After lunch today we drove into Washington DC for a bit of sight seeing.  Stay tuned! In the meantime, I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took. This is our first autumn in the area and the first time for the kids and I to see the colors in our nation's capital (my husband sees it five days a week).  We were in a hurry to get to one of the museums, after parking at Union Station. I took a few pictures while driving, so they aren't as clear as they could be.

   The Washington Monument coming into view...

The Washington Monument against a stunning blue sky after several days  of Tropical Depression Ida's rain and wind...

 By the time we left the museum, it was dusk.  As we approached the US Capitol, we could see the beginning of the illumination of the beautiful architecture, set against the sunset sky.

     As we walked by the capitol, we were surprised to hear church bells from nearby ringing out a chorus from "In the Good Old Summertime."  We were struck by two things.  One, it isn't summer anymore! We had a good laugh about that.  Second, we had seen that movie the other night. I had a desire to break out into song and dance, a la Judy Garland.  However, I restrained myself. Recognizing the tune but not placing it, my daughter asked what the tune was. When I told her, she still couldn't quite figure it out. Ah, my chance to be Judy Garland.  As I started singing the tune, my husband hurriedly had us cross a busy intersection and the bells finished their tune. We were wondering which church was playing the tune and why that tune?  At least it was an Indian Summer type of day. 

     Over a month ago we started seeing pumpkins galore being sold. We've never seen anything like that in Texas!  In San Antonio, I used to either buy our pumpkin the last week of October or buy it early and store it in the refrigerator. It is so warm in Texas, the pumpkins go bad quickly. Last year we managed to grow a pumpkin in our garden, which I needed to harvest when we returned home from our Virginia vacation in mid August. That was stored in the refrigerator for the end of October and barely made it. This year I hesitated to buy a pumpkin early.  How do they fare in Virginia?  I let the kids each choose one and had them set them on the front porch.  They survived! Now what to do with them? 

     We don't do Halloween. We have no interest in Halloween costumes. No interest in trick or treating. No interest in fall festivals. However the kids do want to do something quietly at home.  I thought I'd put the kids to work to hollow out one of the pumpkins so I could bake a beef stew in it. Then I had also planned to make a pumpkin cheesecake.  The other pumpkin they could carve and we could watch a movie.

     Well, I was gone from the house most of the day, trying to find things for our Year 4 Unit 1 costumes and for a warmer Lafayette costume for my son.  By the time I got home, the pumpkins were spoken for.  The family had done their traditional gospel pumpkin, with a lot of help from their dad.  I think my son drew the symbols and my husband cut them out.  Hmmmm, I think this is the first year my husband did the pumpkin with the kids.  Usually I do it with them, but my husband wants window treatments and the kids want costumes for their unit celebration and Colonial Williamsburg, so my husband was happy to give me a pumpkin break this year.  ;)  

Then they wanted to do a Colonial Williamsburg pumpkin. This year CW provided several pumpkin carving patterns at their web site.  My son wanted to do all of them.  I couldn't afford that many pumpkins, so he had to choose one. Actually my daughter chose one, the Governor's Palace. Here is my son carving it, while my daughter picks out the seeds. My husband likes roasted pumpkin seeds. 

Here it is. I am impressed. This was my son's first pumpkin to carve and he did it entirely himself. He had a bit of trouble with the intricacy of the pattern, so he said he improved a few parts.  Can you imagine me shaking me head?  He reminds me of Patrick Henry. If I could go back in time, I'd love to meet Patrick Henry's mother and ask her specifically what her son was like as a child. I have a feeling we would share a lot in common. 

It was a bit late to start a stew and there were no more pumpkins to bake it in.  The family decided they wanted snack food. Earlier in the day my husband had gone to the store and bought the cupcakes and candy corn. He went back out and bought snack food.

Then we settled down to "Arsenic and Old Lace."  I'm a huge Cary Grant fan and my husband is a Theodore Roosevelt fan.  It's a hilarious movie and sort of where we draw the line at the end of the month.  =)  For me anyway, if I watch anything more intense than this, I'll have nightmares. I've had enough bad dreams this month as it is. Since we recently studied WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution and watched movies about it, I've had quite a few sleepless nights. "Arsenic and Old Lace" was a fun movie to lighten the mood from our recent studies!  That's why I like Cary Grant. He can be sophisticated, yet hilarious, at the same time!