Ahh, the memories.

Today I got to help Ella carve a pumpkin at preschool. Now, I have four memories of preschool. I remember playing in a sandtable that was kind of like Mr. Rogers'. I remember picking out Christmas presents for our parents. I remember going to my classmate's horse farm (I guess it was a ranch, but I don't really think of MN as having ranches), and seeing the puppies (although I'm sure we were supposed to be looking at horses). One of those puppies later went to work at the nursing home my mom worked at, and ended up living with us. Best dog ever -- Snickers.

And I remember carving a pumpkin. My dad came to help me, which was pretty cool in itself. I remember sitting on the floor, over squares of Pope County Tribune newspaper. And I remember thinking it was really, really cool that we were using my dad's newspaper (as in he made the newspaper, rather than just reading it). After we were done, we cleaned the seeds and baked them at the school. I don't remember if I liked them then, but I love them now.

So today, I dug out pumpkin guts with my little girl. A little girl who, frankly, was not very interested in participating in the carving. Too slimey. Which I remembered from last year, so I brought a smaller pumpkin this year. And I bagged up the seeds, brought them home and roasted them (for the first time). I think I went a little too heavy on the vegetable oil spray, but all in all, they're good. Ella won't even try one, which is not surprising. Luckily, I'm thinking it's the time together that is remembered over the actual pumpkin or seeds. After all, I remember sitting down with Dad to carve it, but I have no idea what it looked like when we were done.