Pumpkin Hunting!

It is my FAVORITE season on Monhegan... FALL! Which means we are gearing up for one of my FAVORITE holidays at school... HALLOWEEN!

We went on a very special hunting mission...

Even Millie got to come!

We were hunting for PUMPKINS!

And boy did we find them!! They were in back of the boys' grandmother's house! Kathie (the boys' grandmother) is our island gardner and she had a HUGE pumpkin patch going in front of her house! After she picked all the pumpkins she invited the Monhegan School over to have first dibs on the pumpkins! Are we lucky or what!?

Margaret looked over all the pumpkins very carefully before picking hers out!

Dalton knew which pumpkin he wanted RIGHT away!

Loading the pumpkins into our wheel barrow.

Quinn switched at the last minute... it is just SO hard to choose!

Time to bring the pumpkins back to school to wait to be turned into Jack-o-laterns!

Just look at these pumpkins! They're FANTASTIC!

Trap Day!!!

It is officially lobstering season on Monhegan and we rang in the new season by preparing for Trap Day! As always the kids made gifts for the boat captains to hand out on Trap Day which falls on October 1st!

This year the kids decorated buoy necklaces for each of the captains.

We had to remember what everyone's buoy colors were in order to get the necklaces just right!

Margaret worked extra hard on her Papa's buoy necklace!

The boys also created special buoy tote bags that the captains could use for their lunches or anything else they need to haul back and forth to their boats. Dalton carved the design and printed the bags!

I just LOVE this design!

Margaret and Quinn hand painted each of the bags with the captains' buoy colors.

This was a lot of work!

But the kids took their jobs very seriously.

And got it all done!

Margaret drew a special picture on the back of her Papa's bag! Pretty stinkin' cute.

Bags are ready!

Necklaces are ready!

Just need to make the special 'Trap Day Snack Mix" and we are good to go!

Quinn was my right hand man for making the snack mix since Dalton was off visiting high schools and Margaret was fighting a cold.

First ingredient (and potentially the most important) : M&M's!

We carefully measured out all of the ingredients so no one captain got more M&M's than another.... now THAT would be a catastrophe!

Ingredient #2: Goldfish!!!!

Ingredients # 4, 5, & 6: pretzels, chex cereal, and peanuts!

And last but not least... Swedish Fish! (What Trap Day Mix would be complete without Swedish Fish?!)

Millie was SUPER helpful with clean-up duty!

Looks yummy!

The snack mixes were complete!

We packed our tote bags with the snack mix and buoy necklaces and waited for Trap Day!

Since October 1st fell on a Saturday this year we had to head down to the wharf on our "day off" to deliver our treats... do we get extra credit or what!?

The boys hand delivered each of the tote bags to the captains!

Good thing we passed out snack mix or else the captains would have been left eating bait! YUCK!

Q had his work gloves on ready to help at Trap Day!

Margaret got to finally deliver her bag to her Papa!

Quinn delivering to Captain Smitty.

Big D helping to load traps.

The boys' mom was out fishing! We could not WAIT to give her a tote bag!

There she is! Our favorite fishing mama!

We got to use the crane to deliver her pretty pink buoy bag!

I told Dalton to look upset since it was his last Trap Day on Monhegan (at least for the next four years!) I think his "upset face" is very convincing!

Only a few more bags to handout!

Scaling the trap wall! There were A LOT of traps to maneuver around!

Stuck between the trap walls!

Here he comes.

Only one last bag to deliver!

Quinn waiting at the slip.

Yay! All of the bags were delivered! AND I think the captains LOVED them!!!

Trap Day was a SUCCESS!