26 September 2006

Happy Mountain Day!


If I was still at Mount Holyoke, I would NOT be in class today. Why? you non-MHCers may be asking? Well, because it's Mountain Day...that one precious day that we all yearned for from the start of classes in the fall, when the abbey church bells would start going off bright and early in the morning to announce that classes for the day were canceled so that we might all go out and climb a mountain. Although, to be perfectly honest I never went and climbed Mt. Holyoke on Mountain Day...I did at another time...but usually I spent Mountain Day relaxing and enjoying that there were no classes. And if I got really lucky and Mountain Day fell on a day when a paper was due then I usually spent the day in a happy haze of euphoria that I had more time to work on and finish said paper :-)

If only we alums could continue the tradition of Mountain Day in our work environments...how great would that be?!?! But instead I'm stuck inside at work on a gorgeous Seattle fall day with temps in the upper 70's, blue skies and bright sunshine. It's just so sad...so very, very sad.

Instead of pictures from a hike today...I've included some pics from a hike I did a week or so ago to Lake Serene (including a tree that was on the trail that I fell in love with).



25 September 2006

Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving!!!



This past weekend was Oktoberfest in Fremont...and my favorite part of the Fremont Oktoberfest took place: the Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving contest!!!! Love it! So much fun! And of course I went to both days of the event and took a million pictures (which made choosing a few for this blog kind of difficult).

For those of you who have never heard of Texas Chainsaw Pumpkin Carving, it's basically where you care a pumpkin with a chainsaw. This process creates great entertainment with a combination of factors: lots of loud noise, spraying pumpkin guts and wacky personalities.

Here are some pictures from the carving contest, cause it's hard to describe and much better to see visuals to get the full impact:





The winner from the first day (and my favorite from both days):