”, held together with state-of-the-art vulcanized latex (rubber bands).
This one was pretty stable, and sailed well due to having a slightly higher profile and catching the slight breeze, and avoiding the “waterlogged sails” that plagued the parental boats. Plus, if you look closely you can see the racing stripes on the bottom bit of wood.
Finally, the best vehicle in my opinion, was the Sprogling Motor Boat! Created from 4 wedges of pine, stapled together into a massive hydrodynamic awesomeness. The sides of this watercraft house three yellow ‘paddles’. If you look closely, the back sports two screw-based “rocket boosters”, and the captains cabin is occupied by a crew of four (mom-navigator, dad-coach, Kid-captain, and puppy on kid’s lap as mascot). The captain and mascot are perched atop a functional steel screw-chair, so they can see all around the boat to watch for danger. I love kid’s imaginations!
After this fun-filled weekend, my stress is greatly reduced (for now) and a fun time was had by all!
Happy Halloween!
