Chili & Pumpkin Carving

I never have done much for Halloween, to be exact since I was 11 years old.  I had recently met some new friends through going hiking, and wanted to hang out again soon so I decided to have a small get together for Halloween and do dinner and carve pumpkins.  
I had planned it for the Sunday before Halloween, and I was pretty excited to get to cook and have some friends over.  The girls I had met were defintely down for it, and so were the guys.  I invited a couple of my extra friends as well.  I love cooking so that was another thing that I was excited about.

Saturday, my mom and I fixed the chili and went shopping for some appetizers.  We fixed it the day before that way all I would have to do is heat it up the next day.  And the weather outside made it perfect for chili.  I had debated about fixing that or chicken pot pie, which I have never had before in my life!

Pumpkin guts!

I had set everything up for 5:30pm and Cat brought dessert and some wine.  She was the first to show up and we sat and ate and talked.  My friend Jacob stopped by for a little while and shoveled down 2 bowls of chili and then watched me and Cat start on our pumpkins
I texted my friend Zach about coming and he had totally spaced out about it and didn't show up until 9pm, but we still had a good time. 

I had wanted to do something fitness related with my pumpkin so I had googled pictures of people weightlifting and finally decided, with help from Jacob, to do a girl doing a deadlift.  I had accidently mesed up on it punching out the wrong part at first but then figured out how to fix it.  The part that I had carved and punched out was where light was coming through in the picture.  I finally decided that I would be able to do a half circle around her and leave her legs connected and it would work.  

My pumpkin.  Just shows a little bit of what I have a passion for!
Can you tell I love weightlifting/CrossFit.

Cat had already fore warned me that she was artistic but didn't have any skills when it came to carving a pumpkin.  I gave her the stencils that we pull out every year, and she looked through them but decided she wanted to do a wine bottle and glass.  It started out alright but her design wasn't really set for pumpkin carving.  Needless to say she didn't finish her pumpkin carving the original way or finish it at all out of frustration.  

Cat frustration with her pumpkin carving skills!  Either way
it was a fun night.