October 2009 Archives

Welcome back, loyal readers, to this year's Halloween edition of It Happened One Life. This year, we have a bit of a reversal. Usually, MY pumpkin is the most complex and the kids do simpler pumpkins. This year, with how busy we've all been, we literally didn't decide on pumpkin patterns until yesterday, and we carved them today, ON Halloween. The nice part of this was that everything was very fresh when put outside. That's the bonus of Halloween on a Saturday.

Also, this year, the kids did the pumpkins completely on their own, even when they had some trouble. Both of their pumpkins came out very impressive, especially when you consider that the transfer of the patterns to their pumpkins mostly didn't work and they both had to freehand the majority of their pumpkins. They did a great job!

First, my pumpkin, appropriate to the game 3 of the Yankees/Phillies World Series:

Next, Katie's terrific puppy dog:

Finally, Ellen decided to do Edgar Allen Poe, and when we looked at it after she was done, it looked...well, terrible. But, as is the wont of pumpkin carvings, the proof is in the lighting, and I think it came out really well:

All in all, another successful year of pumkining!

Ellen just told me that, for some reason, she brought up Schrödinger's cat in "math enrichment" class today. Her teacher, Miss Corrino, had never heard of it so Ellen, fairly accurately, explained the experiment, and the point of it.

So, my 11 year old is explaining quantum mechanics to her math teacher.

Perfect. She's so done there.

Imagine sitting in a theatre, watching your favorite movie again.

Now, imagine that theatre is Radio City Music Hall, and there are 6000 other people, all HUGE fans of that movie sitting around you, clapping and cheering.

Now imagine further that not only are you getting to watch your favorite movie at this incredible venue, but there's a full live orchestra and chorus performing the entire Oscar-winning soundtrack right there on the stage in front of the film as it's playing.

Further imagine that that movie is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and after the movie, and after the lead vocalist sings "May It Be", the Oscar-winning song done in the film by Anya, that Howard Shore (the composer of the soundtrack), Billy Boyd (Pippin) and Elijah Wood (Frodo) come out to wave to the audience and take a bow, as if the characters were just walking off the screen.

Lastly, but definitely not least, imagine that you get to do all of these wonderful things sitting next to your geeky, wonderful 11 year old daughter who is seeing this movie for the first time ever in this way, next to her dad, and absolutely loving every minute of it.

If you can imagine all that, you have a pretty clear idea of what my evening was like. Magical, wonderful, and full of imagination.

Sometimes, life just gives you lemonaide right off the bat.