Chris's birthday is October 31 (known to most people as Halloween). We haven't ever really gotten into Halloween partly because, well it's his birthday and partly because I've never been a huge Halloween fan anyway. So, it's been nice living here when that time of year comes around and not having to worry about tons of kids dressing up in strange costumes, ringing your doorbell every 30 seconds, trying to get their pillow cases full of candy. But at the same time, it feels strange (having grown up with pumpkins and ghosts 21 years of my life) when October 31 does come around to just let it slip by with no decorations or costumes or scary stories or anything. So, in the spirit of Halloween, Chris and I started this little tradition where we buy a pumpkin every year and carve it. We save the seeds and roast them and then use the rest of the pumpkin (because they don't have pumpkin in a can here) to make delicious pumpkin muffins. It's been a tradition two years running now and the third time round always makes traditions official somehow, so I was excited about doing it this year. Especially since Samuel would be old enough to be with and help scoop out all the insides and everything. We talked about it a couple days before Halloween and had even found a pattern of a penguin that Samuel was excited about. However, you can imagine our disappointment when we went to 3 different stores a couple days before Halloween and then 2 more the day before to find that no one had any pumpkins!!! We've kept looking all this week, but to no avail. I was so distraught and sad to think that this year we won't be able to carve our pumpkin (or make pumpkin muffins!) And poor Samuel kept saying that he wanted his penguin pumpkin. It's moments like this that make me realize all over again that we do not live in the US of A.